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2004 Prius, some japanese, large red warning light and check engine light.

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Orchlon, Jun 19, 2016.

  1. Orchlon

    Orchlon New Member

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    Location:
    Mongolia
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    As far as the owner can tell, the car is running fine. He hasn't driven it aside from getting home after the light came on. I'd just tell him to take it to the shop but it seems to give a very informative error message. Can anyone tell me what it's saying?

    13487569_1041704052572412_191942166_n.jpg
     
    #1 Orchlon, Jun 19, 2016
  2. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    Our first Mongolian poster! Welcome!

    JDM car so all japanese.

    I can see its in master caution so it has a hybrid problem. Usual issue is the coolant pump has failed. Make car READY open the hood and take the cap off the inverter coolant reservoir next to the inverter. Look into the red coolant chamber and look for good turbulence or flow. No flow pump is bad and needs to be replaced. There was a TSB out on that.

    Or.....the main hybrid battery is bad. No mileage on the car but given the age I bet its 200K so time for new battery would be my guess.

    You need a OBDII code reader that is capable of reading modern hybrid codes. If you use the run of the mill reader it will not show all the codes. Get the codes read and post back here.

    Good Luck!
     
    #2 edthefox5, Jun 19, 2016
  3. Orchlon

    Orchlon New Member

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    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
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    N/A
    Ok, it's 1 am so I'll just tell the owner to drive it to a shop himself and keep an eye on the engine temp tomorrow. Can you tell me how much the part costs? Is there a good quality aftermarket maker for the part that's a viable alternative to the OEM? Low quality chinese parts are a real problem here but the usual tell is that it's too cheap.
     
    #3 Orchlon, Jun 19, 2016
  4. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
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    Two
    Hold on there.....first the usual issue I mentioned has nothing to do with the engine...its the coolant pump for the Inverter.

    And anything I mentioned is just a guess. Without the codes read by a Hybrid Code reader you and the mechanic will have no idea whats wrong.
    Most people buy a mini vci which has chinese knock off copy of the Toyota Techstream software the dealer uses. With an elm obdii adapter you'll be able to pull the codes yourself. Just need an xp laptop. The mini is available on amazon.com or ebay.

    Focus on getting the codes pulled and then post them back here and we can tell you whats going on. If in a hurry the toyota dealer here in the us for instance will charge a one hour labor fee to harvest all the codes. Around here that's $120. Any Toyota dealers near you?

    But given the age of the car its mostly at least needs a new hybrid battery which is a very expensive investment in such an old car.
     
    #4 edthefox5, Jun 19, 2016
  5. Orchlon

    Orchlon New Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Oh the coolant pump is for the inverter? I thought it was for the engine.

    Anyway the owner already got the car fixed, apparently the issue was the coolant pump. There are so many priuses here in Mongolia, in fact 1 in 4 car is a prius (not an exaggeration) and independent shops are quite adept at fixing them. There are exactly 3 Toyota Dealers here but I don't think they service JDM cars and even if they did it'd be a massive waste of money to take a car there. Also $120 would be crazy here, labor is generally pretty cheap, I can get a head gasket change for $25.
     
    #5 Orchlon, Jun 25, 2016
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