Prius (2001-03) :: Warning Triangle / Hybrid System Icon Comes Up - Engine Goes Off
Oct 7, 2014
My wife has a '03 that has been great. No issues. I am a excellent mechanic, on conventional cars and motors. Here's my story:
Bought the car used and working last week. Put in a new 12v Group 26 battery w/conversion. I verified the 12v battery was at 12.8v and when engine was running, 13.6v to charge the battery. Car was starting and driving wonderful for about 600 miles. No shuttering, no shaky starts. Mileage was about 38.6. Anyway, yesterday was driving and all of a sudden the warning Triangle comes on, Hybrid system icon comes up and the engine goes off. I was able to drive the car about 1/2 mile on the traction battery back to my work.
It happened to have a code reader handy and it reads a P3125, Inverter. I realize there are sub codes that further diagnose the issue, but I don't have that type of OBDII reader although mine is a very expensive model. Anyway, I reset the code and got the car to start. Motor begins to go up in RPM and throws the code again. I shut it off, reset the code, try to start the car and I feel it slightly jump forward, engine does not start, then throws the warning code again. I did notice the traction battery is at 25%. I do this two more times trying to get the engine to start before I call the tow company. BTW, the car rolled easy, so I don't think its the MG2 is bad, although correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't Mg1 start the engine?
Oh, incidentally, also the ignition key does not release either. The key release solenoid is energized unless I unplug the 12v battery, then I can get my key out.
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I have been having some hybrid battery issues. My prius is a 2006 with 198,000 miles. The original battery was replaced at around 120,000 with a junkyard battery. About a year later that battery gave up the ghost and I decided to rebuild that battery. So far that has worked quite well until recently.
My troubles started a couple weeks ago when I got the Red triangle and all the dash lights and the hybrid system icon on the MFD. Naturally I thought it was the battery again. Took it out and checked the voltages of the modules. All the modules where within tolerances. I grabbed a OBDII scanner and checked the code. It was telling me that the Hybrid current sensor was bad. I changed that out with the wiring harness from the old battery.
That lasted for a few days before the red triangle came back. I checked the code and it was indicating one of the blocks was bad. I think P3019. So I took the battery back out and replaced that block with other modules. Almost instantaneously the red triangle came back with two more bad blocks. I think it was P3012 and P3022. So I took the battery out once more and tested all the voltages of all the modules. Everything was 7.86-7.9v. So I decided to start the rebalance of the existing modules in hopes to find some bad modules.
I also bought a new 12v battery and installed that. I got everything back together and took it for a road test. It took about 30 mins before the triangle came back. I grabbed the codes and it was still indicating bad blocks. P3011 and P3018. I am a little at a loss.
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This afternoon, after driving about 150 miles, I came home and shut off my 2001 Prius. It was sitting for about 20 minutes before I turned it back on to drive off. Almost immediately, the hybrid warning light came on on the MFD, the red exclamation mark light illuminated, as well as the check engine light, and the motor shut off. I popped the hood, and could hear a high pitched squeal coming from near the inverter. I called my dealer to ask the service department what I should do, and they just told me to bring it in and they will take a look at it. I live over an hour away, so I don't want to bring it there if I can avoid it. I then shut it off and let it sit for a few hours.
After reading about the possibility of the auxiliary battery being bad, I went and turned the Prius on, and then shut it off several times to reset the hybrid warning light (I had to do so in order to access the aux battery information through the MFD). It turned on without incident, and shut off fine, and after being reset the hybrid warning light shut off, as well as the red triangle light. Then, I went through the process of pulling up the battery voltage information through the MFD.
With the car off, and the lights and fans off, the battery voltage read about 10.0-10.5 V. With the lights and fan on, the voltage dropped to about 9.5 V. After getting those readings, I drove it down the road a little ways, just going about 20 mph. It seemed to work fine. The check engine light is still illuminated. With the motor running, the voltage reading was 13.2 V, and then when I got back from my test drive and shut it off, the voltage hovered at 10.6 V with the lights and fan on.
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First off I have a 2010 with about 11,000 miles and it has been running great since I got it. This morning I was greeted with the "Yellow triangle" and the "check hybrid system warning". The car started fine and I pulled out of the garage under battery as usual and then the engine kicked in also as usual, everything seemed normal except for the warning lights. Since I have a long commute I just took my wife's car and got to work and did a forum search on this issue. I called my wife and had her turn the car on and off three times and she said it cleared the yellow triangle and check hybrid system but it still had the check engine light on. She also said the car seemed to be running fine and shes driving around town in it. I couldn't find anything on the check engine light. Is it ok to drive it?
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During a highway trip three months ago, my 2004 Prius suddenly lost engine power, the red triangle Master Warning light came on accompanied by a warning sound, and then the Hybrid System Warning sign appeared on the Multifunction Display. I pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. I turned the car off and then tried turning it on again. Engine power was restored although the warning lights remained. We took a chance and carried on with our trip. The same sequence of events reoccurred about 10 times on our 1,300 km journey. I took the car to a Toyota dealer where they found a C2318 DTC. They checked the battery and the HEV fuse but could not locate the problem.
We returned home and on the way the same thing happened a few more times. My service manual noted that the description for C2318 is Low Voltage Error (Power Supply Malfunction) and the trouble areas are HEV fuse, IGCT relay, Wire harness or connector, or Auxiliary battery. Since the car was nearly 7 years old I thought I had nothing to lose by replacing the battery, which I did. However, on a short 150 km trip last week the problem appeared again, once while approaching our destination and once when we were almost home. There seems to be a pattern in that the problem appears every 150 km or so of highway driving. It has never done it while driving in the city.
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A few days ago I was driving my 2005 Prius aggressively up a mountain road and all at once the hybrid system warning light, the triangle with the exclamation point, and the regenerative brake system warning lights came on.
After about 2 minutes parked, I restarted the car and the regenerative brake system warning light went off, but the other two were still on. I still drove it twenty miles home, over another substantial mountain gap (about 1000 ft up and another 1500 down), without any problems.
I checked the voltage of the 12v battery, which seemed to be on the low end, but OK. (I think the lowest reading was 11.9). There seemed also to be some turbulence in the inverter coolant reservoir.
I brought it into the electronic vehicle specialist in town here today, who pulled my codes and said that the hybrid battery was dead.
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I replaced my hybrid battery of my NHW10 a year ago. now recently it shows the warning triangle. Once it went off after a long drive but now its permanent. is there a way to Diagnose what is the cause of this? If its a Hybrid battery issue, will it go off if i replace the bad cells?
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Possible hybrid battery failure in my 2004 Prius (96K miles).
Sunday before last, the check engine light, warning triangle, and hybrid warning light came on when I started my car at the grocery store.
Because I was close to home, I drove home and the car functioned completely normally. The next morning, when I started the car, the same warning lights appeared. However, when I tried starting my car with the headlights off (I always leave them on), no warning lights appeared.
I took my car to an independent mechanic. This is their written report:
"Found multiple check engine codes, P3000, sub code 123, V0100 sub code 211/330. These codes are set when high voltage control detects a malfunction in battery pack/ECU assembly. To check battery pack we took vehicle out on a test drive while monitoring the cells in the battery pack. Found that they are all weak and drop fast when battery is put under a load. Code C2318 is a low voltage error/power supply malfunction code with the auxiliary battery. The voltage spec for setting the code is 9.3 volts, this battery is less than 9.2 volts."
In conversation, the mechanic also told me there was significant voltage variation across the cells in the hybrid battery.
I then took my car to the dealer to try to confirm this analysis. They were unable to read any codes because the independent shop apparently cleared them. The dealer was unable/unwilling to do more than read the codes to diagnose the problem. (Indeed, they seemed surprised that the independent mechanic could monitor the cells in the pack.) All they did was to drive the car around some more to see if the check engine light would come on. It did not.
The car has been driven 80 miles since the warning lights last appeared and appears to be behaving normally. From your perspective, does the report from the independent mechanic make sense and is it believable? And is their test under load definitive of a hybrid battery problem? Could the results be affected by the low auxiliary battery? Also, if I do have a hybrid battery problem, what are the chances of being suddenly thrown into limp mode while driving it?
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I have a 2003 Prius with just over 116,000 miles. When my wife cranked it a couple of days ago, the "Hybrid System Warning Light" came on.
As advised by the owner's manual, we didn't drive the car. We took it to the local dealership to be checked out. When I called for an update last night, they said that the computer indicates that the hybrid battery is leaking.
So I guess my questions are:
1) What kind of lifespan is typical of a 1st Gen Prius?
2) How many more miles are reasonable to expect from the gas engine?
3) Is there anything I should be aware of to make sure I'm not taken advantage of? (eg is there a credit for the battery since it has valuable components)
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I was on my way home (a 50 mile trip on very rural roads) when my hybrid warning light came on. The car seemed to be operating fine, so I continued on. About 20 miles from home, the computer display lights flashed on and off and the car died. After coasting to a stop, I let it sit for a couple of minutes and turned it back on, and continued on. Warning light was still on. Probably ran about 7 miles or so and died again. This same scenario happened a couple more times, but I did manage to get home.
My Prius is a 2002 with a little under 150000 miles on it, and it has never given me any problems since I bought it at 70,000 miles four years ago. I will be calling the Toyota dealer tomorrow, but I wanted to ask whether or not this sounds like a possible battery pack failure.
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The other day, I was driving my 2006 Prius on I-20 in Shreveport. As I came off the exit and approached route 80, my navigation display read "PROBLEM", and the car suddenly coasted to a stop. All of this occurred in about 100 feet, so I was lucky to be able to coast the car to the shoulder, because it just died where it stopped. If this had happened while I was on the highway, my whole family would have probably been killed, as there was no way we would have been able to safely get out of the way of the multitude of semi trucks that drive that road.
I attempted to re-start the car, and the red triangle warning appeared on the display, along with the little car with the exclamation point in the middle of it, otherwise known as the hybrid system warning icon. Needless to say, the car would not turn over.
I immediately called Toyota to see if they had any info to get the car going. Toyota was absolutely useless, and the customer service agent said the only recall showing on my model was a floor mat recall. I told him that I knew he was only doing his job, but it was a shame Toyota actually believes Americans are stupid enough to believe the floor mats are the problem. Luckily, we had AAA, so the car was towed home, after a two hour wait.
Diagnostics : I checked all fuses and relays, checked battery connections, and saw no apparent problems.
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I have a 2001 toyota that I was driving yesterday. I parked my car on the side of the road for 2 minutes to find something in the car. Randomly after a minute of being parked the car suddenly flashed the red triangle on the dashboard as well as the check engine light.
Also as well on the main computer screen where the radio stations normally are displayed a Problem alert appeared. It shows the PS icon, the Battery Icon, and the Red Car exclamation icon. Only the Car Exclamation point is red.
As some basic steps I tried (Because I don't know that much about cars) I opened the hood when the engine was off and cold and checked the air vent filter to see if it was clean. I cleaned just in case. I also check the gas cap to see that the cap was closed tightly. Also checked the tires air to see if that could be the case. Oil was looked at by me and I didn't see anything abnormal as well.
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Today, I was driving on the street when I got the dreaded red triangle icon and the word "problem" appeared across the top of the MFD screen. I then noticed the bars on the battery screen kept lowering down to where they became purple when stopped with the transmission in D. The engine would usually start up at this point, but it didn't. I put it in B and gave it a bit of gas to force it to start up. Once I started driving again, the bars went back up, but it has happened two more times (every time the battery depletes to purple).
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So I was driving for a couple of hours today in my recently acquired 2001 Prius, when the red warning triangle and the check engine lights came on. The car seemed to still drive fine (70 ish mph cruising). HV Battery? P3000 P3020 Error codes.....
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The last few weeks I've been noticing that, upon start, the hybrid battery is showing at 1 line. It's been really hot in SO cal and the air con has been blasting, so I've been letting it charge up a bit before driving. Once I'm on the road, the battery charges fine and seems to hold a charge.
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I have a 2005 Prius with around 115,000 miles.
I have the following warning lights on:
1) Check Engine
2) Yellow Indicator, looks like exclamation point inside a circle inside parenthesis.
3) Red Multi-information display (exclamation point inside a triangle)
4) Hybrid System Warning Light on display screen, looks like exclamation point through a car
The engine cranks up just fine and drives forward and backward in the driveway fine. Battery level indicator is blue (see image). I checked for turbulence in the inverter reservoir with the engine off and fluid was flowing.
I checked the 12V battery (using the car's measurements by holding Display and turning lights on and off 3 times) and its value was 12.1 volts without engine and A/C on and 11.8 volts with them on.
The fan in the back right passenger seat is always on now though (I don't remember ever hearing this fan noise before), regardless of engine on or not, even though it's only about 80 degrees outside and it's been sitting idle all day and all last night. It comes on pretty much immediately when the power button is pushed.
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2004 Prius, 149,000 miles. Driving on a highway when suddenly it felt like a headwind was bearing down on me, and a minute later, the red triangle of death and all the other lights came on. Did not totally lose power. Pulled to the shoulder and while waiting for the tow truck, started and turned the car off several times.
After the first few times, the red triangle did not light up, but the check engine icon remained on. The tow truck driver had a very difficult time getting the car into neutral to pull onto the flatbed, and then when he took the car off the truck to park it at the dealership, he said it shifted "hard" into drive.
I don't have a code since I don't own a reader. What this might be? I really, really hope it's not the traction battery needing replacement. I have no training to replace single cells.
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Just got a "Check hybrid system" message and the triangle of death is on my 2010 Prius -- but I can still drive it...
Toyota's Emergency Response Guide says this error is triggering by the ground fault monitor that is connected to the 12v aux battery.
HV battery pack ( HV battery fuse, two 12v relay)
HV battery inverter/converter
My 2010 Toyota Prius III has 37400 miles and I've had it since 2010 April.
My ScangaugeII didn't find any OBD2 diagnostic codes
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I have a problem with my 2002 prius. I was driving home from work when all of a sudden my Hybrid Warning light came on with the check engine light on. On the screen, it gives me a (PS, Battery, and ! ) and the "!" was the one lighting up. The engine was roughing up sounds like it was gonna stop itself so I pulled over to the side and it turned off by itself without me doing anything except to put it on park. Then, i took out my keys and tried restarting it and all i heard was the "Ready" beep but not the engine and it won't move when i step on the pedal. After waiting for 10 mins., i tried restarting it and it worked i drove away and got home safely with all the warning lights i mentioned earlier still on. (Note: i was driving w/ the A/C on because it was hot outside..around 90s, also it was not overheating nor it was any battery problem because all the electrical were working properly.)
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I've got some issues with my 2005 Toyata Prius (~150,000 miles). My wife was driving recently and the "Master Warning Light", the "Hybrid System Warning Light" and the yellow "Brake System Warning Light" all came on.
Some quick reading of the owners manual said we should take it to a dealer right away, but because it was a yellow, and not red, brake system warning light it seems ok to drive at least to a dealer. in regard to the yellow brake system light the manual said it could be that: "the regenerative brake system failed or that the hydraulic brake system failed".
Now, I have a cheap bluetooth OBD reader hooked up to the "torque" app on my phone and I thought I would try to see what error codes there were to learn more. But strangely, it did not read any fault codes. I've used this reader successfully on my 2001 Mitsubishi galant, but I'm not reading anything for the prius in this case. I'm not sure if there is legitimately no error code associate with the warning lights or if my app is just failing to read them for some reason.
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Yesterday, started it up, began backing down the driveway, controlling speed with a little pressure on the brake. There was momentary weirdness, like the brakes had sort-of let go, then gripped again. And then got the warning "CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM" and a yellow triangle (inverted?) with exclamation mark.
I tried maybe 3 restarts, but the warning persisted. Phoned the dealership, booked-up Saturday, but they said they'd (commendably) squeeze it in. So we brought it in, when they eventually got to it they read the codes, cleared them, test drive, said it appeared the computer(s) "lost contact" momentarily, and it seemed ok.
I got in and started driving home, down the back lane first. Car started making a VERY strange buzzing sound, coming from under the hood. By the end of the lane I decided I better circle back to the dealership, pulled in at the curb in front, left it running and raised the hood, the hood support rod was loose, laying over the engine, doing a dance.
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