Hi Guys, I recently picked up a 2008 Prius here in Australia and have started looking into why the Check Engine light is on. When I put the car into service mode, the Audio H/U section is flagged. Upon looking at the logs, I see the code 62-42 showing up, which points to a problem with the Radio/CD-Player (both of which work flawlessly). The trouble code sheet says: "Disc Cannot be read(change disc, clean disc, try another)", but I listen to CDs in it all the time and there aren't any problems. Any idea what else might cause this particular message to come up? Thanks!
You might have other codes that require a hybrid compatible OBD2 scanner. See if you can borrow a scanner and pull all of the stored codes, then post them here.
One of my workmates has one that I can borrow. He's supposed to bring it in to work tomorrow, so I'll try to get the codes from it and will post them here afterwards. Thanks!
That screen is not going to be of any use trying to diagnose a MIL (malfunction information light aka CEL). As advised above, connect a suitable scanner to the OBD-II port and see what codes you can retrieve. As far as the LAN error screen goes, are they even real? There are no date/time stamps, just try using the RESET button for now and see if any codes reset there. But in reality, if everything’s working ok on the H/U, why worry about it?
I ran the ODB-II scanner on the car today and came back with a P0420 message, which says Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold (Bank 1), which points to the O2 sensor behind the catalytic converter. It is the only error that came up, so I've cleared the code to see if the problem comes back, or if it was a one-off (the car has 420,600km on it). That in mind, I'm guessing the most likely culprit is the catalytic converter or the O2 sensor. I've read in other posts of people using spark plug anti-foulers to keep the fault from registering, but I'd like to fix it properly. Is there a good way to test the O2 sensor vs. just replacing parts in the hopes that I can fix it? Suggestions welcome. Thanks guys.
How is your km/l ? Does the vehicle burn much oil between changes ? Here is the workup for P0420 : https://share.qclt.com/%E4%B8%B0%E7%94%B0%E6%99%AE%E7%91%9E%E6%96%AF%E5%8E%9F%E5%8E%82%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8Cpdf%E6%A0%BC%E5%BC%8F/repair%20manual/04pruisr/05/2054m/cip0420.pdf Do you know the vehicles prior maintenance history, or when the spark plugs or fuel injectors were inspected/changed ? Here is the workup for testing the heated A/F sensor (P2195/P2196) : https://share.qclt.com/%E4%B8%B0%E7%94%B0%E6%99%AE%E7%91%9E%E6%96%AF%E5%8E%9F%E5%8E%82%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8Cpdf%E6%A0%BC%E5%BC%8F/repair%20manual/04pruisr/05/2054m/cip2195.pdf If you purchase a "mini-vci cable" (or better), then you could use techstream to diagnose/troubleshoot.
It's actually really good. My average is 4.9-5.1L/100km. It was doing really well until the high winds came in from the cyclones, so for a few days, it was like driving into a wall, which jumped my rating. It doesn't smoke, and so far, I haven't noticed it using or leaking any oil. The oil that is in it is pretty clean, but I'll end up doing a service on it before the middle of next month. So far, I've driven 633km on half a tank of fuel. There are no maintenance records that came with the car, but it was a Taxi until a few months ago. The batteries typically stay in the green or just into the blue, and I've even managed 5km in EV mode (going downhill from work). Most of what the car needs is cosmetics; mechanically, it doesn't seem to be in too bad of shape. I've been doing work on it, but you can see from the pictures below that it's starting to look more like a work in progress and less like a beat-up taxi.
The documents that SFO posted may be helpful. After resetting the code yesterday, it drove home fine and the light stayed off. This morning on my way into work, the light came on when I had to do some heavy acceleration into traffic, where the car went above 120kph to merge with traffic on the freeway. When I got to work, I ran the code scanner again and the same P0420 code came up, which makes me think the catalytic converter may be the cause. I will, however, look into the test suggested in the documents that SFO posted and see if there might be something other than that causing the fault code to trigger. Thanks everyone!
