When I tried to start my 2006 Prius ,it wouldn't start and this message appears with the red triangle "there is a problem with the transmission "p" lock mechanism. Park your car on a flat surface and fully apply the parking brake.
It is at a parking lot now because I couldn't start it!
I purchased a 2009 Prius last year in the US and then got stationed in the UK. I had my car shipped Aug/Sept 2013 to the UK. Up until now the car has run great with no problems. Three weeks ago a red triangle with the message "there is a problem with the transmission "p" lock mechanism. Park your car on a flat surface and fully apply the parking break" appeared.
A week later the car wouldn't start. After reading several forums and posts I checked the battery and it was indeed low. It looked like the original battery and was reading 9.3V. I had the car jumped, drove to the local Toyota dealership, and bought a new battery. After installing the new battery the car ran fine with no issues.
Five days ago (Friday) the car wouldn't start in the morning, but all of the lights worked. Then about 3 hours later the car stared and ran fine all day.
I am just trying to find out if this means I need to have something checked like coolant hardware/fluid...
It is over 100 F these past several days and at 35 minutes just hopping off the freeway, and then again today, coming down a big hill at another part of the freeway, I noted that as I quickly had to brake the system made the computer noise (same as when I switch from the power view to the trip view), red triangle comes on, no other indicators. The first time it happened I was back on the throttle almost right away and red triangle went back off.
Everything fine. Same today but it was on until I was back on the throttle at the bottom of the hill...
My '04 with 193,000 miles has in the last week displayed the above trio of warnings (the word "PROBLEM" appears in the MFD and disappears instantly) plus the infamous Red Triangle of Death appears and there is an audible chime, 7 times; 4 when changing lanes and 3 at random times. The trio of warnings come on for literally 1 to 1.5 seconds and then go away, and there is nothing apparently wrong with the car, the handling, the performance, etc...it continues driving as sweetly as ever. Nothing. No engine warning light comes on (if there is such a thing), or anything else. I have new tires, the tires are all properly inflated, so it isn't the tires triggering the traction control warning.
View 12 RepliesI got a rebuilt 2008 prius 2 days ago , today while I am driving , the big red Triangle appears , and on the MDF screen i think its a red temp mark , before the red Triangle appears , the ICE become like crazy loud sound from it, so i bring my mini VCI and i got the following info (i will post it as an image ) .
View 9 RepliesI went to the dealership today with my '05 displaying a master light ( big red triangle) and "problem " posted on the screen with the green "hybrid system problem" box displaying.
The Prius guy had the car plugged into the computer for over 3 hours. It spat out a page and a half of codes, and then after a time distilled the codes to 4 things: a bad hybrid fan motor, the relay, a blower motor controller, and a bad aux battery. The problem is I replaced the aux battery a year ago. So it makes me doubt the entire diagnosis.
My partner's Prius is bring up the red warning triangle. She had a system diagnostic carried out, which brought up these two faults:
C1241 Low Battery Positive Voltage
C1300 ABU ECU Malfunction
The faults were reset, but it was only a short matter of time, before the red triangle appeared. My partner tells me this tends to happen more frequently when she is steering left and in colder weather.
She was advised the ABS ECU will need to replaced (it does says "new actuator" on the paperwork)
I am going to remove LED headlights & do a full HID retro.
Only problem is that the car has a system check & throws a flashing yellow triangle. How to trick the system?
There are 6 wires on the LED headlight harness.
My 2011 prius and it wouldn't start and on the dashboard it shows engine image that's all no light nothing
View 1 RepliesI've had this happen twice: Foot on Brake, press start, car powers up. RED Triangle with exclamation point on dash. Message on MFD screen says something like "Transmission not properly engaged, move vehicle to level area and press Park"
I can't move it anywhere because nothing but the electrical system works. I can't even turn it back off.
Toyota tells me have it towed. They send "their guy", who is also the area AAA guy. Tow truck driver says he can't tow it because it won't go into neutral. So he jumps it...car shuts off when power is pushed. Push power again. Car starts fine.
Drive to Toyota. They keep it all day, do all kinds of diagnostic tests, tell me there's nothing wrong. I ask if it's the battery, they say it tests fine, but they'll replace it if I want (of course they don't keep it in stock and have to order it).
The car did the same thing this morning, but I was able to turn it off & restart. (That makes it #3)
I've read around the forums stating the P Lock error is common from a low battery causing the vehicle not to start.
The strange thing is that my vehicle DOES start and the message appears and the dash shows READY and I am able to enter gear and drive. If I hit a button on the console the message goes away and if I'm driving at higher speeds the message does not return but the large triangle stays. The error message only reappears when I slow down to 3 mph.
The error does flash back on the screen when I slow down to stop or sit at a light. The car does not shut off during this it just flashes the message and shows the large triangle.
My battery test shows 12.3v on no load and 11.6 on a load. I would hate to replace my battery and have the issue not be resolved.
Twice this week I have received the Yellow Triangle alarm with the message Key Battery Low. This is the first time I have seen this alarm since I bought the car in August 2009.
I changed the battery the first time after 3 years based on recommendations from the forum. This time the batteries lasted just over 2 years.
I tested the batteries on both Key Fobs and they were both in the 2.9V range. The new batteries tested at 3.3V which is their rating. So ~2.9V must be the low alarm setpoint.
My 2005 Prius has about 140,000 miles. I had been getting the intermittent warning message, "Caution: The transmission lock mechanism is abnormal" although the vehicle has been able to start and drive just fine. I replaced the 12v battery, which was suggested in several other threads. However, the warning keeps reappearing. Possibly related, my gear shift knob is "sticky". I'm able to get it into each gear (and the transmission remains in the gear selected), but the knob does not move smoothly like it used to.
View 2 RepliesAbout a month ago my 2009 Prius - 35500 miles - started acting up intermittently. When I first start the car I am getting a red warning triangle for just a few seconds and I feel/hear a soft thump under my foot that is on the brake pedal, there is a few second pause - the warning light goes away and the car starts just fine. This does not usually recur until the car has shut off for a few hours or so. I have had the car to my Toyota dealer twice and they could not reproduce the warning light even after it had been sitting all nite. That was about a month ago - and the problem has been very intermittent. Then yesterday we had a pretty cool morning and when I started the car I got the red warning triangle and a Warning on my screen -- something to the effect that "There is a Park and Transmission Lock" - I turned the car off and started again almost immediately - no warning triangle - no warning message. It happened again once this morning.
View 3 RepliesThe car is a 2005 Prius II hatchback @ 70,000 miles. I like my local garage and they have a good reputation but bad things keep happening. I'm ready to lose my temper but I don't want to. Here's the summary:
3 weeks ago - Started getting the red triangle of death. Had trouble starting. Finally, the car would start, but only go into park or neutral. Towed to garage. Garage put in a new 12 V battery. The car drove away from the garage nicely.
Recently, my Prius hasn't been getting much use, so the 12v battery drained. The car worked ok after I gave it a jump. But, because I don't drive the car very much, the battery drained again, maybe completely.
When I jumped it again, the car ran ok, but the red triangle is displayed, along with the check engine light on the dash, and a red car icon on the MFD. The car drives, but the lights are on.
Before replacing the battery, should I take any steps?
Today after running several errands, I stopped by the local CarWash to rinse the car. Same as always, parking brake off, shift into neutral and away we go. Half way threw she starts beeping, I see the yellow triangle and to the right a boxed message "LOW TRACTION BATTERY SHIFT INTO P POSITION". There was a sudden rush of anxiety because I could not shift while being conveyor-ed threw the wash. As soon as I was pushed out and the light turned green, I shifted into drive to exit. The warning and box cleared instantly.
I pulled into parking, shifted into P, and noticed the battery indicator had only 1 bar. Did a quick walk around of the car and got back on the road thinking, head directly the Dealership. Before I got to the freeway I was back up 4 bars and climbing. Continued on the freeway and within 2 exits all looked normal. As it is Saturday and the Dealership was 1 hour from closing, I proceeded home. Later we went to dinner and an event, then came home. All is still normal. Owners Manual only states to follow the command on page 515.
I know this is a long story and was intentional to starve off multiple questions. The only thing I can think is that the air conditioner, radio and headlights were on prior to, while waiting my turn for wash (park-roll-park-roll...) and up to the point of the warning (tuned off all at that point) while in the tunnel. However this is normal for me. Will monitor the battery indicator more closely for a while. I'm sure this event latched in a computer somewhere, so will run by the Dealer if anything else acts up again. A/C and radio and lights are turned off now while in "neutral", for whatever reason. The car is a 2010 II and only 27600 miles. Was not a pleasant feeling.
We are having an intermittent issue with car starting up and immediately throwing a CEL, red triangle and going into limp mode. Shutting off the car and restarting it sometimes resolves the issue. I'd love to be able to pull the logs from the car to see what is causing this issue.
View 11 RepliesSo let's start with this. A week ago my dad went to start his car after going to the store. I wasn't there so can't say exactly what happened but when I got there the car would basically go into accessory mode with check engine light VSC and triangle on. Also displayed problem on the screen. I checked 12v battery with just the radio on (one button press with foot off brake) and it only showed 12.0 volts. So I hooked our jump box directly to the battery and it still wouldn't start. I scanned it for error codes and it showed nothing but I could erase them and the lights went off so probably codes from one of the hybrid computers I can't read but the car still wouldn't ready. I unhooked the 12v for about 30 second seconds and the car started fine without the jump box hooked up.
At this point I don't have any codes and with nothing to go off of I'm at a loss. We drive it 8 miles back to our shop and it drove normally with no errors. Once it was back in the shop after turning the car on and off 10 times or so still no errors. On the last time it was in ready mode and the errors came back on, still with no codes I could read. His 12v optima was still under warranty so we got it exchanged for free even though I was reluctant that it would fix the issue. Well a week went by and all seemed to be fine until yesterday.
My dad had left the car in ready mode for probably 20 minutes and when he got back in it all the lights were on. I will also add that the battery fan was operating normally and not screaming like if there was a traction battery issue. I changed one of the modules in his traction battery about 6 months ago when one failed. Without any codes I don't know where to start with this problem. 2005 with 170k miles....
I have a 2006 Prius with 115,000 miles that I've been having some problems with recently. Over the past 2 months the car wouldn't start 3 times. Once I jump it it runs fine for 2-3 weeks. This morning it happened again. Whole looking back on it every time seems it happen when the car doesn't run very long before I shut it off again.
Took it by dealer today and to ask them and setup a appointment. They think I have a battery going dead and he quoted it as $220 to replace. When I went to leave dealer the flashers blinked 2-3 times before it finally started. Done same thing when I got home. I also noticed when I locked the door that the red key light stayed on, instead of normal blinking. Went back out about 10 minutes later and it was blinking as normal.
My 2013 has been problem free until this afternoon when I went to leave work - it simply wouldn't start, maybe a dead/low battery? It's a 2013 Prius II and just hit 40k this week and now due for service, so maybe I'll have them look into it?
Today was very hot around 100*, around noon I went to get something from passenger side and decided to crack the windows. Instead of going to the other side I reached across the console and pushed start which gets it into whatever mode it's called. Pushed the brake with a hand while pushed button again to turn on and operate window controls. Then I pushed start again to turn car off, which turned off display as normal. When I went to start it 5 hours later I got nothing.
No dash light up, dim dome light, door open light was on with door open so I knew there was some measure of power, I think I saw a check engine light near the door open light lit up at some point in my attempts too. I popped hood open to see where the battery was at, lol, it's not in the engine bay. In my frustration I finally started noticing a "buzz" sound of some part in the engine bay. Tried to figure out what it was - all I know is it's mounted on the firewall in front of driver, about knee height, behind/below the brake and power steering reservoir. I was kinda able to get my hand far enough to confirm it was buzzing/moving/active by touching a finger to it. Was able to get it to turn off with sever pushes of the start button - maybe the car was cycling the different "on" modes without turning on?
So I decided to try and jump the car. Friend who's borrowing a car luckily had jumpers - the weirdest looking jumpers I've ever seen. They were thinner gauge and super flexible, they were also two separate strands instead of being connected like normal jumpers. Anyways, I got nothing out of it. Was about to give up when someone id called showed up - used their jumpers thinking maybe the weird ones were bad. Immediately got a spark when I put the negative on the strut bolt, confirming I had juice.
Prius started immediately as "normal" (no idea how a hybrid starts after a jump...). Stereo was working, headlights, dome lights, windows - basically like nothing happened. I did notice the battery indication was a little lower than normal, but still had just below 1/2 bars. If it were low I'd imagine it would be lower. It never gets above 3/4 bars for me unless I'm coasting down a mountain for a while.
Dead/low 12v battery? What's the part that was buzzing?