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2004 Prius randomly died at idle...

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by anthonylokrn, Aug 13, 2012.

  1. anthonylokrn

    anthonylokrn Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    119
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    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    I have a 2004 Prius @ 150k miles that randomly shut down today at idle. FYI, I'm located in Houston, TX, where it is currently blazing hot.

    My girlfriend was driving the car at the time and I received a call saying that the car would not start and she was stuck under a bridge. Apparently she was at a redlight when the car died and it wouldn't start, so some people helped her push the car out of the intersection. When I got there, the car started up fine, but I did notice that the traction battery was just about fully drained.

    She mentioned that the car felt like it was in limp mode and that when she braked the whole car shook. After the car died, she tried to start it but it would just click, and it showed the red triangle. I've been driving the car for a few miles on and off the highway and no problems now and the red triangle never reappeared.

    Past history of the car is just a P0420 CEL which is either the sensors or probably the cat. I just had the CEL re-read and its now showing in addition P0171 and P0121. I'm not sure when the P0171 and P0121 came up, but I did clean the MAF less than 10k miles ago.

    I've already did the self-check on the 12v battery and it is still good. All the engine fluids are topped off and I still see turbulence in the inverter fluid reservoir.

    Any idea what might be the problem?

    Thanks!
    Anthony
     
    #1 anthonylokrn, Aug 13, 2012
  2. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2009
    5,131
    1,338
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    Location:
    Wilmington, NC
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    III
    If the 2004 DTC's are the same as the 2010, then from the 2010 DTC chart:

    P0420 - Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold (Bank 1) (I believe Bank 1 is the Air/Fuel Ratio sensor)
    P0171- System Too Lean (Bank 1)
    P0121 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch "A" Circuit Range/Performance Problem (Throttle body sensor is built into the throttle body assembly)

    All three seem to revert back to the Throttle Body cleaning. There have been multiple threads on here about having CAT problems after cleaning the throttle body. 10k miles seems like an awfully long time for something like this to show up.
     
    #2 jdcollins5, Aug 13, 2012
    dave77 likes this.
  3. anthonylokrn

    anthonylokrn Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    119
    14
    0
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Thanks for the reply. I purchased the car with the P0420 CEL code and it has been driven flawless for a year and a half with 28k miles put on since purchase.

    I assume P0171 and P0121 was caused by the MAF cleaning. Should I go re-clean it or did I mess up the MAF sensor when I did it 10k miles ago?

    Any other reason why the car just shutdown?
     
    #3 anthonylokrn, Aug 13, 2012
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