"Hybrid System Warning Light" Coming On

czyfrme's post sort of scared me. I would not post this if I had not read czyfrme's post. Here is what happened: Arrived at friends house for dinner at 5:30pm and leaving at 10:30pm. My wife was driving, so she opened the door, with me on the passenger side. When I got into the car, I noticed the MFD was LIT. I asked her if she had already pushed the "power" button. She said no, but said that the car door opened so easily, like it was not locked. Usually with the SmartKey sys, there is a slight pause before the door clicks and then opens. I then looked at the MFD. The 1st thing I noticed was: the MPG display was at 41.1 mpg. I was the one who drove to the friends house and while going into the tract I was telling my wife how it was so easy to P+G in this housing track, so I knew the mpg was at 47.2. Futher, it seemed as if warm air was coming in from the vents [so fast?]. Now, how did the mileage go from 47 to 41? Did I forget to punch "power" before I exited the car? Would the car have been idling for 5hrs all by itself? The next day, I filled the gas tank and expected the worst. The calculated mileage was at 46.4 --a normal value for us. Again, how could the MFD record 41.1 w/o it being driven? This happened on New Years eve. My wife said its a case of CRS [Cant Remember $...]. Is it possible to leave the Prius alone on the sloped driveway, and burn up the gas, leaving us with a reading of 41.1, which was not true by refilling up right away the next day. Is it possible for a 2007 Pruis engine to idle that long. Anyone who can explain this phenonemon, please let us know. We have 11,700 miles. Its driving us crazy, thinking about it. Thanks in advance for your time reading this post.

 

I get the feeling that you may have left the car on...the car will idle on and off in order to maintain a battery SOC, and it will idle on and off even more depending on the outside temp. Since the car was not moving, that may explain the weird MPG number it calculated and gave you on the readout.

Just a theory...

 

I would have to agree with KAR IDEA. Several months ago, I forgot to power down before going into a restaurant in Oak Creek, WI after a meeting of the Milwaukee Hybrid Group. The engine had auto-stopped when I stopped in my parking spot. I had a passenger(Wayne Gerdes) and we were talking and I just forgot to hit the Power button. We were inside for ~2 hours. The mileage after a mile or so from the last start up was 50 something when I went in but had fallen to the low 30's. What had happened was that the engine had started several times to recharge the traction battery. Since you are getting 0 mpg while not moving, the mpg reading dropped every time the engine restarted. I had only had the car for a couple of months and was still learning since it was the first car I've owned that I didn't need to turn a key to shut the engine off.

 

I have a 2004 Prius with 76K miles. Last night (Fri) after parking at shopping center, coming back to car, starting it up to go home, it lite up like a Christmas tree for the first time. Freaked me out. I had the mulfunction indicator lamp, master warning light, and the hybrid system warning (Toyota operations manual, page 125, indicated that I take vehicle to Toyota dealer immediately - needless to say it totally freaked me out) light on. I immediately called the dealership, as I had had work done on my a/c the previous Sat, drove the car to the dealership. They said that they cleared some tubes and such and to bring it back if it happens again and they will involve Toyota. Needless to say now I am scared to death that something is wrong with my car. I have been diligent to do routine maintanence so I felt I was doing all the right things. My job is 150 miles each way from home, is my car going to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere?

 

Uffdaje, when there is a fault at startup, probably 90% of the time, it is the 12V battery in the trunk. When was the last time it was replaced? On a low mileage car like yours in a state like FL, it tends to last only a few years.

When you say the dealer "cleared some tubes", are they perhaps talking about the HV battery duct? What does your invoice say?

 

You can easily check the 12V battery yourself in five minutes with no tools:
http://priuschat.com/forums/newbie-forum/73400-weird-stuff-happening-mpgs-dropping-test-battery.html