VSC, ABS (!) and brake light on

Hi all,

I am an owner of a newly acquired 118k 08 prius. I have driven it about 600 miles and love it. I took it to my local toyota last week to have the recall work done, which included the hybrid electric water pump assembly and a new bolt in the steering system. Anyway, my wife took the car on an out of town trip, probably drove about 200 miles, so we had put about 250 miles total between us and the service, maybe a little more. Well this morning after starting to back down my driveway all the lights mentioned in the title of the post came on. I turned the car off, turned it back on scanned with a regular OBDII tool and no codes and lights were off. Went through a drive thru on the way to work and the lights came back on and stayed on for 15 miles or so to work. Got to work, turned car off, came inside read about the problems on here and took it to my toyota dealer a mile or so away. The lights did not come back on during the short trip over there. What are the odds they find out hte coolant system for inverter still has air in it after the service from last week and that's all it is? I am hopefull as I really don't want to drop any money on the car since I have only had it about a month. I do find the timing interesting though. I probably put 300 miles on it from the time I bought it to the time of the service and not quite that much after the service then all the lights come on. Thanks and looking forward to many years of Q & A on this board!

 

Thanks for the reply jdcollin5. I was referencing this thread (search google for VSC, ABS, (i) and emergency brake light on as I can't post active link yet, this is only my second post) when refering to inverter coolant pump and it's affect on even DC voltage that can apparently cause these lights to come on. I am still hopeful that's the case. There was no situation that I hit slick surfaces while the lights came on for me, although it's possible my wife hit some this weekend and not sure if the codes could have been hanging out and causing the light to come back on after short driving period. Also, I have an ABS scanner at home, didn't have it with me in the car, will that read the codes? I am guessing it's all a moot point as I took it over to Toyota and told them I thought there was a chance those lights were coming on because of air in the inverter coolant system, so I am guessing they will be scanning the system as part of a check and I will probably be given the info sometime this morning. I was hoping someone who has gone through this might be able to tell me what their experience was regarding the lights. I find it interesting they are not on all the time and I find it interesting that it took 600 miles to come on. I don't think the Ford Dealer I bought it from used would have been able to hide those codes from me for that long if there was a problem. I hope not!

 

Toyota dealer just called back, said there was no air in coolant reservoir, that the car seemed fine and there were some pretty old codes hanging around in the system, so he cleared them all. I will try and get the list of codes when I go pick it up. They said they don't think anything is wrong with the car. I did a search for the steering problem, doesn't seem like that thread indicates it was any of that work. I do find it certainly an odd coincidence. None the less, since they are telling me the codes were all real old and nothing seems, wrong, hopefully having cleared the codes will prevent those lights from coming back on as I work with computers and they do seem to have a mind of their own at times.

 

I just went and picked the car up. They had it sitting ready to go and were pretty busy and didn't give me any paperwork on it out the door. I did sign something when I dropped it off, so I know the visit is recorded. I will just monitor and if the codes come back I will post them up. I may drive it around at lunch today just to take it around town and make sure it doesn't do any funny business. The car had been driven about 6 miles by the tech according to the ODO. The brakes were nice and tight, so not sure what he did, but they were stopping great and didn't take much pressure at all. Thanks for the replies and I will let you know if anything else comes up.

 

Update:

So I left work in the rain yesterday and had to slow down a little quicker than I wanted to to make a turn and the ABS kicked in and the skid symbol flashed. It seemed like the system grabbed a little harder than it should have as I have slowed faster than that in other cars with ABS without recalling it kicking in. None the less I drove home 15 plus miles with no issues. I also drove the car about 10 miles at lunch yesterday. I drove the car around just a little while ago for lunch and the lights came back on!!!! So first I bought a scanguage II and no codes (not sure if it works with the ABS codes or not). So I left the car on the whole time, drove back to Toyota and they agreed to look at it again. I will get codes from them today for sure. The check in person swore the codes yesterday were old, not recent, but I left the car running so they could see the brake, ABS, VSC etc on. I hope they left it on until they got a chance to scan. They are going to call me back. I did ask them if they had checked the 12 volt at any point when they did the recall work or the diagnostic yesterday and the person at check in was not sure, hopefully they will check that today. I'll keep you posted, thanks again for all the feedback.

 

They read the code and it was C1249 and indicated the majority of the time that comes up it's the brake light switch. I went ahead and told them to order it and put it on since they have diagnosed the car for "free" twice since the recall work last week. It's also gotten cold enough here that I don't want to be jammed under the dash with cold fingers trying to put it in. It's going to cost me $171 parts and labor, which is probably way high, but at least it will be warranted and should the ABS lights come back on hopefully I will get some more assistance from them. When searching the forum this code did seem to have been handled as a brake light switch issue, so hopefully that will be the end and my ABS Computer is not bad.

 

They replaced the brake lamp switch and noted on the ticket that if the lights came back on I would need a skid control ECU. If the lights come back on and I do in fact need one of those, it will be an ebay unit with my own labor. Hopefully that's not a tough install and doesn't require any special reprogramming.

 

Just a quick update. In my case it appears the brake light switch was the likely culprit. I have driven the car about 500 miles with no lights on dash. If the lights come back on at any point and new repairs are required I will definitely post.