2003 prius issue

Does your check engine light illuminate amber while starting the car you get a full display of all those idiot lights and warning lights and then they all go off does the check engine light do the same if so it's working it's also LED I do believe quite rare to be burning out maybe not so rare for somebody to disable it like I'm considering doing but anyway.

 

Gen 1 warning lights really were itty bitty light bulbs, so yes, the bulb can burn out, in theory.

A person would probably have had to drive around with the CEL on for a crazy long time to burn it out!

Because of the light bulbs, the Gen 1 combo meter is really easy to get to. You don't have to remove the dash like the later generations. The hood of the dash right around the meter just pops right out, you can loosen a few screws to take the meter out, and all the itty bitty light bulbs are in plastic twisty sockets on the back.

 

Sounds like that little incandescent bulb that's supposed to light up behind your orange check engine light piece of plastic that you see on the dash that's Amber is not lighting so maybe you can get another piece of that display or you can break that display down and see the bulb I mean just look in the breakdown of the man you little show you how to take out that part of your dash and then when you break that part down unsnapping it taking the screws out whatever it is I guess you'll see where all the little bulbs are soldered in twisted in however they're mounted I'm not sure I think in generation two and up they became LEDs which replacement might not ever be needed or might be fairly tricky. If the incandescent ones are like older Corollas they're small twist ends and they were green or black or brown twist bottoms on a little incandescent bulb and if they're that type you can swipe one out of another car you may even able to get one from the parts store or the Toyota dealer they were pretty common and fit a wide range of cars

 

In later generations, those lights were LEDs, so there would be no need for easy access, so in later generations you would have to remove the whole dash top to get to the meter. Very tedious.

In your Gen 1, take a close look at the dash top. You will see an outline going around where the meter is. That plastic hood over the meter is a separate piece. Just pull it up. It pops right out.

Then you see the meter, held down with a few screws. There are also two small inclinometers attached to it, also held down with a couple screws. You can either fuss with the tiny plugs where the inclinometers plug in to the circuit board, or just take out those screws also, and lift the inclinometers out with the meter.



The white box you see on the right is where your little warning lights go. You can see the check engine is the second one on the second row.

From the other side of the meter, you see this:



(Ignore the two little angel-hair wires and the extra LED in the corner ... that was stuff I added.)

You can see there are little black twisty caps, one for each light bulb; you just twist an eighth of a turn to the left and out comes the cap. The light bulb sitting in each cap is a very common wedge-based bulb you can get at the dealer or an auto parts place. You just pull it out of the cap and insert the new one. Then reverse the steps that got you here.

It's possible somebody drove the car for so long with the check-engine light on that it burned out. Or they might have just taken the bulb out, to avoid looking at the check-engine light.

 

That's the weirdest story I've heard all day.