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2012 Toyota Prius 4 - ABS, BRAKE, & TRACTION CONTROL Lights on

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Ben G, Oct 1, 2024 at 9:04 PM.

  1. Ben G

    Ben G Junior Member

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2017
    2
    0
    0
    Location:
    New York
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius
    Model:
    Four
    2012 Toyota Prius 4, 187,200 miles. Leather, Nav system, Bose system.

    I'd like to tell you about my recent experience with this. I was on a 2.5-hour drive home and at some point my ABS, BRAKE, & TRACTION CONTROL lights went on. My brake pedal felt like a manual pedal, a little harder to push down and a longer throw to get braking power. Thank god my brakes were still working. Obviously, I had no traction control or anti-lock brakes. I knew this was a serious situation. I had an OBDLINK LX scanner so I plugged it in. I had to buy the enhanced codes for my car @ 15.00 but I thought it was worth it. It returned c1214, and c1391 codes. C1214 Hydraulic System malfunction & C1391: Abnormal Leak of ACC PRESS. I started doing my research about these.
    I got quotes from 3 local Toyota dealers. I got quotes from a low of 2350.00 to a high of 3350.00. Needless to say I was kind of freaking out, that's just too much of an expense for me right now. There are 2 parts associated with this repair. I had read of one guy who had the same situation, and he took It into a local repair shop and the right rear rotor was leaking. He replaced that and the lights disappeared. I thought I would try that. I took the car to a local Mavis tire repair shop where I had done work before. I explained the situation. I told them my front brakes were done in 202 and I had 115k miles at the time. I thought maybe those front brakes were causing the issue since now I have almost 183k miles on the car, that's 68k on the front pads. The mechanic hooked it up to his OBD scanner and got the same codes as I did. Meanwhile, I told him to replace the front pads and rotors and then clear the codes in the system. Lo and behold, no more lights on the dash and the problem seems to have been fixed. It cost me 430.00 for the repair, a big difference from the numbers I was looking at. There is one thing that still bothers me. The Brake Booster Pump Assembly (Accumulator) still cycles on and off every 8 seconds for 3 seconds at a time. I don't think this is what it's supposed to be doing. So I don't think I am completely out of the woods yet. To be continued...
     
  2. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2021
    996
    357
    0
    Location:
    South Central PA, USA
    Vehicle:
    2011 Prius
    Model:
    III
    You did not fix the problem by replacing the front brakes. That was money that you did not need to spend at this time. The warning lights will return in very short order.

    You need to get the brake booster/actuator replaced to fix the problem. As you found out from the quotations that you received, it is an expensive fix. If you do not have the money to get the car fixed, you need to stop driving it.