I have a 2008 and 2014. They are my fifth and sixth Prius' and Cs. The 2008 just would not be turned off and the front panel went dark. It was a frightening issue and I was lucky I was home. I come here looking for simple answers but cannot find them, so I have decided to start posting. YouTube has been very helpful. I have included a link below and there are several videos with fixes that are real as opposed to non-sensical posts here. The link works and there videos that show you how to fix it permanently Youtube =autoquest (forum won't let me put actual link). Just search on Youtube The 'combination meter' as the front panel is called is known to have an issue. There are people locally and on ebay that sell rebuilt ones or will rebuilt one for you (to keep the odometer legal mileage). Prices range from $90 to $150. Removing and replacing one is fairly simple but requires patience. youtube =SB1dVFa3ofM (forum won't let me put actual link) If you want a local mechanic to do this for you they will charge anywhere from $300 to $500. You can save yourself money by watching the videos (the above link and many others)
most of them are issue with the capacitor, I did replace one of them and it involves removing the dash.
mine did that too, in july, i took the meter out drove it to west va and a guy soldered a new cap in while i waited i took it home installed the meter and no issues since then you know its the cap if the car while in ready has no back up camera and the trunk wont open anymore, take it out of ready, and the trunk works, the cam and trunk rely on the cap west va charged me 20 bucks
For a temporary work around. Turn the headlights on high beam, then put the fob in the slot, then press the start button. The high beam indicator light uses the power stored in the cap that the resistor won't dissipate because it is just old .... or the power going back into the system recharges the cap because it no longer holds a charge .... two different stories as to why the problem happens. Our '08 ex taxi Prius is a pain in the butt for doing this at the most inconvenient time, but with 750,000 kms on the clock now, I'm not sure I could be bothered to go through the whole dash removal and reinstall ..... so we discovered this trick and that seems to work ok for us. It does help if you turn the headlights and high beem on before you turn the car off as well and only turn them off after you remove the fob. The really annoying bit besides no speedo, is the odometer doesn't register either, so our 750,000km is really a lot more than that, but who cares, the km left before needing to refill doesn't work and the fuel gauge doesn't work either, and that is a real pain when you have an hrs drive home up the big hill out of Adelaide, and you can't remember what the fuel gauge read when you parked .... so to be on the safe side you are at the mercy of the price gougers close to the freeway entrance ... put 30 ltrs in and realise you had enough to get home where the fuel was cheaper ..... T1 Terry
I haven't dug through the entire "door lock" section of the service manual. The main body ecu handles the lock and tailgate controls. I am guessing that the body ecu is programmed to not allow the tailgate to release unless it sees a vehicle speed signal of zero (or vehicle in Park?) If the CM is offline, then it can't process the speed signal and send it out on the data bus. No VSS at all would have the body ecu default to no tailgate release. That would be an electronic interlock. Don't know if it also affects the "shifter" signal (aka PRNDL). Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
This was one of the first things I repaired on my 2005 gen 2. I got a guy on E Bay to repair it and just watched this video to remove and install. No big deal.
