1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

Possible ABS Actuator Failure

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Xenn, Mar 29, 2023.

  1. Xenn

    Xenn New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2023
    2
    0
    0
    Location:
    North Carolina
    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Greetings. I've got a 2006 Prius, with about 200k miles on it. The hybrid batt was replaced in Fall 2016, and other than some scheduled regular maintenance, it had no other known problems at time of fault.

    TL;DR - almost every warning light is now on, including the big red triangle, and the engine won't turn on, though the car's electrical systems still do. I can only shift into neutral. I suspect a total ABS brake system failure. Now what?


    Full Story:
    The other day, I was driving at about 15-20 mph on a level road, and out of nowhere the ol' man started a constant beep tone (similar in pitch/frequency to the startup "bee-beep", only uninterrupted). This beep continues to sound until the car is shut off, and starts again any time the car is powered on into a mode that would use the engine.

    In addition to this tone, the BRAKE, ((!)), ABS, and VSC lights came on. The (!) Tire pressure indicator was already on (I've suspected that one of the TPS has been broken for a while now). The brake pedal still functioned, but felt less "pressurized" - I now had to press it almost all the way in to get even a little clamping force, and I could tell the hydraulics had either failed or were shut off by the car's controller.

    So I did some research, and found that this often points to the ABS actuator being faulty/broken. That repair would probably be around $500-$1500 usd, and that's not going to be possible for a while at least. I could of course finance this, but right now I'm still trying to deduce WHAT this problem is, so that I don't waste time and money trying to fix the wrong thing.

    I bought an OBD2 mini-VSC adapter from Amazon to see what I might get, and used the Torque Pro app on android to communicate with it. This produced no ECU codes. Looking further, I found Torque has a plugin specifically for Toyota vehicles, but Google Play says "this app is incompatible with your version of android." Wonderful.

    Fast-forward to this last Monday (27th of March 2023) - I've been driving the car very short distances on back roads (I know, yell at me later.) trying to see if this issue will resolve itself, because at this point I believed it could have just been a momentary electrical fault. I went to power on the car again, only this time I get some new warnings lights:

    BRAKE, ((!)), ABS, VSC, [squiggle car vsc], Check Engine, (!) Tire Pressure, and of course, Red Triangle Of Death. The whining tone is still sounding when the car is on, and I can now only shift into Neutral - trying to shift into anything other than park will put the car into neutral. The ICE will not start, though the car's electrical systems are still usable. The Multi-Info display has the red ! car symbol, but no text. (See attached image)

    So now I can't move the car at all, and can't get any info with my current tools. I'm going to try the OBD2 pin-short method to acquire blink codes, which I'll post here once I get them.

    Any help, advice, etc are welcome here - and if you know of a post that explains what I'm describing, please share those links with me as well - my main goal right now is to learn as much as possible about this issue, so that I can take whatever appropriate next steps I need to.

    I'm probably going to end up selling, but if I can eke out even a few more months of use from this one, I'd love it.

    Thank you.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2020
    7,791
    1,348
    0
    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    So in the picture I'm looking out of your multifunction display where the batteries in the middle you're on the energy screen those are magenta bars on your battery three of them look like they're showing Is this correct there's magenta/ cyan which is blue/ and green . Is the vehicle bouncing fairly quickly between magenta the red cyan the blue and green fairly quickly like while you're looking at the display or it'll happen within three or four minutes going straight down a road it'll be magenta dying then it'll turn blue get up to about three or four lines then all of a sudden bam it's green looking full and then a few seconds to a minute later maybe 80 seconds it'll be back to magenta again? These are dead giveaways that the hybrid battery is fubar I'm assuming the hybrid battery you had put in in 2016 was a rebuilt used something along those lines? And if so generally speaking it's gone about a year or so over what a rebuilt battery generally does so nothing's really out of the ordinary here. But usually you'll have some kind of code and the other thing to check under the hood while you're here is the AM2 fuse that's the fuse for your inverter pump that usually turns the turtle or the car red in the upper left corner of the MFD which you said it's red and it shows red in your picture generally when that happens the first one of the first things I check is the inverter pump AM fuse and the pump itself If the car's on that inverter pump should be trying to pump usually You can put your hand on it and feel it if you can't hear it
     
  3. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    23,069
    14,974
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    (y)
     
  4. Xenn

    Xenn New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2023
    2
    0
    0
    Location:
    North Carolina
    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Update so far:

    Had the car towed back to my home, right now it's just sitting.

    I jumped the OBDII port to get the blink codes, they are as follows:
    • Red Triangle, squiggly car tracks, and check engine all stay on steady.
    • Red Airbag light pulses continuously (meaning no code reported)
    • ((!)) gives 4 4, 5 2, 5 7, repeats
    • ABS gives 4 2, repeats
    • VSC gives 4 5, repeats
    • TPMS gives 2 1, 2 3, repeats.
    I cannot seem to find a chart that actually makes sense - also, I would think there would be a full book with this type of info in it, but every post I've found is only excerpts - what IS the entire book called?
     
  5. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    7,447
    3,751
    0
    Location:
    Wellington, New Zealand
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
  6. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    23,069
    14,974
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    The how-to page will already have told you that ABS 42 and VSC 45 both just mean to look for the ((!)) codes. So, on the ECB ((!)) light:

    44 is C1378, a problem communicating with the brake backup power supply capacitor box in the back of the car, next to the 12 volt battery.

    52 is C1252, indicating the system ran the pump motor (or tried to run the pump motor) for longer than it ought to take to bring the system pressure up.

    57 is C1256, indicating the system pressure was too low. (So, it's never very surprising to see C1252 and C1256 together.)

    Each of those codes appears with troubleshooting instructions in the manual, four pages, eight pages, and two pages, respectively).

    TPMS 21 is C2121 and 23 is C2123, telling you the car isn't picking up the signals from two of the tire transmitters (the ones registered as ID1 and ID3). There are six pages of troubleshooting information (it's the same for both codes, other than which registered ID it's talking about).
     
  7. alftoy

    alftoy Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2009
    1,130
    505
    0
    Location:
    Saskatchewan, Canada
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    Base
  8. adam Boudili

    adam Boudili New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2023
    4
    0
    0
    Location:
    NYC
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius v wagon
    Model:
    V

    1252 1256 where the same codes I had. Checked for sensors/ leaks / oil/ brake fluid… everything else that could cause abs problems that’s minor. Ultimately I found a honest mechanic and he changed The ABS CONTROL MODULE AND ABS ACCUMULATOR ! my Prius v 2012 is now perfectly running. No lights, no hard brakes, nothing. You are wasting your time if you don’t get the accumulator and control module because trust me I looked for every single possible way to avoid it. Got both to be installed flr $1800 altogether. I was blessed with such a honest mechanic. Good luck.
     
  9. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    23,069
    14,974
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    Is that with the 2012 Prius v mentioned in your profile? I see that you've made this identical post on several threads, some Gen 2 and some Gen 3.

    There are some differences between the generations: if you meant a Gen 3, it sounds like your mechanic replaced two assemblies under the hood. In Gen 2, the accumulator is integrated with the actuator. In Gen 3, they're separate assemblies and you don't always need to replace both; sometimes you can diagnose which one is at fault.

    Also, there are other possible causes of the codes. If the pump can't run for an electrical reason, for example, there will be too-long-pump-run and low-pressure codes.

    So a person wouldn't be wasting time, to go through the recommended diagnostic procedure before going straight to the big-bucks replacement. If the replacement is what's needed, the diagnostic procedure will tell you that. If you want to save time and just bet that way, and you win the bet, that rocks. But it'll suck for the guy who jumps right to the big-bucks fix and it still doesn't work, and then finds out the 5¢ wiring fix takes care of it.

    NB when I say "go through the diagnostic procedure", I just mean the steps in the manual for pinning down what's causing the problem. I don't mean the kind of further wishful thinking people sometimes go through before finally getting it fixed.