odd power steering alarm, spare tire question

first time poster here. I found the forum from the Prius community on LiveJournal.

I have a 2002 Prius, just over three years old. He has 82k+ on him.

I drove from my apartment in LA to a friends' in Tulare (between Bakersfield and Fresno on I-5). If you're not familiar with the route, it includes about an hour's worth of driving through a summit that goes up to 4100 feet.

Right as I got to Grapevine (the very end of the mountain pass), I get a flat tire. I believe it's simply because the tires were old and hadn't been rotated in a long time (if ever, oops). Steered the car to the side of the road, and after a little drama, the tire got changed. I turned on my hazards and set my cruise control at just under 50mph for the rest of the drive.

After slightly more drama, I was nearing my exit when I got an error on both the instrument panel and the LCD screen. The instrument panel showed the exclamation point inside the triangle, and my LCD screen showed a screen I hadn't ever seen before, with three symbols in the middle. The first rectangle was red, and PS was written in it. Two others were not lit. "Problem" showed on the screen (and below it, in french...). After a brief panic, the screen changed to "Problem fixed" ...for a few seconds, before changing again to "Problem"

"PS?" I thought to myself, before realizing it probably stood for power steering, and I was right.

Oddly enough, when I did arrive at my friends' (at 11:15), I put the car into park and turned it off... turned it back onto the Accessory position, and it seemed fine (other than the spare tire).


Does anyone know what could have happened?

Also, I've driven over 200 miles (maybe towards 300, I have had one flat before) on this spare. How long are they supposed to last?

Thanks!

- - Lisa