Scary thing happened today...

[jamarimutt]

This morning, at a stop light, my 2004 Prius made a loud beep and the red triangle came on, along with a yellow icon indicating a brake malfunction. The most scary thing, however, was that the ICE, could not deliver power to the wheels. It turned on and off, but only to charge the battery, so the car could only accelerate very slowly. Essentially, it behaved as it were running in reverse.

I drove like this until reaching my father's house, a couple of miles away. No sign of rotor damage or the slightest smell of overheated brakes, the car braked normally. I turned the car off, back on, and the problem instantly dissappeared, except for the red triangle. I drove the car home (20 miles), turned it off, back on, and now the triangle is off, the car behaving as if nothing had happened.

Has someone encountered this curious and rather scary problem?

[TonyPSchaefer]

Hmm. I can't think of anything off-hand. Initially, I want to suggest that you shut down and restart the traditional thre times to see if the car "resets." I know that I had a couple scary "incident" in the past with my '04 but after "resetting" now he's perfect again.

[Tideland Prius]

Ask the dealer to plug in the OBDII scanner and retrieve the codes. If there's anything wrong, it'll show up.

[tomdeimos]

I had the brake warning lights on once. But the engine powered the car normally. I stopped and re-started the ignition and the problem went away and has never happened again. This happened about 10000 miles ago.

[efusco]

Have you had the SSC 50P service done? This sounds just like the stall problem that promped that campaign. What you describe is the "limp home mode".

The SSC-50P is/was supposed to address and prevent that.

[daniel]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ May 14 2006, 01:09 PM) [snapback]255324[/snapback]</div>

Ask the dealer to plug in the OBDII scanner and retrieve the codes. If there's anything wrong, it'll show up.
[/b]

There was some discussion a couple of years back that (depending on the individual dealer) they could charge you if you asked them to look for codes and they found none.

What I would suggest instead is that you don't tell the dealer what to do: Instead, take it to the dealer, tell them what happened, and ask them to see if there's anything wrong. They'll check the codes, without your having requested any particular service. While the car is in warranty, they should perform any needed checks any time you tell them that you saw the red triangle and found yourself in limp-home mode.

There have been sporadic reports of the red triangle and the limp-home mode coming on for no apparent reason, and then after a restart or three everything is fine. Could be a bug in the software. After the needed re-boot the system is back to normal.