Prius (2001-03) :: Suddenly Car Started Stutter And Warning Lights Came On
Jul 22, 2014
I have a 2003 Toyota Prius with ~250,000 miles. Yesterday I was driving and the vehicle started to "stutter" and the warning lights came on. My ScanGauge indicated code P3125. I drove normally for 2-3 miles and parked for a bit. When I returned, I was able to start up and drive home with no problems (about 20 miles of highway and stop & go traffic), and drove most of this morning, but around noon it happened again and this time the vehicle would hardly move at all. It had no reverse and I had to push it out of the parking spot. I managed to limp home and park it.
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I drive my 2005 Prius 40+ miles each way for my commute. I bought it in the fall of 2007 with 56k miles already on it, and with my commute I'm up to 140,000 miles already.
This morning I was about 5 minutes from work, cruise control on, and deeply absorbed in listening to a podcast. I was startled out of my reverie by several things happening simultaneously. The car beeped, the cruise control kicked off, and multiple warning lights lit up on the dash, with a warning icon of some kind also on my MFD.
(Once stopped, I looked up the warning lights. They were: Master warning light; Check engine light, or "malfunction indicator lamp", according to the manual; YELLOW Brake system warning; VSC warning light. On the MFD, the Hybrid System Warning Light was on.)
I was on the highway doing about 70 and I had just crested a hill, so I allowed the car to coast on the downside while trying to access the situation. I cautiously pressed the accelerator, and though the road noise made it impossible to hear the engine, the car seemed to still be driving normally. The Energy Monitor still showed normal flows between battery, engine, and wheels. I had one final, short uphill climb before my freeway exit, so I chanced it. I took it easy and allowed my speed to decrease on the uphill so as not to push too hard, just in case. Once off the freeway, most of the remaining mile is downhill or flat - I can often make it to the office without the engine, and in fact I did so this morning.
Once at the office, I put the car into Park and grabbed the manual so I could identify all the warning lights before powering off the car. I turned off the Prius, let it sit for 5-10 seconds, and powered it back on. The brake system warning and VSC lights did not come back on - only the master warning light, and "check engine" lights reappeared, and "Problem" on the MFD was again replaced by the Hybrid System Warning icon. After the usual 10 seconds, the engine started normally and responded to the accelerator.
One additional note: After the freeway exit, my car is usually at 1 green bar or just below on the hybrid battery. Immediately following the freeway exit is a steep downhill that usually puts the SOC to completely full. That was the case again today, and as often happens, that full charge was able to take me the rest of the relatively flat, distance to the office at my usual 25-35 mph. I mention this because whatever might be setting off the warnings, the Prius still seems to be managing the charge level normally; at least in the admittedly short period I was able to observe it after this occurred.
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I own a 2004 Prius with about 122000 miles. Today I was driving up a steep gravel driveway, going very slowly and slipping a little. The VSC light was blinking and then the car came to a stop. At that time, the big red warning light came and check engine light came on along with a message on the info screen reading "Problem". AND most distrurbing of all, a pinkish car symbol warning with an exclamation mark through it that the manual tells me to take it to the dealer immediately.
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2005 Gen2 with 216k miles
Driving on highway and accelerated to pass a vehicle, sudden slow down and all warning/error lights went on. Pulled to side of road and used Autel 539 to get codes P0A78 + P0A90. Scan code reader does NOT display the INF codes, so I can not get them.
Turned off vehicle and restarted. Put into drive and it appeared that I could move forward (and reverse) and was apparently running strictly on the ICE - no power coming from the DC motor for assist. HV battery would charge as driving down road.
It was slow moving, but as long as I was accelerating (very sluggish!) was able to move forward. If I took foot off gas pedal then ICE stopped running and would not restart when pressing on gas pedal.
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I am having a problem which I can't pin down what it is. When I am driving my 2001 Prius, only after a turn, it seems to get real jumpy and the check engine light will come on during this. I know this is when it comes on because I unplug the starter battery to reset it several times. I've had it put on a computer and it gave a long list of things it could be up to and including replacing the entire gas tank assembly.
I've changed out the gas cap which was one of the things on the list, and I have a charcoal canister I got from the junkyard, but it's a pain to change, so if I don't have to change it, I really would like to not have to if it could be something else. I also put the highest grade of gas in it.
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All three warning lights went off yesterday just before hitting 130,000 miles. The warning lights consist of an exclamation point inside a triangle, check engine light, and what looks like a thermometer inside a car icon.
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I was driving at 60 mph and the master warning light came on. What may have caused this.
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I have a 2001 Prius with 150k on it. It has been giving me the triangle warning light and the car ! warning light. I can start the car and drive it, but sometimes when I press the accelerator the gas engine just dies and will not kick back in, unless I stop, turn off the car and restart it. (Issue seems to occur more in hot weather, could be a coincidence) When I start it the engine will run rough and shutter for less than a min, and then run normally.
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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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I've been having issues with my beloved 2003 with a little over 130k with warning lights going on and off. I went to O'Reilly's they gave me the codes P3130 and P0303. One of codes states "misfiring on all cylinders," they didn't have a description for the other one.
Dealership won't tell me anything about what the codes mean. The warning lights are an exclamation point inside a triangle, check engine, and what looks like a thermometer in red.
Just got the oil changed a little over a week ago, dealership said they didn't notice any problems. Warning lights came back on last Thursday and just disappeared about an hour ago.
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I'm having issues with my prius that are baffling me and I was hoping some of you smart prius masters could lead me down the correct path, I traded in my dodge durango to get 2 cars, a Lexus which runs great and then a 2001 Toyota Prius, The problem im seeing everytime I drive the Prius is no matter how fast im going when I release the gas pedal to quickly i get 3 warning lights (a triangle warning, Check Engine, and a Car with an explanation mark) the car will then only take off to a max mph of about 15-20....If i pull over and restart the car the warnings go away after about 4-5 times of turning the car off and on, I plan on taking it to the dealership.
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We were driving 2015 450h with 2200 miles on a slight downhill grade about 50 mph. Suddenly ABS warning light, master warning light, and audible warning activated. The center console "Brake" illuminated and the information center displayed "check hybrid system".
My wife attempted to pull the car off the road in a controlled manner but even slightly touching the brakes caused them to pulse, braking hard and then releasing. She finally got the car to the side of the road and shut the engine off. I then got into the drivers seat and turned the car on. The messages remained. Tried on an off, still the same. Tried brakes, the seemed functional. Since we were in a location that did not have cell service and it was an unsafe location to leave the car managed to drive it into nearest town.
Turned the car on and off about 10 times over the period of an hour. Without explanation, the car started with no warning messages. Dove the car another 200 miles since and it has now been at he dealer for over a day with no word.
I did see where a few RX350 models had reported a similar problem, but no 450h's. At the time of the incident we were not using the PCS system (off) . I am wondering about that as well since the ABS might be tied into the PCS?
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I have a 2001 prius jap import. On a trip it beeped and up came the triangle, check engine light and car with !. The car lost all power and the engine stalled when I pulled over. I plugged in my obd2 scanner and no codes except 3000. Took it to our local toyota dealer who confirmed that code. Had the battery swapped out and still it does the same except now no codes. The car has below normal pickup speed and I can hear the engine rev a little but it does not seem to make any difference. Seems all the power comes from the battery. It will stall when all the error lights come on.
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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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I am having some brake problems. They started grinding really hard suddenly one night while I was at work (delivery) on the passenger side and having recently replaced my driver's side wheel bearing I thought maybe something was wrong with the other one (seeing as how they have the same number of miles on them) that was causing my brakes to get wonky.
Drove to my Dad's to enlist his expertise. When we got it all taken apart the first thing we noticed was the rim of the rotor was all eaten up. Then we got the pads off and saw they were completely worn all the way down to the metal only on the outer edge, so they are wearing at a diagonal. Same for the back and front pad but the front pad was worse.
We thought the caliper was sticking and causing that since it was hard to move before taking it off, so we replaced and regreased the pins, and put on a new rotor and break pads.
Decided to take the other side apart to see what it was doing. Same story just not all the way through the pad yet but quickly heading that way. However the caliper pins on this side were easy to compress and quick to pop back so things were starting to stink like that wasn't our problem on the other side either.
We had a very tough time getting the caliper, although fully compressed, back on with the new brake pads. It was a struggle to make it work, but we did and then I made my drive back with less than optimal braking power which was probably not a great idea (3 hour drive.)
My dad had a sleepless night that night because nothing added up for him as to why the pads were wearing that way and having so many problems. In the morning he got online on Advanced Auto's website where we bought all our parts and then compared their brake pads to ones on OReiley's website. Well OReiley's offers two different styles of brake pad one which has a tab on the outer edge and one that doesn't. The pads that came on my car when I got it didn't have this tab and the ones Advanced auto sold us which I put on my car the time before I started having all these problems, did have a tab.
We are pretty sure this tab is causing the brake pad to sit in the caliper at an angle because the opening in the caliper is not big enough for the tab to clear it. This is why my pads are wearing at an angle, and only the outer edge of the pad is making contact with the rotor. I really only had like 20% braking power!
I still had the brake pads that came on the car when I got it so I popped those on with the old rotors before I went to work tonight (they still have a ton of pad left and its a long story why I replaced them) it's not ideal but I have WAY better braking now and its a temporary fix until I get this sorted out.
Why Advanced auto sold me these pads that don't work with my car TWICE or what I was supposed to know before going in to buy brake pads? Generally I trust that when I got in there and tell them what my car is and ask for a part they will give me the part that works with my car. And one time being wrong is fine but twice at two different stores?
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I have a 2002 Dodge Durango with puzzling brake issues. I noticed while driving that the car suddenly started to pull to the left. When i got to my destination the front drivers side tire started to smoke and unleash un ungodly smell. I let it cool, removed the tire and checked the brakes. Everything seemed to be fine. I also checked the calipers, also fine. I put the tire back on and it drove fine for a month or so.
The next time i was driving and the same thing happened. now it was the passengers side. Again i checked everything and it was fine. It was time for new brakes so I replaced them. Fine for another month or so. It is now happening on the drivers side again. I appologize if this is posted twice now, but i couldn't find it or see any responses.
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Went to dealership today for oil change, they said they didn't see any leaks, didn't see anything wrong, etc. The warning lights haven't went back on since yesterday morning. I'll keep watching, I hope they don't activate again.
By the way, for everyone who had a 2003 Prius, how many miles did you get with your main battery? The dealership said they usually go after 100,000 miles and need to replace.
At 130,000 they also recommend an engine cabin filter and fuel injection cleaning. Seems like an automotive store would be cheaper for the cabin filter?
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I have a 98 Dodge Dakota with 5.2 V8. On the way home today all my gauges and warning lights started going on and off and then gauges stopped working all together and all the warning lights stayed on. The engine was running fine and after pulling over and checking things out, I made the last mile or so home OK. Checked fuses and battery connection and everything looked Ok. Relay or Computer?
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It seems like the rear camera has suddenly started to point down more that it used to. We have three Prius's and none of the older one are like this.
The dealer tells me he hears this problem all day long and there is nothing he can do about it.
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Two weeks ago I bought a new 2012 Outback. While driving in the manual auto mode, the cruise started flashing, the check engine came on, the traction control light came on and the brake light was on. The dealer said it was because I did not tighten the gas cap, letting air in. They reset it but a few days later it came back on again and this time they said it was miss fire code. Since they couldn't figure out the issue, they did the right thing and traded it in for another, identical 2012 Outback. Now, 8 days later, all the same lights have come on.
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I got in, stepped on the brake pedal and press the power button. Then the Prius ICE started, it started clanging and violently shaking the entire car. The clanging was sounded like metal on metal or something, it was loud and it was like the engine was seizing up. I stepped outside and the whole front end was buckling up and down. From my perspective, it seemed like the car wanted to lurch forward if I didn't have the parking brake engaged. I had Park engaged and also the parking brake on. I thought it would go away but it persisted. I turned off the car and immediately restarted. When the ICE started the 2nd time it felt a bit rough but finally the clanging noise went away. I didn't have time to look on my scanguage for any codes during the event. Did this cause any permanent damage?
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