Priapus Died in the Parking Lot

[TonyPSchaefer]

Someone came up to my desk and said that my car was beeping like no one's business. I went out and it sounded as though the security thing was going off, only there were two tones. One seemed higher than the other. Using the fob, I turned it off.

I figured, I would check things out and climbed inside. Hit power. Seemed normal... until:[list]I had to hold the "Power" button to shut it off. Simply punching it didn't work. Once powered down, the transmission blocks flashed a couple times and then went off. Once off, the Parking light flashed green.

I repeated this process a couple times with the exact same results.

I'm going to call the Prius hotline and see what they say.

The only thing I can think of (which I'm not going ot mention to them) is that I could have somehow left it "on" and the engine kept recharging the battery until it ran out of gas. I've seen a few posts about this type of thing.

Thoughts, anyone? Right now, my heart's somewhere just South of my stomach.

[TonyPSchaefer]

UPDATE:
Went out to call Prius Support from the car. Got in, punched power, said a little prayer to Priapus, our patron saint, and everything came to life.

But when the MFD came on it had this message:
[b][Caution]
The transmission [P] lock mechanism is abnormal. Park your car at a flat place, and apply the parking brake completely

The only warning light was the big Triangle Exclamation Mark. My fuel level was at four, not three. The [P] light was flashing green. All else was normal.

Here's what I did, in order:


[list]
Situation Normal? I don't know.

I'm going to call my Toyota dealer and ask if they can pull the codes. Also going to ask if they are going to charge me in the event that they don't find anything.

[jimofdg]

I think you are justified in pushing for some analysis at no charge regardless of outcome. You had some serious warning messages and the immediate repeat performances were unsettling at best (show the service department your post). Both they and you (and I) are learning about this car. Remember, they probably don't have one of their own.

Good for you for trying again. I can't count how many computer system problems have been solved by just trying it again.

__________________
"I love teachers! They make you keep doing it until you get it right!"
-Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School"

[richard schumacher]

The next time you have it serviced at a dealer have them read the computer's trouble codes; that might tell you what you did wrong :_> It kinda sounds like you left it ON and without the parking brake set hard enough.

Very important to press our beloved's buttons firmly and deliberately, and hold them until you get the expected response. Stabbing at them can lead to grief.

[jchu]

I think that would depend on when Tony gets his service done. I seem to remember from other posts that the computer clears the code(s) after something like a hundred successful restarts. John1701a, et. al. correct me if I am wrong.

[daniel]

Tony. Don't ask them specifically to "pull the codes." If they find nothing they could assert that you requested specific action and charge for that.

Instead, tell them what the car did, and ask them what's wrong. They'll pull the codes on their own. Then you can ask them if they found any codes.

There have been numerous similar experiences reported. All go something like this: I was driving, or I got in the car, and suddenly warning lights came on. I did thus-and-such, and eventually all the lights went off and all was well, and the car worked fine. Sometimes the story includes, I took it to the dealer and they could find nothing wrong.

Toyota knows that this happens, and they cannot charge you for trying to diagnose an incident of bogus warning lights.

Good luck. I hope this was just another bogus warning. But it's sure worth a trip to the dealer to be checked out.

A friend of mine had this happen in her 2002 Prius. She was on the road far from home. She was stuck for a whole weekend in an unfamiliar city as her car was towed to a dealer. The dealer found nothing wrong, the car resumed working fine, and has been fine ever since.

We are pioneers. Such things happen. Imagine if you'd been a different kind of pioneer 150 years ago, and the wheel fell off your covered wagon in the middle of Oklahoma!

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds like a computer glitch to me...it is possible if you have SS/SE to leave the car on i guess... i dont have that problem so i cant leave the car on no matter what.

if you see no problems for next few days, i would say forget about it. i doubt that the dealership could tell you what happened any more than Microsoft support could tell you why your computer booted up funny that one time.

[TonyPSchaefer]

I can confirm a hard reset. When I backed out of the parking spot, I heard an old familar sound: the Reverse beeper. I turned that off on the first night. Checked my Average MPG and Miles: Reset. Both trip odometers: reset. Radio Stations: still programmed.

But this got me thinking about jchu's post. Is it possible that one reason there are sometimes no codes is that the hard reset erased them? If the codes are overwritten on a regular basis, that seems (to me, anyway) to indicate that they are stored in a temporary medium, not something permenant enough to survive a hard reset.

I was wondering if those times when people are able to have codes pulled, they can confirm that their system was reset or not.

The drive was great as usual. 54.7 MPG from work to home. I usually track whole tanks.

BTW, I did call Toyota Maintenance and talked to a guy who offered to pull the codes. But he gave the disclaimer that if they don't find anything, I will be responsible for the labor charge. $40.

[hdrygas]

OK I will put the parking brake on... always! My partner called me to cover for him several weeks ago. His wife was in Ellensburg had parked on a hill in the down hill direction and put it in park but did not put on the parking brake first! When she got back to the car she could not move it. She had to get a tow truck to pull it back a few inches to take the strain off the transmission. Then after putting on the parking brake she could start the car and put it in gear. It was a Jag. You would think that a engineer could design a better transmission than that, but the person at the Jag dealer told they exactly what they needed to do. It is a known defect with the car. Known to everyone but the owner.

[Wolfman]

Getting stuck in park is not necessarily a desgn flaw. In the vast majority of automatic trannies, the park function pushes a metal rod into a hole somewhere inside the tranny (I haven't seen one apart to know where). Since it is a mechanical function, too much pressure (from parking on a steep hill without the brake), can cause it to bind into place. While some cars may be more prone to it than others, it can happen to any automatic transmission equipped vehicle. The same possibility is conceivable with the prius, despite being electronically engaged.