Prius (2001-03) :: Hybrid System Warning Light Came On - Battery Leaking
Jun 16, 2010
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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I haven’t been on these boards very often since getting my used 2008 Prius because until now it has been very kind to me in terms of not needing mechanical repairs. Unfortunately that good streak seems to have come to an end. Driving home Monday evening (after ~30min freeway driving), my master system warning light came on, accompanied by the hybrid system warning light. I didn’t know what the latter was – had to look it up – but I immediately pulled to the shoulder. The car was driving normally, however. Since shops and dealers were closed for the evening, after much debate I ended up having the car towed to a family friend’s body shop; they were still there and had a scanner to check the error codes for me. My car was on the side of the freeway for well over an hour with hazard lights on and the dome light on and off occasionally as we got in and out of the car. By the time the tow truck arrived, I discovered that the 12V battery seemed dead; car wouldn’t boot up all the way, wouldn’t shift to neutral and didn’t want to power down – I had to try turning it off upwards of 10 times. I was surprised, given just the hazard light and limited dome light usage. We jumped it, got it in neutral and on the truck.
At the body shop, they said there were no error codes related to the hybrid battery; something about transmission that wasn’t clarified, and errors for low voltage on the 12V battery. With everything off, it measured 10-something V; something higher when turned on, but they believed the problem was a dead 12V battery. I was surprised that it would suddenly give out in the middle of driving, but we went ahead and replaced it the next day. I picked up the car Tues evening, and had no problems driving it home, to work the next morning. Unfortunately, during my drive home – strangely at almost exactly the same location as the first time – the same hybrid system warning light came back on. I’d driving about 70 miles with it off at this point before the reappearance. This time I didn’t pull over to the side (had enough of that before) but rather drove a few more miles to a parking lot where the car has now stayed overnight. I note that the car seemed to drive perfectly normally during that time; no loss of power.
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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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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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My wife just called and said this light came on. She said when it came on the car turned off its cruise control but kept running. Now she says it seems to be running fine but the light is coming on.
The car has around 110k miles and I just replaced the spark plugs, air filter and engine oil about 1k miles ago. What it could be? I'm going to have her pull codes at the auto parts store but she needs to do about 20-30 miles of driving today for work. Is it safe for her to do so?
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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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I was driving to work yesterday and all of a sudden the "Hybrid System Warning Light" just came on the screen. I didn't notice anything different and drove it the same way. However, when I checked the energy monitor screen, the battery was low on charge. It came back to normal in about 5 minutes, but the light is still lit up.
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My 2007 just came due for an oil change a week ago (Maint Reqd stays on), not that it matters. Yesterday the Red triangle of death, Check Engine, and brake warning lights came on. We drove another 15 minutes (city) without incident. When I turned the car back on the brake warning was off (and has stayed off) but now the Info Display has the red Hybrid System Warning Light also showing, along with Mr. Triangle and Check Engine.
This morning Autozone read out the P0A93 (confirmed) and C1300 (current) codes for me. With the car "Ready", I can see fluid movement in the inverter coolant reservoir (not sure it qualifies as "turbulence") and feel vibration in the line connected to the pump which is humming so quietly. The 12V battery shows 12.5V with the car off and 13.5V with the car on. Does this mean the inverter is still operating? (I read the P0A93 code is supposed to shut it down.)
I did find the ICE coolant reservoir dry and refilled it with SLLC. There looks to be a small leak in the water pump, but I'll deal with that later.
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Last summer I had a catastrophic experience on a family vacation when my wife's 2012 Prius overheated on the highway and lost power. The dealer that we limped into kept it for a week and couldn't find any concrete problem, except to say that since it was a salvage vehicle rebuilt without Toyota brand parts, that all of the cooling system would need to be replaced. I waited until we barely made it home and had my mechanic replace the inverter pump.
Since then the "hybrid system overheat" warning light comes on regularly, especially when driving up a long climb, even in moderate weather. There are no codes. Is it possible that there is air in the lines? My mechanic says that it feels like the inverter pump is working, tho I don't see turbulence in ready mode. A link to bleeding the air?
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My hybrid system warning light came on last night in my 2005 Prius with about 89,000 miles. The car may have run out of gas (I wasn't driving). This car will only take about 8.5 gallons when the fuel light starts flashing. I started it this morning, light was still on, only 2 bars on battery, my car usually runs near the green, and the gas engine stalled after about 30 seconds. The gas indicator was flashing, so I added a 1/2 gallon I had at the house, and unplugged the 12v for about 10 minutes to clear the system. Upon restarting, fuel light was still flashing, but no hybrid warning light. Drove a few miles, filled up with gas, and drove another mile.
So my question, could running out of gas and driving a very short distance (light came on as my wife turned into our driveway), cause this warning light to come on? If so, will there be any lasting effects? Did unplugging the 12v battery clear the computer codes, or can I still get these read to learn more about what happened?
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I have a 2005 Prius with 135k miles. Yesterday the red exclamation light came on and also the hybrid system warning light. I shut the car off and it came on again. The third time the car started normally and it is driving normally today with no warnings. Does this sound like the 12 volt battery? It is original.
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But while driving the hybrid warning light turned on in the MTD. A red car if I remember correctly. It was the hybrid battery over heating and to try and mess with the wiring going to the cooling fan in the right rear quarter panel.
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I have a 10 month (15,000 mile) Prius and the " check hybrid system" warning light came on while driving on the interstate. 17 miles later the car quit running. I had it towed to the local dealer and after taking a looking at it I was told the error code pointed to the water pump (which they plan to replace). Does that make since? Has this been a problem for the Prius IV?
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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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On my way home from work tonight, the master warning light and the check engine (malfunction indicator lamp) appeared on the dashboard, and the hybrid system warning light has popped up on the multi-informational display.
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I have had no issues with this car of 120K miles until today, although my MPG has decreased to 35 MPG. The following lights came on with a loud beeping sound : Brake warning lights, malfunction indicator light, master warning light and the hybrid system warning light. These stayed on for 25 minutes and then went off. I drove 12 miles without any issues with all the lights and sounds beeping.
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About a year ago when driving on a 3ish hour trip, I made it almost to my destination and the hybrid warning lights came on. I noticed my windshield wipers were moving extremely slowly, and about five minutes later the screen and all the lights flickered off, the power steering went out, and I came to a dead stop on the side of the road. After calling a friend to come rescue me, they arrived and for fun I attempted to start my car and it ran fine, and the next time I drove it all the lights were off. I drove it for several months afterwards with no problem. It happened again a few months later and I took it to the dealer who "completely disassembled" my car and said they found nothing wrong with it.
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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 was trying to install the invisicord cable for my escort radar detector thru the auto dimming/homelink mirror, I shorted it and homelink no longer has any power, a couple minutes later i got a check hybrid system.
Now question how do i restore power to the homelink mirror, is there a fuse to replace? And that warning and all the other warnings that i got related to the short. I read somewhere here that if power to the homelink mirror was off that you get no power to some systems, not sure where is that post, cant find it the car starts.
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I jumpstarted a friends car and now I'm getting a check hybrid system warning and my 2010 prius won't start.
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