HELP! Need assistance identifying significance of these icons

Texas Prius Battery Replacement

 

you need to have the trouble codes read at a dealer. they have the details of the lights, which are just a general warning.
you might have a bad combination meter.

 

Left to right:

12v battery charging problem
Hybrid system problem
Headlight auto-leveling problem

The first two together might indicate a problem with the inverter, not the batteries. Pull the codes with a reader that understands hybrids. When the hybrid system indicator shows, I'd be willing to take it to the dealer and paying a diagnostic fee just to get all of the codes accurately.

The headlight levelling sensor goes bad with dirt, age, and potentially underside impact. I think the sensor is on the left rear wheel. It might also be a problem with the servos at the headlights. Other than causing excess glare to oncoming traffic, that system is the least of your concern. If it's intermittent, it's probably the rear sensor.

 

The Gen 1 MFD had a strange user-interface design that used to confuse everybody: it has three icons for three different problem areas: one for the power steering (PS), one for the main battery (MAIN), and one for the hybrid control system (an exclamation point over a car). And they had the brilliant idea that for any problem, all three of those would be shown, with the one that mattered being shown in a highlight color.

Of course almost every Gen 1 owner who ever sees that happen comes on PriusChat and posts about having all three problems. It even became a common phrase: "I've got the dreaded PS MAIN (!) error!" And then you have to get them to breathe, and go look again, and come back and say which one was highlighted.

I don't have a Gen 2 so I'm not sure if that display works the same way, but that's something I would want to check before concluding you really have all three of those issues at once.

-Chap

 

In the Gen II no, it doesn't, thank goodness. Each one of those icons can come on independently of each other.