2004 won't accelerate and shuts down after 1 hour and high speed (60-80)

Nanette, welcome to the forum. You do not mention any temperatures but I suspect the inverter coolant pump has failed. Everything works fine until the inverter gets too hot then shuts down. There goes your power. When the inverter is cool enough it'll start working again. Play this game too long and instead of replacing a pump you'll be replacing an inverter and a pump.

When you have the car in 'ready" pop the hood and look at the inverter coolant. If the pump is running there will be turbulence.

If there is no turbulence call around for estimates to replace the pump if the Limited Service Campaign has expired:

Luscious Garage | Blog | Toyota Prius Inverter Water Pump Recall

 

Yes, sounds very much like an inverter coolant pump. Or a clogged fuel filter but more like an inverter coolant pump.

 

did the dealer try to further diagnose this problem? sounds like a pretty serious safety hazard if it shut down 3 times.

 

I'm wondering if your engine overheated, cause if the electric water pump was bad, you wouldn't be able to drive 1 hour.

 

There was at least one other thread on here recently where somebody went to the dealer to have the codes scanned, and the dealer used a non-Prius-aware scanner on the first visit that didn't see the relevant codes, then when the customer called them on it, said "oh, well our Prius tech is back on Monday, you could come back then and we can use the real scanner then."

Very annoying. Especially as it doesn't take a "Prius tech" to plug the right scanner into the car and print the codes. The person who answers the phones could do it....

If you're getting a ⚠ there are certainly codes....

-Chap

 

Do you hear a beeping sound when the triangle light comes on?

Avi