Oh crap I have the red triangle with exclamation point!

Someone who isn't good at checking the oil, probably doesn't want to dive into the whole Mini VCI thing. The dealer suggestion is a good one.

Again, if there is anyone the OP knows who is capable of safely checking the 12v, that would be my first step. Infrequently driven and then not far, sounds like a perfect set-up for a low battery....of course, I have been known to be wrong several thousand times before.

 

And, I could be way wrong....but the Prius is a fickle master. Some days it works like a Clydesdale. Other days it feels like a lazy saddle horse on a spring day in a field full of wildflowers....but seriously, a low 12v can cause a variety of varying and perplexing symptoms.

But, if you are not capable of checking it, then this whole thing is sort of just an academic exercise.

 

That's why I also suggested the dealer, but I'm totally guilty of suggesting owning a usable scanner to anyone who wants to own a Prius. It is so much nicer to see a light come on and know right away what it's about, than to have to make multiple visits to a dealer (especially to be told to come back for the "Prius tech" because nobody else in the building knows how to plug the scanner into the car and write the codes down?!).

I wouldn't worry one way or the other about the Sears oil change. It doesn't seem as if oil is much to do with the current issue. If there's already an appointment at Sears, I don't think there'd be any problem driving across the street and keeping it. If it's not already on the appointment books, maybe it's just one thing you don't need to think about until after knowing what the current problem is.

-Chap

 

A number of auto parts stores -- such as Auto Zone in my area -- will hook up their handy dandy little code reader and be able to tell you if the car has stored any trouble codes.

As I understand it, the generic code reader is not as "swift" as what TOYOTA uses, and it may not catch some things, but it might give you an idea. And it is free -- they want you to buy parts from them.

So, if you want to try the cheap route first, that is what I would suggest. Otherwise, off to Toyota, where if they can't find a code and can't duplicate, they won't be much help.

 

if there are any codes, they will be there even if the light is off.

 

all the best.

 

Liked this reply if only for the usage of this phrase:

To the OP?

The triangle and the exclamation point icons are warning lights. Could be lit up for various reasons. If you aren't a mechanical or technical "car person" I wouldn't really waste time trying to hunt down specific reason. Those icons are designed to give heads up to potential problems. Just get thee to a dealership and brace for the financial storm. Hopefully it will be something minor.

 

I know I've probably got a minority opinion on this one, but I'm in the school that figures even a person who self-identifies as non-mechanical/non-technical could be encouraged to pick up one or two new tricks, and for a Prius owner one of those really valuable tricks is just knowing that the car has diagnostic trouble codes for the purpose of helping you know what's wrong. The lights on the dash don't tell you that information, they only tell you that there is that information being held for you in the car's computers waiting to be read.

Then it's worth knowing that you can post those codes here on PriusChat and suddenly more people will be much more able to help you, because until we have codes a lot of problems look sort of alike and there's not much to go on.

One obvious way to get the codes, where you don't have to be at all technical yourself, is to go to the dealer and say "please tell me what codes are stored." Appallingly, I've seen more than one recent post where the dealer let someone bring their Prius in, hooked up a generic scanner to it that can't read all Prius codes (this was at the dealer!!), then said "oh! well, you should come back for a longer appointment Monday so we can use the real scanner we were supposed to use!" So I guess you have to be firm when setting up the first visit that you would like that to happen without repeat visits, thankyouverymuch.

Another option is to have your own little scanner a lot of people on here have, seems to be less than $30 if you have your own laptop ... so, less than the cost of one trip to a dealer to (maybe) have them read it. To use it (at least for the basic job of reading codes) you don't really have to be car-technical. You do have to be enough computer-technical to at least load it on your laptop. But once you've done that, it puts you in a whole easier world where whenever you have weird lights on your car, you can read out the trouble codes right away at your own convenience, and post them here and people can help you. Then you're also sort of less at the mercy of a dealer service writer thinking "jackpot! non-technical service customer!" because you can have some PriusChat backup following along.

One thing that's really not very helpful is going somewhere like an Auto Zone to have codes read, because there can be a lot of things the car's computers want to tell you about that won't even show up on the generic scanner a place like that will use, and when a place like that tells you "oh, we checked, you have no codes" it means absolutely nothing except you didn't have any of the codes their generic thing could see, and you end up going away not helped and maybe even more puzzled.

So, whether you do it yourself or have the Toyota dealer do it, it's really most helpful to get the codes really read by a scanner that can read them all in a Prius ... any kind that can't is more of a waste of time.

I take a bit of a risk with a post like this because some non-technical people will read it and feel sort of invited and encouraged, and other non-technical people will read it and just feel intimidated and driven off, and it's not always easy for me to tell which ones are which, but I hope it came off the first way.

Cheers,
-Chap

 

The ideal victim, unscrupulous repair shops and dealerships love!

Check the oil:

If you ever see this,

PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY and Turn the car off! This light means LOW/NO, OIL PRESSURE! It is also possible that the oil pressure switch may have gone bad, reporting a false positive of low/no oil pressure. Hopefully you are aware that driving a car with low/no oil pressure guarantees extensive and permanent damage, and premature death of the engine. If the oil level is correct, between the two dimple marks, then it may be a failed oil pump. Have the vehicle towed for inspection and repair.

You really need to get into the habit of checking the oil level on a regular basis. More frequently is best; after every gas fill-up, once a week, every other week, once a month. Why? So you know how much oil your car is consuming. All cars consume oil, esp as the odometer climbs up in mileage. If you check regularly, and the next check shows an extreme swing, you have cause for great concern and possibly caught it early.

Check the oil, when the car is on ideally a flat level surface. Why? To get an accurate reading. If the surface is on a steep incline/decline, you can get a false hi or low oil level reading from the dipstick. Also check the oil level, when the engine has been off for sometime; longer is better. Why? To allow oil to work its way back into the oil pan, giving you a more accurate reading. Ideally, you want to keep the oil level as close to the top dimple mark.

For the love of "whatever," please go through the owners manual, so you know a little bit more about your car. Also, go through the warranty book. There was a sad case, not to long ago, where an owner had a HV Battery pack, still under warranty, replaced with a rebuilt HV Battery from Doorman!
Toyota Prius Battery | PriusChat

Knowledge is power. Ignorance is expensive.

 

I have nothing against anyone gaining knowledge or attempting to learn as much as possible.

But I got the feeling the OP wasn't too inclined to do a whole lot of self repair work.

Which is why I felt the easiest, surest path to resolution probably goes through a dealership service department.

 

Tales such as this make me wish that all trouble codes could just be displayed on the MFD. Think about it. Why not? The car already knows the codes. Why do we have to jump through so many hoops to get the codes? I'll stop now before I start ranting about "Right To Repair Laws".

Brad