First 'trouble' at 10900 miles

The closest thing that I had to a "perfect" car was my Suzuki Samurai.

It had 40k miles on it when I bought it from my folks. It had one issue, and it was one that plagued every Samurai on the road, and that was the cheesey vinyl door panels were coming apart. I spent about $14 bux for some better quality vinyl, and reskinned the panels.

My Dad was going through this thing about only needing to change the oil every 5k miles, regardless of driving conditions, thanx to a moronic Consumer Retorts article experimenting with taxi cabs, and extended drain intervals. So, I had to flush the crud out of the engine when I bought it as well. After doing this, that vehicle literally, and I do mean literally never required anything more than following the routine schedule for wear items on the car. Nothing ever broke on this car.

Due to my Dad's neglect on the service, the engine did start to get tired early, so I was going to do a diesel conversion. Unfortunately, I had a back injury and had to sell off the vehicle, and the diesel kit, so that I could replace the Saturn SC2 that was used for commuting duty at the time. I could no longer get into it to drive it. The was when the nightmare known as the VUE came home to roost.

 

Agree with DaveOlyWa. While we are waiting for our replacement HV computer (see earlier post), the Prius itself has returned to normal function. Toyota seems to be taking a very proactive approach to their new HSD baby.

 

well just be thankful the Prius doesnt use microsoft software!!!

 

have you had any repeats of the condition that caused the MIL/tringle/vsc/abs/airbag light show in the first place?

 

My GF has a Suzuki Swift 1.3 GS (don't know what it's called in the US), but the only problem we've had was a faulty battery after the car had been standing still for over 6 months. Changed the battery and voila it started at the first try (over 100,000 miles on it). The largest issue we now have with this car is that the gear box is getting a bit 'creaky', but that's it. And of course some minor rust problems here and there.
Go, Suzuki!

 

Whoops. Duplicate. Sorry!

 

Had it rained recently? My incident happened immediately after a huge rainstorm.

 

That may be it then. It seems that the majority of prius power failures happen after rain. If you look on the edmunds forum, one of the posters there (think the name was drscientific) talks about a problem with insulation being bad on something called a "M5 connector" which can cause the exact problem you had.

I don't know if mine was M5 related, but they had to replace the inverter. Hopefully they fixed the insulation as well. Do you know if there's any way to visually check to see if I have that new seal they're talking about? And would that seal protect you from water splashing up when you drive through puddles?

 

even better question, had you washed the car recently??