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Dim MFD, due to cold?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by R-P, Jan 18, 2013.

  1. R-P

    R-P Active Member

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    Hi all,

    I just got in my Prius. It's been a little below freezing with lots of snow (2" is "lots" for us :) )

    I noticed my MFD to be very dim, thinking I had my lights on or something (impossible, I had just gotten in the car for the first time in days).

    I switched my lights on and didn't see a difference.
    I hope it is the cold, but zero celsius (32F?) isn't that cold, is it?

    I did a quick search for e.g. "cold" and "MFD", but didn't find it discussed earlier... :(

    On a side-note: I have been unpleasantly surprised by the traction control in the past, but although still very invasive, it agree it works OK on snow. I did get to a point where I wanted it to simply spin the wheels and it took some rocking to get out of a jam, but I managed.
     
    #1 R-P, Jan 18, 2013
  2. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    It's not the cold. The cause is something else. We have temperatures here well below that routinely. I've never seen that over the many years of driving a Prius. Sorry.
     
    #2 john1701a, Jan 18, 2013
  3. ursle

    ursle Gas miser

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    There's a potentiometer in the form of a little wheel near the lights switch, it must be turned down, try turning it up
     
    #3 ursle, Jan 18, 2013
  4. 3prongpaul

    3prongpaul Hybrid Shop Owner, worked on 100's of Prius's

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    The dimmer wheel is on the front of the dash, to the left of the steering column...in a rectangle sized like a large postage stamp. If anybody opened up the dash recently they may have forgotten to hookup the wire harness to the dimmer wheel switch.
     
    #4 3prongpaul, Jan 18, 2013
  5. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

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    In EU countries we do not have the dimmer wheel.

    The speedo and mfd displays brightness is adjusted by the button to the far right of the clock (only with lights on) otherwise the brightness is adjusted from within the mfd display itself. Making R-P's dim display in the cold unlikely due to this.

    I believe the display is lit by a cold cathode tube and if this is the case they can be affected by cold conditions but this is usually only for about 30 secounds.

    John (Britprius)
     
    #5 Britprius, Jan 18, 2013
  6. stevemcelroy

    stevemcelroy Active Member

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    I have noticed the same thing with my 2009. In the cold the MFD starts out dim and then over the course of a minute or so will brighten - I always figured it just needed to warm up like a florescent light bulb.
     
    #6 stevemcelroy, Jan 18, 2013
  7. koolingit

    koolingit Member

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    It's been raining a lot here lately. I thought the left side of my combination meter was getting dim but it was actually condensation on the glass covering the meter or on the mirror -- I'm not sure which.
     
    #7 koolingit, Jan 18, 2013
  8. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

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    It is basically a florescent tube but has no heaters at ether end hence the term cold cathode tube.

    John (Britprius).
     
    #8 Britprius, Jan 18, 2013
  9. R-P

    R-P Active Member

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    I didn't see (much?) improvement in time, but the drive was short. There's not much I can do about it atm and I try not to open things up anymore that are not broken (I have a tendency to do this... with mixed results... :( )

    So I will watch and study it for a while.

    Thanks for the replies guys!
     
    #9 R-P, Jan 18, 2013
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