P0A08 and I have to pee! Can I drive at all?

I understand that idling in heat will be hard on a car... this time was not planned, just was mixed up schedules between my son and I meeting to move him out of an apartment and I did some work in the car waiting for him. I'm just curious how the people who camp in their prii handle that? With my 2009, I remember choosing to sleep in my car once vs setting up a tent at 11pm, but it was so hot out (in SD in September it was over 95 degrees) that I ended up rolling up windows and sleeping with A/C on. That would have been 5 hours or so... maybe I just got lucky.

So - sounds like I'm headed to a dealer no matter what. Exactly what I was hoping to avoid. $230+tax just to walk in the door and that amount of money is hard for me... but of course as you point out, better than damaging entire engine. I guess I need to encourage one of my mechanically inclined children to get certified!

I did tell them to move forward replacing the original 9.5-year-old Yuasa 12v battery.

 

I had them proceed - they were kind of astonished, given the car was put into service in late 2016. That needed to be done even if it doesn't solve anything else. Glad you like your new one. Hopefully you don't have reason to reset it often.

 

I have personally never had to add coolant. I only checked the small reservoir for the inverter coolant, but the shop said they checked both and it was fine.