ACK! Triangle of Doom just appeared.

[bluegoose]

I love my 04 Prius with 19,031 tropical miles on it! ... LOVE IT! I am nice to it... I keep it (sort of) clean... I drive it gently ... feed it moderate octane as needed... keep the oil clean... tires inflated... etc. I brag on the 53 mpg the Prius gets, within earshot (bumper shot?) of the car. I even park and drive the thing in HAWAII! So, you know, the car really has no reason to behave badly. But it is. On Saturday the following 3 idiot lights illuminated:
Red Triangle of exclamation, or Doom (or "Death" ?),
Yellow Engine Check Light,
Amber auto light.
I find the amber auto light mildly amusing, since it appear to indicate my car is about to be cut in half, or possible picked up by aliens (thus explaining the need for the word "ready" appearing on the dash, "ready to be beamed-up to the Mother Ship, Scotty!"). Unfortunately, directions from my owners manual say this light means "take the car to the dealer IMMEDIATELY!" Um, well... the dealer is 60 miles drive along a two lane, winding, no shoulder, often out of cell phone range, sort of journey. I don't mind the drive as long as the car works! But I really don't want to get stuck with a dead car along the way.

Any ideas as to what is going on? Is it safe to drive to the dealer? Or should I figure out a way to have the thing towed? Or????

A few more details:
I drove the car about 30 miles, parked it for several hours, then started it up... and saw all the 3 lights. I drove the car 20 miles home, and it seemed to run fine, but the battery bars did not seem to change. I drove from sea level to 2000 ft elevation, and usually the battery drains down to 3 or 4 bars (at least I think this is so... I really don't pay all that much attention to the displays anymore).

The car is with-in the recall vin numbers for the computer "flash" (I think that is what it's called?), but I have not done this yet. I was waiting until the 20K oil and service... figuring this problem was affecting so few Prius's that I could safely wait another two months or so! Maybe not???

Any ideas, insights, suggestions as to what might be going on?

Mahalo

[Bill Merchant]

Aloha, BlueGoose. The first thing to do is check that the gas cap is tight. You can get all kinds of erroneous warning lights if the cap is lose.

If you drove it 20 miles after the lights came on, you can probably drive it 60 to the dealer. Check all the fluids (oil and coolants) before you set out. If anything seems odd, don't drive it. Do you have roadside assistance there in HI? Call the dealer and see what they say, the car is still under warranty, so it's sort of their problem too.

[craigcush]

"I drove the car 20 miles home, and it seemed to run fine, "

My first thought is that is a LOOONG drive for warning lights that, explained in the manual say stop. Maybe pull over and call the service dept.

I have a few thoughts but first... can you still reproduce this?

I had this happen twice. First was a bad fuel tank calibration and ran out of gas.
Second time was my coat was caught in the door and my prius did not want to go down the road without me. Scary until I figured it out, too many lights to see the door light at first! Then it was a good laugh.

Hope it was transient and you didn't cause damage by driving too far!

[Frank Hudon]

I'd call Toyota Road Side Assistance and get the "official opinion" Witht the triangle of death I'm sure they don't want you to drive it 60 miles. RA was just for this sort of thing. That's where I'd start.

[bluegoose]

[quote]
[font=Optima][size=5]Aloha, BlueGoose. The first thing to do is check that the gas cap is tight. You can get all kinds of erroneous warning lights if the cap is lose.

Thanks for responding.
Since I was not the one to put gas into the car on the last fill-up, the gas cap thing sounded probable. But the cap seemed tight. Just to be sure, I removed it and put it back on... extra extra tight, then turned the car on. The same three idiot lights came on, as well as the "ready" light (seems odd, yes?). I drove down the block, but didn't go very far. I took off with three green bars on the energy monitor display, but after only a few hundred yards of level ground driving, I was down to two redish bars. I don't recall this happening in the past. But like I said, beyond noting when the display sez 99.9 mpg (which gives me great joy), I have not paid too much attention to the display. Is getting into the red zone with two bars common?

In closely reading my owners manual (page 127) I see the amber car shaped light with the exclamtion (or is that a line?) down the middle is not a call to the mother ship for beaming up. Nor is it an indication of a car about to break into two equal parts. Rather, it is the "Hybrid System Warning Light"... and indication of a problem in the electric motor, inverter unit, or the battery.

Sigh.....
I'll definitely phone the dealer in the morning.

Again... Mahalo

[galaxee]

let us know how it turns out. could be something really simple they can fix right away, but it also could be something weird and complex to diagnose like some kind of short in the wiring or something. a good diagnostic tech should be able to take good care of ya.

best of luck

[TonyPSchaefer]

On a lark, how many times have you stopped/started the car since the initial occurance? Many of us experienced warning lights in the past and it turned out that when weird things happen (that is, lights will no real reason) cycling off/on three or four times cleared out the system and everything was back to normal.

Like you, I have an '04. When I got strange lights accompanied by beeps and all sorts of strange things, I cycled the power a few times and everything went back to normal.

I'm no tech and I'm making promises. But maybe your should try cycling the power - slowly - a few times. If it doesn't clean out the system, maybe I'll have to come out to HI to check it out in person.

[bluegoose]

I did the power on power off thing a few times over the course of an hour. Crossed fingers, legs, toes....hoping this might, possibly, be some sort of computer sneeze attack brought on by all the lightening we had the day this glitch popped up.

Alas... the artful combination of red/yellow/amber lights is still there.

Phoned the dealer this AM and spoke to the Prius tech guy. Obviously, over the phone he couldn't tell me too much beyond "call the tow company, get the car down here, and we will get right on it ... and the warranty does cover towing".
Whew!

I really want to be there when they diagnosis this thing, (comes from growing up with a father who used to rebuild engines on the dining room table), but can't pry myself away from prior obligations until Thursday... so, Thursday it shall be.

I will post the diagnosis and remedy, etc.

... and if they can't fix it, bids for a stay in the Hawaii guest room will be considered from Prius repair wizards (is that a job description?)!


Aloha
Bluegoose

[Frank Hudon]

be sure to get them to write the codes down on the work order so you can post them here. These are the codes the tech will download with the hand held tester. If you post them here you'll get a reply to the problem and if their diagnosis is correct.

[MickeyM]

Originally posted by bluegoose@Jan 24 2006, 02:19 AM
I love my 04 Prius with 19,031 tropical miles on it! ... LOVE IT! I am nice to it... I keep it (sort of) clean... I drive it gently ... feed it moderate octane as needed... keep the oil clean... tires inflated... etc. I brag on the 53 mpg the Prius gets, within earshot (bumper shot?) of the car. I even park and drive the thing in HAWAII! So, you know, the car really has no reason to behave badly. But it is. On Saturday the following 3 idiot lights illuminated:
  Red Triangle of exclamation, or Doom (or "Death" ?),
  Yellow Engine Check Light,
  Amber auto light.

[snapback]196068[/snapback]

That sounds like the Hybrid System Warning Indicator. My '03 Prius did that about a month ago. The manual said to stop driving it and call the dealer immediately. I called the dealer, they said it was OK to drive it the 10 mi trip to the dealer. I said "ARE YOU SURE???" and the service manager assured me it was okay.

Despite the warning, the car sounded and behaved perfectly normal. At the dealer I shut the car off, then out of curiosity I turned it back on. No more warning light. The MFD looked normal. I thought "great - now they'll tell me there's nothing wrong with it." But that evening they called and said the computer had to be replaced. Which they did under warranty, and it hasn't happened again.