SSC-50P letter &now have check engine light

With only the light, it's hard to know. I'd err on the side of safety. Make sure your fuel filler cap is tight as that can trigger the light.

 

well, you have 2 things to consider. your convenience and that of the guy fixing your car. (you'll see in a second where this is going) you can go ahead and drive for the weekend and bring it in on monday. check engine light isn't immediately urgent. the bad thing here though, is that you'll clear all the codes after a few restarts and that may hamper service on the car.

my husband has a car now that has had intermittent cel showing up, but all codes were cleared from memory after a number of restarts. he said he'd keep it and dog on it till it was fixed right. he's put 80 miles on it waiting and waiting for that stupid light to show back up and hasn't seen it yet.

just a bit of warning. most places and most techs aren't quite that dedicated and will simply return the car saying "could not replicate problem" and you'll waste more of your time bringing the car back when it happens again.

so it does kind of help to help out the guy who's going to be working on it by not clearing codes. however, if it's important that you have the car for the weekend, drive on and worry about the rest later.

 

Just starting it up 3 times will not turn off the light,Evan. Certain systems need to go thru a specified drive cycle to monitor that system. For the Evap system ( gas cap is involved here ) the coolant and intake air temp must be within 13 degrees F. This also means to start the monitor,the vehicle needs to go thru a cold soak between tests. With Evap codes,it is very hard to recheck at the dealer unless the vehicle is left at least over night. And sometimes you need a couple of nights to be sure. This is where knowledge/experience takes over to say for sure the problem is cured, . And I know there are those that would want to just drive in,"fix my car" and be on thier way. Sometimes those are the hardest to be sure are fixed right the first time, .

 

Rick, I have the ScanGage and allegedly I can read the codes. I have never tried it as I mainly use it as a driving aid monitoring coolant temp, RPM, load and gph. Would it be at all useful to read and write down the codes if I have a problem and find myself in a situation similar to this?

 

Howdy rewinder

How about an update post when you have the SSC 50P completed. I just got my letter and plan to have the brake light switch done at the same time. There was a post on the SSC 50P last week which reported a problem which seemed to be the result of a dealer error in the programming. Another recent post on the ECM update indicated improved fuel economy.

 

Just this morning I had the red triangle and the check engine light on the dash of my 04. I was just driving by a Toyota dealership so I broght it in for service. It didn't stall or anything. The lights just came on when I was about to start at the intersection. My ScanGauge was showing P3197 if I remember correctly. I'll check the service manual if there is any description. I took the ScanGauge out to avoid any unessasary speculation but I didn't have time to remove my EV button mod.

Tosh
Salsa 04 + EVb + ScanGauge

 

Just got a call from the dealership saying the triangle and the CHL were indeed related to the SSC. When I get the car back, I'll re-check the DTC code which is supposed to be stored in the flash memory in the ScanGauge. I looked into the service manual but all I found about P319x codes are:
P3190: engine output malfunction
P3191: engine cannot start
P3193: low power (out ot gas)
These code are in the Japanese service manual so they may not be the same as US version. (I dont' have access to it now.)

Tosh
Salsa 04 + EVb + ScanGauge (19700 miles, 44.3 mpg)

 

Got my car back from the dealership. Unfortunately, they cleared the code (of course they did) and the ScanGause did not save it in the flash. The paperwork says "POP3191, POAOF, C2311" was reported from the hand tester (somebody can decode the rest?). I may have misread it but it does not match the description in the service manual "P3191: engine cannot start" because I was able to drive the car normally. Still a mystery.

As for the reprogramming, I have yet to feel any difference. According to some Japanese sites, the new ECU uses the HV battery "more aggressively". This should give slightly better MPG to ordinary drivers. All the Japanese Prius MPG wizzards are now trying to adapt their techniques to the new software.

Tosh
Salsa 04 + EVb + ScanGauge (19700 miles, 44.3 mpg)

 

Sorry I don't check in as much as I used to,but here are some answers.
The code p3197,I can't find at all. I think it probably was a P3191.
As for the " Engine didn't start" code,the ECU's look to see if the gas engine starts in "X" seconds( 5-7 seconds I believe). Even if the engine does start in 10 seconds,the ECU's will still kick on the Malfunction light because it didn't start in the time it was supposed to.
And as for the programming error with SSC 50P recalls, there maybe a glitch in the software update for the Diagnostic Tester. We techs are to use the previous version of software to reflash and only upate to the most resent version for 2006 Prius and Rav4 only.Toyota is still checking into that concern. .