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Weird booster pump issue - audible leak and ABS error lights made better by shifting brake fluid res

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by MichaelSpeziale, May 29, 2023.

  1. MichaelSpeziale

    MichaelSpeziale Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2014
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    Location:
    New Hartford, Connecticut
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    Hey guys! So I have a 2010 Prius V with 255k miles on it, and the other day my ABS, brake, and slip lights came on, accompanied by the booster running every 2 seconds or so. Soon after, my car started CONSTANTLY beeping which I guess is associated with an actuator failure.

    I took the cowling off because I could hear air hissing right around the booster, and wanted to see if I could find the leak, but I couldn’t. In the process though, I unbracketed the brake fluid reservoir and shifted it a bit. When I did, to my surprise, the hissing stopped and the booster stopped running. I turned the car back on and all the lights had cleared, but the booster still runs every 15-20 seconds or so when driving so I’m assuming I still have a loss of accumulator pressure. I just bought a thinkdiag that hasn’t arrived yet, and so I haven’t pulled the DTCs yet and I worry that now I won’t be able to since the error has cleared, so I’m probably going to take it Toyota for a diagnosis, but does anyone have an idea what this could be? I assume I’ll be told I need to replace the booster/actuator at Toyota, but I wonder if there might be something else I should check given the weird partial recovery.
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2012
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    Location:
    Pacific Northwest, USA
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    You have a magic touch... Maybe move more stuff around and make it even better... In general, measuring amount of time between the booster running is the correct way to determine when to replace it. So you're doing everything right. When it gets back down to running every 2 seconds its time to replace.