2005 Prius - Triangle of Death, (!), and VSC

Hi Everyone, long time lurker, first time poster. Thanks for all the help everyone does on these forums. Here is my situation.

2005 Prius, 162k miles. Bought it from my buddy in December of 2013 with about 156K miles. I live in Massachusetts (even though i'm over the 150k warranty right?). I got it for cheap because my buddy said it needed a new brake actuator and he wasn't prepared to pay for it.

I did some reading on forums, etc. and decided to try the other things first. I can't remember what codes were coming up then, i know the ABS light was on, the (!), and the VSC light and the brake light. I cleared the codes, drove it for 2 weeks thinking I was in the clear and the lights came back. Again, i didn't keep the codes from 6 months ago. I brought it to my mechanic and had him do the following:

• Oil Change
• Replace Serp belt (was cracked)
• New Plugs and wires
• all new brakes (pads and rotors on the front, drums/shoes harware on the rear)
• weld exhaust pipe
• Scan and bleed brakes

Was hoping all of this stuff would be a good alternative to doing the brake actuator first, since he did let the car sit for a while and i was hoping that the unevenness of the rotors, etc. was giving the brake cylinders pressure variations and that was causing the issues.

I was going to replace the 12 volt battery at the time but after I spend $800 on the above work, I drove it and everything appeared to be fine. I drove it for the past 6 months, drove it to Texas and home (put about 4k miles on it in a week) and everything was perfect.

Then last week, I get the Red Triangle, (!) and VSC lights lite up. I tested the 12v battery in the car (using the touch display and maintenance mode) and when I pushed the brake and put load on it, I saw it drop to 10v for a split second then back up to around 12).

I ordered a new 12v battery hope that was the culprit. I put it in on Saturday (Didn't hook up a battery when replacing the old one). Started the car, drove it about 3-4 miles and all 3 lights came back on. Went to my mechanic friend who hooked it up to a super expensive fancy scanning tool and pulled the following codes:

C1310 - Fault in HV System / Fault in ACTV Brake booster solenoid
P3000 - Battery Control System
B1421 - Solar Sensor Circuit (Passenger Side)

Those three codes are where i'm at today. I unhooked the 12v battery for 30 min, and attached it back up. Got those codes immediately. I had replaced the battery with a yellow top optima and after I did the battery replacement, I did the battery test and it was showing 12.5 volts and never went below that. When I turn the car on, the battery shows 14.1v on the display.

So from doing alot of reading, i'm not sure if the problem is with the hybrid battery or the inverter. Driving it around today with the lights, and watching the arrows, the regen braking is still working. I let the car sit in the driveway with AC and radio on while I was in it, and watched the hv battery meter go down to 2 bars (from 4 or 5) then the engine started up, and the lines showed it was being charged from engine but it wasn't really going up. I didn't want to let it get too low, so I drove it down the road, and with some coasting and driving easy, i got it to charge back up to 4 or 5 bars. I still seemed to be getting descent gas mileage..

Any thoughts?

Thanks for help.
Ken

 

But Isn't the combination of C1310 and P3000 point more towards the hybrid battery? And when I got the car the ABS warning light was on as well as the "brake" red light (even though the emergency brake was not on). These lights are not on now, which is why I was thinking it wasn't that. There were other codes but as I said i can't remember what they were.

Also from driving the car, it seems to me when I let the car sit, it seems like the gas engine doesn't really charge the battery that great while sitting still.. ?

Oh I did order a mini vci so we'll see what it says when I get it tomorrow (hopefully).

Also the reason he told me was that a dealership told him that and told him it would be $3k for the repair. Now as I said, there were 4 other reasons why that code showed up and I chose to fix all of the other ones except the brake actuator and problem seemed to go away for 6 months and 5k miles. I figure the dealer told him it was the brake actuator to try and make the money...

 

Ok so that is normal behavior? If I put the car in ready, and turn on my a/c, radio, lights, etc. and just sit there watching meter, the car will go down to 2 bars, the gas engine should turn on and keep the battery at 2 bars? Should it not raise the battery level up to 4-5 bars while sitting still?

 

Thanks for the info guys, guess i'll plan on trying to do the repair myself. I have a friend who is an old school mechanic, doesn't specialize in hybrids, etc. but can work on them. If I get a 2 day subscription to Techinfo.toyota.com, Will there just be 1 repair manual for the entire car? or will there be multiple repair manuals for different aspects of the car?

I was a little nervous thinking about doing that repair, as i've heard you have to take alot of the car apart, take inverter out, etc. I know all the high voltage wires are orange, can someone who is a mechanic but not a hybrid expert be able to do this repair without electrocuting himself or others?

 

Thanks everyone, so stupid me, and actually reading this site to see what the (!) warning light actually meant, this morning I got up, checked the tire pressures and found one at about 24 lbs. Blew it up at my garage to 34 (others were between 32.5 and 34) and the VSC and the (!) didn't turn on or come back. So now just have the red triangle. Do you guys think this could still be the Brake Actuator? Or would that throw some other warning lights? (ABS, etc.) ? I did get my mini vci, working on an XP 32 bit virtual machine on my 64 bit laptop now, so hopefully tomorrow or friday i can see what codes are there now.

 

So I woke up this morning with just the Red Triangle lit up, I had to drive 75 miles to work, did the drive, reset mpg and averaged over 46 mpg for the ride (good for me). I took the car 10 miles to lunch and back to office. The whole time the Red triangle was still lit. I got back in the car couple hours later and the red triangle was off. I drove home the 75 miles (still averaged over 46 mpg) and the lite is still off. I hooked up mini-vci and read the same codes that I posted above. I saved everything so I have the codes (it was actually only the P3000 and solar sensor code). I then cleared all codes, and will drive around for couple days/week to see if any other codes/lights show up.

Thanks for the help everyone! Will keep everyone posted!

 

cool i'll give it a shot!