Prius v Not Starting/Parking Brake Issue?

As I'm fairly new here/haven't posted much, a bit of history:

2012 Prius v with Touring & Tech Package (I'm in Canada, so equivalent to the Prius v '5' in the US)
Approximately 8 months old, 12,000 kms thus far.

I was unable to start my car yesterday. When I tried to start it, the light on the start/stop button stayed orange (did not turn green as usual). Everything else (locks, windows, nav screen, audio, etc. all works), so from the outset I'm not thinking that it's a battery issue. I also cannot seem to shift to other gears, but when I move the lever to other gears, only the 'N' is actually recognized on the screen, but as the tow truck driver later confirmed, it was not really in neutral. I saw the following on the dash:

1) A message stating "set parking brake securely"
2) When shifting to D/R - a flashing 'P'
3) When powering off, a 'P' with a circle around it

It would appear to be the same issue described here:

2013 Prius won't go into gear - Toyota Prius Forum : Prius Online Toyota Forums

After a visit from a few tow trucks via Toyota Roadside, they were finally able to tow me out (vehicle was parked front-in in a single garage). The battery was boosted and was disconnected to see if we could get it to start with a boost or reset, but neither worked, so a tow was the only option. Needed to use skates to elevate the front wheels to winch it out, as they were locked (note to self and others: REVERSE IN to the garage to save yourself a lot of grief!). Towed it to the dealer, where it sat overnight. Early this morning, I went to the dealer to demo the issue, and my worst nightmare - I couldn't show the mechanic the issue because it started right up. The dealer is looking at it and is still investigating to make sure everything is OK, and I will update as things progress.

One thing that I was thinking may have contributed to this issue is the fact that I took the car for a car wash the night before, and it was quite cold at the time (probably close to -20C). I'm not usually in favour of washing the car in such temperatures, but the car desperately needed a wash (and I doubt a wash can be that bad if there were so many people lined up that night, lol)

Edit: I got the car back from the dealer and they indicated that there may have been an issue with the parking brake becoming frozen (although applying or releasing the parking brake felt perfectly fine to me). They have done an adjustment on the parking brake to prevent this in the future. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this issue, but has anyone else on this forum experienced this issue, and received a different explanation as to what may have happened?

 

Tried the other key fob, no dice. Also tried touching the key fob to the Start/Stop button (which is what you are supposed to do if the key fob battery is low/key fob is not recognized), but it didn't work. Again, the car started right up without issue at the dealer, just 7 hours after it was towed, with the same key.

 

The car arrived at the dealer sometime after midnight (I made sure the issue was still there just before towing) and I showed up when they opened, which was at 7 AM, so the car was only sitting outside during the overnight hours.

 

I am not sure whether they tested the battery (perhaps I should have specifically requested it). That being said, while trying to troubleshoot the issue initially, I managed to get into the maintenance mode and the battery reading was 11.8V. After getting a boost from the tow truck, it was showing something like 13.4V, but still wasn't starting.

 

It was definitely a strange one. Personally, I don't think it was a parking brake issue either, as I always start the car with the parking brake engaged in any case. As I mentioned, unfortunately the starting issue cleared up on its own, however the dealer said that they noticed some clanking sound when shifting out of/into park and that is why they said they performed the parking brake adjustment. I am fairly certain this was not the root cause, but they just presented it as such.

Another really strange thing which I don't think I mentioned in the original post was that even though it seemed like I couldn't shift into any other gear (as mentioned, the car DIDN'T show it was in 'P' as normal, including no light on the park button), when I would try to shift into another gear, I actually would sometimes hear the pedestrian proximity warning alert. The only other gear that would actually show an indicator was N, but of course it wasn't really in neutral, since the car couldn't be rolled out of the garage first.

 

Thankfully no! Fortunately this was (thus far) a one-time occurrence after taking the car for a wash on what happened to be a fairly cold night. I haven't experienced any trouble since (and I have taken it to the car wash again another day when it was quite cold out, and it started up as usual the next day).