Yellow parking brake warning light on

Recheck your manual. In my 2006 the warning light for the parking brake being applied is a RED light that says "brake" at the upper left side of the dash. I expect the yellow light is a different indicator for some other malfunction. There are a couple of pages showing all the various warning lights in the manual. Yours is probably an anti-lock brake system malfunction light. Is there any additional warnings showing in the MFD?

- Tom

 

i haven't seen the lights in the 06 and i've never seen that yellow light come on in my own car... can you describe the shape of the icon?

if it says take it to the dealer, that's what you should do. might be any component of the brake system, abs, vsc, anything else that's got any influence on stopping the car.

 

If I recall correctly, the yellow brake warning (circle with exclamation marks inside, with brake pad "brackets" left and right) indicates a failure of the regenerative braking. Although what exactly that covers, I don't know. You should be getting normal mechanical braking instead, until the red light comes on, at least.

It needs to go to the dealer, but it should be fine to drive it there.

As for all the people talking about "BRAKE" - it seems possible the the original poster is from outside the US, where the brake failure/parking brake light is a red icon as described above.

As I understand it, in the US some of the ISO standard international warning icons use text like BRAKE instead, presumably on the grounds that Americans can't figure the pictures out and/or won't look them up in the manual.

 

Page 117 in my manual describes how to use the wiper controls. I am guessing the poster who thought you were not in the USA is correct? You can set your location in your user profile so other chat users know where you are from.

In my 2006's manual, on page 125 it shows the USA and non-US indicators as "BRAKE" or a circle with an exclamation point and curved lines on either side. Under it it says "red indicator and buzzer". My indicator is indeed red, I have never heard a buzzer, but I have never tried to drive off with the parking brake on.

The "Do this" part of my manual says: "If parking brake is off, stop immediately and contact Toyota dealer". Below that, it just shows the circle icon and notes "yellow indicator" with the "Take vehicle to the Toyota Dealer", same as you're saying. On page 127, it says yellow means "regenerative brake system is fails..." (sic) and then says red or yellow could mean "when the hydraulic brake system fails..." followed with the instructions again to not drive if the light is red.

So it looks like my manual gives about the same advice. Your regenerative system may be out, or there may be a non deadly problem in the hydraulic system. In any case, it sounds like it a trip to the dealer is in your future but at least you can drive it there.

Let us know what it turns out to be.

- Tom

 

you're describing the master indicator light. what does the yellow light icon look like? is it the same as KMO described?

there is definitely a problem that you need to have looked at here.

 

If the master warning light is on, shouldn't there be more information in the MFD?

- Tom

 

not always.

 

Hey Bill, no problem. Glad it turned out simple. The tire warning light does look a bit like the brake warning light. It's sort of a rounded U shaped tire cross section, yellow, with an excamation point. It doesn't have the cuved lines (parenthesis sort of) on either side like the brake one. The yellow brake warning and tire deflation light are both on the right of the dash. Put the car in IGN-ON mode and you can see them all light up for a few seconds. The more serious red "BRAKE" warning is on the left side.

That's always been my complaint about icons without any words. When you have to squeeze a lot of them into a small area a lot of them start looking alike. I wish that Toyota would use the central display in more cases for additional info that is in the local language. You'd get an icon on the dash and the MFD display would tell you what it was in english, french, spanish, whatever. My Audi had one that looked very important - a volcano going off - with a very loud chime sounding. It was the low windshield washer fluid signal. Scared the hell out of you when it would go off on an expressway ramp curve.

It is also interesting that my manual seems to have a few more pages than yours. I've got the 2006 with NAV, and my manual seems to be written for all models down to the no-package version.

- Tom

 

billbobflowchart

Welcome to PriusChat; glad the members were able to help.

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