Red triangle of death with no codes

I just acquired our second Prius, a beautiful 2002 (Gen1 in the USA) with 90k miles. On the dash, I get the red triangle of death with the exclamation point inside it. On the computer info screen, I have an icon of a car with an exclamation point in it and it reads "problem". I have connected the OBDII reader to it and it does not have any codes. Nothing in the history, or in the current or pending. The car has full power and runs fine, but has the stupid RTOD. How can I check to see what the icon means, and how do I get rid of it?

My other prius is a 2006 (gen2).

 

The car seems to be running just fine. No issues going normal speeds, braking is fine, everything seems to be good. Except the stupid warning symbol.

 

Okay. Here is the skivy. I took it to the shop and they ran the scanner on it. I was actually hoping for the power steering unit as the sevice manager told me that is what is most often the case on this car. There is also a a warranty extension on that until the end of 2013. Well, that was not my luck. The problem they found was, the trunk seal was bad. It caused water to fill up the trunk sometime in the past. I am not sure if the PO knew about it or not, I am thinking they did. Anyway, the service manager said the trunk filled with water and shorted out the module, battery and a few other items. They said it would be about $4600. I think I will rebuild the batteries myself. I am not sure if the module is bad, or if they just want to take my money. Has anyone had this happen to their Prius? I just bought the car for $4500 and I can't see putting another $4500 into it. It is in excellent shape and only has 89k miles.

 

Who is the best at converting the gen1 battery over to gen3 cells? If I am going to convert it over, I might as well do an upgrade at the same time. Are the modules on the battery interchangeable, or will I need to have the new one reprogrammed?

 

I will get the car back from the shop on Monday. I will check all of this out. The car has been a pacific northwest car for it's whole life. We rain alot here, but almost never flood. It is possible though. As most batteries can be submerged in water for a short time and not be ruined, I am skeptical about the batteries being dead. Especially in that the battery meter on the display screen shows them as fully charged and it runs on both the battery (silent) and gas motors. I am hoping I can fix it with just a battery ECU change.

I have a regular obd2 scanner that has worked good up until now. I have also used my laptop to run codes on a BMW I had. Which scanner is best for these cars? I have read a few other posts and feel the windows software with the prius interface may be the way to go. What do you all suggest?

Bob, I have read your posts and watched a few videos on replacing the cells. It does not look too difficult. I am fairly confident I can do it. Is there a good location to get gen3 batteries to replace the gen1 cells? Anything special I should look for?

 

Sounds good. I have an USB to obd2 cable that I used for my BMW. Any chance it will work and I only need the software? I have seen the setup at several locations, where do we get the "hacked" techstream software?

 

Sounds good. I will pick one up. Are there sponsors on the site that we should support?

 

I just got back from the dealer and the three items they say are in need of repair/replace are: HV battery, computer and junction block. I purchased a new trunk seal to make sure that really is not the issue. I am hoping that removing the carpets in the trunk and putting a heater/fan in the trunk will dry things out and keep me from having to replace the batteries. I doubt it will fix it though. I have ordered the miniVCI, and hope that will allow me to reset the codes and things once dry. Thank you all for you input and help.

 

There was water in the trunk. They told me the trunk seal was bad and rain leaked in and flooded the batteries. I am skeptical about that, but figured whatever. I ordered a new seal from the dealer and took both the car and the seal home. I looked at the old one and it looked just fine. I decided to do the old get in the trunk and have someone spray the trunk area with a hose. It leaks at the top of the trunk. I looked closely at the car and the trunk does not sit all the way down at the top. I think I just need to have that adjusted. Hopefully that will be all it requires to fix the water issue.

I am not sure about the batteries. The dash still has the triangle warning symbol. It seems to run fine, but I have not driven it more than 10 miles or so. I will take it out on the road this week. The battery looks like it is charged on the display, but who knows if that is correct. The gas motor turns on and off and the car runs great. It actually has more power than my 2006 Gen2. I have ordered a miniVCI and will run the codes when it comes.

 

Update. My nice new MiniVCI just arrived and I hurried to run the codes. It looks like it is throwing codes P3000 and P3009. Looks like battery leak and hv control unit. I am assuming the ecu for the battery is bad and at least a cell or two is defective. Does that make sense? The dealership who ran the codes before said I needed to replace the hv batteries, the battery ecu and a junction block. I assume the junction block is a fuze block or something similar that is close to the ecu.