1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

2007 Red Triangle, ABS, (!) Random on/off

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by GirlWithGears, Jun 14, 2020.

  1. GirlWithGears

    GirlWithGears New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2020
    2
    0
    0
    Location:
    Virginia
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Touring
    Bought a 2007 Prius Touring with 150,000 miles on it. Everything is going fine until every now and then I would pull off and the car would beep, the red triangle would come on, along with E-brake, ASB, VSC, and the little car with the (!). The brakes wouldn't seem not to work but I can bring to safely to a stop with the Ebrake.

    I would turn the car off and on again. The other warning lights except the triangle would be gone. Car drives fine. Then after a while the Triangle itself would be gone! Never to return until a few days later or so.

    I'm going to check it its maybe the batterey, a relay or a fuse. I do my own repairs ever since I got wise to shops taking advantage of me cause I'm a woman. This is my first toyota and first hybrid car. I love it. I just want to make sure it last well into the future. Anyone else have this issue and did you fix it?
     
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

    Joined:
    May 11, 2005
    109,734
    49,860
    0
    Location:
    boston
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    welcome!
    grab tech stream diagnostic software on amazon for 25 bucks or so, and a compatible laptop.

    if you need more help, the service manual is available at techinfo.toyota.com
     
  3. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    24,722
    16,089
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    The "more help" part is kind of a given; if you have only a code reader, the only information you can get are the codes and the little one-line "fortune cookies" that might pop up on the reader's screen about what the codes mean. A typical code's fortune cookie is of flat-out no use except as a memory jog to somebody who is already familiar from the manual with what that code really means. There will be a description there of the code's "detection condition", which tells you what actually happened to make the computer set that code. That's the information that's helpful, but it never fits in a fortune cookie, so you'll never see it just relying on a code reader. (Not even Techstream. Well, Techstream will give you a link to follow, but the link is into the manual so it will only work if your subscription is current.)

    When somebody just takes a code's fortune cookie literally, like "all right, that one-liner has the name of part X in it, so I guess I need to replace part X", wasted time, money, unsolved problems, and disappointment often result.

    Elektroingenieur helpfully put together a wiki page gathering a lot of ways of getting access to the manuals.

    There's always the intermediate path of reading your codes and posting them here to see what other PriusChatters make of them. You'll get a bunch of ideas, and some of them will be better than fortune cookies. But then you have to figure out which ones those are.
     
  4. Moses Bruh

    Moses Bruh Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2018
    97
    29
    0
    Location:
    California
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    Four
    Safest way is to get codes checked, preferably at a shop since i believe only techstream can read the brake related codes. What you can do right away is the check your oil level of your car, try to top off to full if you can, it will help the engine.
     
  5. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    24,722
    16,089
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    Since GirlWithGears has already expressed a preference for DIY over going to a shop, I would give similar advice only I'd say "read the codes" rather than "get the codes read". She can do that herself with the right stuff, and having the right stuff will make everything easier taking care of the car down the road.

    There's another, really important step after "read the codes" and that is "find out what they mean from the repair manual" (more info). That's important because even though a code-reading device will usually display a few words about each code, those fortune-cookie displays are huge oversimplifications of what the codes really mean, and trying to rely only on them to fix a problem is a recipe for wasted money and effort.

    There are even professional shop mechanics who fall into that trap, which means GirlWithGears's inclination to go DIY could even lead to better outcomes, depending on what the nearby shops are like.
     
  6. GirlWithGears

    GirlWithGears New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2020
    2
    0
    0
    Location:
    Virginia
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Touring
    I went ahead and sprung for a blue driver scanner and it definitely has been a lifesaver especially when identifying a noise that was prevalent when I first bought the car and turned out to be a bad coolant control valve that I easily replaced.

    so when that happened this time, it was a code u0129. I got my battery checked out and my battery is just fine my alternator is fine. I guess I can try to check the fuses again, also my relay tester hasn't come in yet so I'm still waiting to check my relays. I may just take it to the Toyota dealership. The relay there my last resort because they tried to charge me $107 each to replace my damn halogen headlight bulbs. But I'll see what they say.
     

    Attached Files:

  7. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    24,722
    16,089
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    Ohhhhh, yuck. I had never heard of that scanner. So it, like, combines reading your car's actual trouble codes with, umm, scraping the web for the most popular comments from clueless people about what they think fixed them?

    Even in lockdown you have not got time for thash.

    There is a repair manual (more info) with what the codes mean in your Prius and how to troubleshoot them and how to fix the issues.

    U0129 is an issue with CANBUS communication between the HV ECU and the brake ECU. There should also be one of four subcodes to further pin down what kind of communication error was detected. The CAN bus does not use relays, and you don't have an alternator. The repair manual section on "CAN communication system" will step through what specific tests will find the problem. I don't remember if you said you have a multimeter.
     
  8. SFO

    SFO Senior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2017
    5,297
    4,238
    0
    Location:
    Northern California
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Any updates worth sharing?