HELP - Check engine light will not turn off and car will not start

please search.. there's 2 or 3 topics on this in the last month alone.

disconnect your 12v and charge it. it has charging instruction on the battery.

a jump start is simply hooking up another battery... the other car should be off. let it sit for a few mins then start your prius.

did you connect directly to the battery or to the jump point?

 

Please also do your utmost to avoid reverse polarity when connecting external 12 volt power. High risk of damage to Prius.

 

on the top of my head, and take it for whatever it is worth and if this post costs you money, i apologize, but..


i do not recall ever seeing the check engine light on when the battery has been run down

update
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maybe its a combination of factors, like your battery is run down, and you ran out of gas??

 

Since you have access to the manual, you can see what the recommended process is. Please explain your jumpstart procedure in detail (for example, what source of 12V jump power do you have, how did you connect it to the car, etc.), so that we can identify whether there are any problems with the actions that you took.

Your 12V battery is clearly dead or dying. However you may have another problem in addition to that.

 

Curious? You have run down the battery before? I would take the battery to an autoparts store and see if it is still good. Let them charge it if it is. If not it's buy a new one. Best of luck.

 

When jumping the battery, you must connect the positive terminal of the donor battery and the Prius dedicated jump start terminal (or the positive terminal of the Prius battery). Then you must connect the negative terminal of the donor battery to bare metal on the Prius, such as an unpainted bolt head within the engine compartment. Were you able to do that?

Once you have attached the jump cables, do you see that your passenger cabin lighting gets brighter? This is evidence that you successfully connected the jump cables to the donor battery.

If you can access the Prius battery itself, lift up the red cover over the positive terminal, so that you can attach the jump cable to the terminal.

Reverse polarity means that you connect the positive terminal of the donor battery to the negative terminal of the Prius battery and vice-versa. This will result in almost-guaranteed destruction to your inverter, and you will face a four-digit repair bill.

 

yeah my 12 v got ran down at least 5 times, and the dealer gave me a new one for free.

something else i haven't seen in this thread is sometimes you need to connect the charging source to the battery for 30 minutes...

and sometimes u have to wiggle the 12 v red wire on the connection a little to make sure you have good contact.

when my battery went bad the dealer replaced it for free after i bitched about it leaving me stranded

still that check engine light bothers me.

if your still under the basic warranty, the tow is free.

if its not going to start in 30 minutes with good contact with a good charging source, it will probably never start.

keep your fingers crossed and call around some dealers and ask them if they are willing to waive a diagnostic fee if you choose to have it fixed
there

maybe u should call around and get the price on the battery first.

any repair shop can test the battery for you for free, but they won't have it in stock

 

First thank the gods that nobody used inverted polarity when trying to jump it. Then get into the habit of *always* locking the car when you leave it; this will decrease the chances that you will leave a door or the hatch ajar or a light on and kill the battery again.

 

Glad that you have a happy ending. I hope that you carefully observed the tow truck driver's technique for future use.

If you believe that your current jumper cables are inadequate, then I suggest next time you visit Costco (or your local discount auto parts store), that you buy a set of real cables. Look for a "4" wire gauge size. Larger wire gauge numbers mean smaller cable diameters, resulting in more resistance and a less effective outcome.

If you had trouble connecting to the dedicated positive jump start terminal or reaching the positive terminal of the battery, then perhaps you also need to buy an alligator clip to allow you to reach into a tight area, then attach the jumper cable to the alligator clip, being careful not to allow an electrical short to the body.