Dashboard not lighting up / multi meter failure

It seems like the dashboard not lighting up / multi meter failure is relatively common in the Gen 2 Prius. I've seen several posts and youtube videos with lots of different ways around it. For me, some have worked, some haven't.... and I have sometimes gone many hours and hundreds of miles without it before getting it to turn back on. The info button / turn headlights on & off 3 times to get into diagnostic mode has worked. The unlock door w/ key fob, open/close door, lock/unlock w/ key fob, start.... has worked..... and then again there are times where neither has worked. It's been a crap shoot and seems to be getting worse as time goes on....and it seems like cold weather makes it even worse.

I think I may have found the thing that works for me every single time.... it's worked for 1 week straight now without fail.

After I turn the car off, I leave either front door half open... just so it clicks one time and is half closed.... so that the red "door open" light shows up on the dashboard.... when I call it quits for the night and park my car with the door half open like that, making sure that the "door open" light is on, the multi meter / dashboard lights pop on each and every time when I start up the car the following day.

The only downside seems to be that you can't use the key fob to lock the door....so you need to lock the doors from inside before half closing the door. And the proximity sensor gizmo to unlock the door won't work either... you'll need to use the key fob to unlock the door (or the actual key). If your door has a small light on the bottom of it, that light will stay on... but it seems to draw so little current that it doesn't affect the battery enough to prevent it from starting.

It would be nice if Toyota would do a recall on this and just replace the bad cap, but until that happens, this work around has not failed for me yet on my 2006 Prius with 150k miles.... mid April 2021.

Does anyone know of a place that will fix this permanently in the Chicagoland area? Preferably the Naperville area. It seems like a lot of work requiring some serious knowledge.... and there's no way I'm gonna try it myself.


Hope this helps

 

Valuable info! Thanks. I might just buy one and be done with it.

I do need to take it to Toyota and get the air bag recall / replacement taken care of. Perhaps they need to take off the dashboard to replace the passenger one and they can do it then. I'll ask them.

I appreciate the reply