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Triangle of death only on long 500-mile trips

Discussion in 'Generation 1 Prius Discussion' started by wwu123, Dec 15, 2011.

  1. wwu123

    wwu123 Junior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2005
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    My 2002 Gen 1 Prius has mostly been in the hands of my parents the past nine months. They've had an intermittent red triangle of death about 5-6 times; the interesting thing is it only happens when they have been driving between San Francisco and Las Vegas - a 500 mile trip, and usually in the tail end after the car's been running for at least 6-8 hours at that point.

    Unfortuanately I'm never there with my Scangauge to try to check for codes. I'm generally ruling out either the traction battery or the aux battery, because both have been replaced recently, and the triangles have appeared both before and after those were replaced.

    Anyone have any thoughts about what might cause this? Some other observations from my mom that I cannot 100% confirm:
    -in some, but not all, cases my mom feels there's a loss of engine power and even power steering. However, after stopping and restarting the engine, the power is fine.
    -seems to occur when there is sudden activity, changing lanes, merging into traffic, so I think she may be pushing the accelerator hard.
    -these long trips are mostly freeway speed 60-80 mph continuous, not stop and go. However, even at those speeds, my mom drives a bit jerky, some cautious hard braking and accelerating as a defensive response to cars and trucks around her.