don't wanna dump it but.....

What you are describing right now is a common problem on a Gen2 Prius - a bad capacitor on the Combination Meter (speedometer cluster) circuit board.

When it fails the CM won't properly "boot up", which mucks with the power button function (can't turn the car on or off like normal).

If you have (or know someone with) good soldering skills, then repair is take the dash apart to pull the CM and replace some caps.

Otherwise you can pull the CM and ship it to texas-hybrid-batteries for repair (or buy an exchange unit).

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I drove like this for 2 years You hold the button down 20 seconds or so the car shuts off problem is is when you turn the car on and you have no dash you don't know the car's ready and ready to go luckily for me I had a check engine light with the PO420 code for the whole time I've on the car that was the way I would tell my car was on and ready because the check engine light would be glowing orange and I just pulled it in the drive and drive away then during the day at random I would turn the car on to leave a service call the dash would come back on and be on for weeks and then all of a sudden one day I'd push the button and the dash would be off for a couple hours come on midday this went on like I say for 2 years so I would always make sure I knew where my gas was when I shut the car off so when I came out in the morning and started and had no dash I know I had a half a tank last night so I'm good for 230 mi or so or whatever the case may be usually by the time it was time to get gas or before the dash would come back on and if I didn't do any resetting procedures like unplugging batteries and all that My gas gauge would return and show correct - what I had used while the dash was off and running service calls it was really easy to know where I was at pretty much so I didn't worry about it. Now I've changed the dash to a known working unit from a little old ladies car that had 90,000 mi on it and still sometimes when I boot the car up I get no dash display and it does not seem like bad capacitors or the display is failing to me It seems there's something further up or back in the chain that's not happening and not allowing the display to boot That's what I believe I'm seeing. I want to buy the Texas hybrid rebuilt doodad heads up display whatever but I'm sure once I do that and I install it every so often my display's not going to light anyway there's something else going on I just haven't had the time or the will to fool with it because it's nothing permanent not in my case.

 

You're not anywhere close to dumping the car yet You've got a long time to go or maybe you don't and you just need to get rid of it because you're afraid of what you're not seeing I don't know.

 

Your odometer info is on that component. If you put in a random board then your car will show the odometer info from the donor car. The repair service will return your repaired board with the correct (unaltered) odometer reading. Not sure about your state, but here in CA the DMV is not happy with cars having inaccurate odometers. As I recall there are a bunch of extra hoops that one must jump through to sell a car like that.

 

I just bought a used gen 2 from a dealer that came with a 1 month warranty. Had the combo meter go out which caused the dash to not turn on and the car to turn off. Thankfully, I was able to get the dealer to do the work for free. Came to $1,000 with SoCal prices.

If I didn't have a warranty, I would pull the combo meter myself and just send it to these guys: texashybridbatteries dooty com
Replace the dooty with a full stop (period). I'm too junior to post links yet.
$150 is astoundingly cheap for a properly programmed combo meter.

 

Nope. You just put in another meter that has the same problem. We've sold over 5,000 of these displays and anytime a Gen 2 Prius is having interment dash lights it's 100% a combo meter failure. If you go looking for another problem you will just make more work for yourself.

 

You definitely don't want to dump the car over this. It's probably one the cheapest (and easiest) things to fix on a Gen 2 Prius.

When the car won't turn off you have to hold the power button down for 5-10 seconds and the car will go into accessory mode (only the MFD will be on). Once that happens press the power button two times quickly and the car will fully power off. Without the main display working it may be hard to tell when the car has switched to accessory mode but if you listen there will be a few clicks in the back of the car (those are the main battery relays opening), once you hear those clicks that's your cue to double press the power button to shut everything off.

If you are ordering a replacement combination meter it will need to be programed or the odometer will not match. Sometimes there are ebay listings that tell you what the mileage is on the meter and you could get lucky and find one that's close. In most cases those are straight out of wrecked cars and could have the same problem as the one you're replacing (like in Tom's case). All of the replacement meters that we ship out are pre programmed to the exact odometer value requested.

PM me if you have any questions.

Matt

 

Yeh I have 4 of them too all out of old lady low mileage vehicles and one or two with over 200 on them and they all act same eerily exactly same

 

We install these almost everyday at my shop. I’ve had days that I put in 4 or 5 in row and it takes 30-45 minutes each. We just don’t believe in ripping people off like the dealership. $125 for 45 minutes of work is more than fair I think.

The majority of customer feedback we get from people doing their own installs is that it took 2-3 hours and it was a lot easier than they expected it to be. If your buddy can work a helicopter this should be a walk in the park.

 

@misterdean

Matt helped me with a combo meter repair job I did a while back. He's the real deal. The job is not complicated, the important thing is that you want to do it once, so make sure the replacement CM is right. I did my swap in about 2 hours, including beer.

 

Yes, all of the orders that we take include a $75 core deposit. We provide a pre paid return label to send the old meter back. Once we receive it that $75 gets refunded to you.

 

The dash vent piece that has the shifter opening is often very brittle and may crack. Replacements are available on Amazon for about $30.
I keep 2 in the garage.

 

It's a bunch of tedious work. As mentioned, the center dash vents can/will break (oh well). Not breaking the clips at the tops of the A pillar trim pieces is super annoying.

Otherwise you follow the service manual procedure and try not to forget any screws or connectors when going back together. It helps to take pics during each step of the disassembly process.

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