Prius (Gen 2) :: Intermittent Loss Of Headlights With No Warning
Jan 6, 2013
I have the dreaded intermittent loss of headlights with no warning. My diagnosis has confirmed that I have failing HID lamps and that I am beyond coverage by Toyota or the dealer. I have bought replacement (Philips DR4) lamps and have tried to replace them.
The first time, I tried to replace the driver's side by removing the fuse panel cover and relays, but I could not get the round, rear cover off the headlight assembly.
The second time, I tried to un-attach the top of the bumper to remove the headlight assembly, but I was foiled because the two philips-head screws holding the rubber bumpers and the top of the airfoil to the radiator frame were frozen solid. I have tried to PB-Blast them, but no luck so far. I am considering cutting them off and drilling out the remaining screw body, but I am afraid I can't get replacements. Besides, I really don't don't want to make this a bigger job than it already is.
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Okay, this is a weird situation that I can't figure out. I haven't gone to the dealer yet, but I will have to before I hit 30,000 miles. (I'm at about 22,000 now) I thought I would pose this to the forum, for the interest, if nothing else.
A couple months ago, I replaced every lightbulb in the car (except for low and high beams) with LEDs from superbrightleds.com. They have worked wonderfully. I didn't install the new flasher module, however, because it's too hard to get to and I have no problem with the lights blinking fast.
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So my understanding is that the Gen II does not have a warning light that you have left your headlights on because they lights have an auto off after 30 seconds? Well one night in a rush I left my lights on for about an hour (they did not turn off) and I came out to a dead battery. I guess my question is: Do I have a warning beep that is broke? Or is my auto off feature broke?
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I'm driving to work this morning and a bunch of warning lights came on. I was going uphill and the car wouldnt accelerate, the engine was revving up and my presses on the gas pedal didnt seem to be doing anything. I had to pull over a couple of times after shutting the car off and letting it cool down. Each time the car would eventually display the loss of power (would not accelerate, and engine seemed to be revving high with no input felt from gas pedal). Shutting off car and turning back on would cause this to go away.
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I have a 2009 Prius with about 72k miles on it. Today, after about 45 minutes of highway driving, these lights all came on: master warning, the "check" indicator, VSC, the circle brake indicator, and the hybrid system warning on the multifunctional display.
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2001 with about 117,000. Just had it in to get the transaxle fluid replaced for preventative measure. Now I'm getting an intermittent triangle/exclamation warning. It seems to go off if I let it sit, mostly. Runs ok for the most part. But when that comes on, it practically limps on very little power.
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After setting TPs to 41F/40R and resetting the TPMS via the under-dash button, and driving the v5 around, I still get the intermittent then constant TPMS warning indicator. It's not the TPs. Perhaps it's the TPMS sensors?
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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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We've got a 2011 Prius with a little over 24k miles on it . For the last few months we've been having issues with it starting. First I thought the remote barriers were dying so I replaced them , I thought my wife might have been trying to start it incorrectly till the problem happened to me a few weeks ago. What happens is you try to start it (foot on brake, press power button) and all the warming lights pop up , radio turns on , navigation turns on but car doesn't start. This morning it happend just once , yesterday I had to try it maybe 10x before it finally started up. The dealership had it last Saturday and of course it started every time for them and they couldn't duplicate the problem , they also said they ran whatever tests they do on it and it didn't turn up a problem. FWIW we had the software recall update done in June.
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Just got a 2010 Prius model III and discovered that there is no warning system if you turn it off and get out forgetting to turn the headlights off.
Even my 1997 car chimed if I turned it off and opened the door with the lights still on.
Also, if only the parking lights are on there is no symbol on the dash indicating that.
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My 2009 Prius was parked for two weeks. When I started yesterday the red triangular warning light, circular yellow light with exclamation symbol in center, and vsc warning lights did not go off. No previous problem with these. Top half of display screen blank. Vehicle started/ran normally. No change in handling or braking. On highway, cruise control would not activate.
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My 07 Prius recently started to get a traction control warning and loss of power on smooth, dry roads at 65mph on an interstate highway..... There was enough space between us and the 80,000 lb truck behind us..... As we slowed the warning abated and power was restored. BUT, the car will not maintain 65 mph without this recurring. Toyota has not been useful. Nothing stored on the pcu indicates what may have occurred.
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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.
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My 1991 mini-motorhome, built on a Toyota pickup chassis with the v-6 engine & 5-speed recently developed a "hiccup" immediately after having the ignition distributor, rotor & wires replaced along with new belts, hoses, valve adjustment, etc. No work was done on the fuel system. Every once in a while (15 minutes to an hour or more, never more frequently) the engine will lose power for about 1/4 of a second, followed by a "thunk" as the slack in the drive train is taken up. It's easy to ignore except when I'm laboring up a mountain in third gear when the "thunk" becomes an alarming "bang". Other than that, it runs beautifully. Check engine light is not on. I haven't been able to associate the hiccup with load, speed, temperature, or anything else. My mechanic has no idea what it could be, and it didn't misbehave when he drove it. What's going on?
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2001 1.8T ... using oil 500ml/100km
- Blowing smoke-intermittent
- Power loss-intermittent
Some jelly white stuff in oil may not be related... Service techs looking at turbo....
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I've been having a problem over the past month with my base 2014 Elantra (33k miles). Sometimes when I go to start the car there is a complete loss of electrical power. One of a couple of scenarios will occur:
1) Key Fob will not unlock/lock doors:
*There is no power to anything (no dash lights, interior lights, car won't crank).
2) Key Fob will unlock/lock doors:
* Either all interior lights will be on and when I attempt to crank everything shuts off (no dash lights, interior lights, etc)
* Or Clock and radio are reset, car starts fine
* The battery checks out as far as voltage/charge.
* There are no visible fuse issues.
* There are no check engine lights.
I have had it in the dealer the past 4 days and they haven't been able to reproduce the issue. So far I have been able to eventually get it to start by opening and shutting doors, which would lead me to believe it is a loose connection somewhere, but again the dealer hasn't been able to diagnose anything.
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2005 Taurus - 6cyl - 3L - 85K. 2nd post on this on. Have had this vehicle to 2 mechanics now and problem is still there. First mechanic checked the refrigerant pressures, added dye, couldn't find a leak. Told me that he had to add a small amount of R134 and the pressures were "spot on" but the problem was still happenning so he supposedly trouble-shot the system and found it to be electrical. He said that the controls on the dash were causing the problem and changed them. When I picked it up, everything worked fine for the first day. After that, the same thing happenned where it would intermittently work.
I took it back to another mechanic (who specializes in AC work) and he evacuated and recharged the system (also said that he added dye and couldn't find any leaks). When I questioned this, he said the pressures were low and that would cause the intermittent loss of the AC cooling. This time, it work for 2 days and then the same thing happened where it intermittently works. There is no pattern at all to it working. Sometimes it's when the car is first started ; sometimes it quits just driving down the highway ; and sometimes it quits for 5 minutes and then just comes back blowing ice cold air. I suggested the AC compressor clutch or coil to the 2nd mechanic and I'm not sure he even checked it. Does this "still" sound like a leak somewhere or more electrical ?
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My 01 VW Jetta with 181690 miles started having intermittent loss of power a year ago:
1) it never conks out;
2) it loses power on the highway at 70 or in town at 25;
3) engine is usually hot, about an hour into a trip, but now does it cold, too;
4) weather doesn't matter: dry or wet;
5) check engine light flashes while it happens
6) it feels like it's running out of gas but isn't.
Mechanics have tried the following: Note: every time I brought it in to be looked at, the symptoms above were happening :
1) March 2013: replaced coil pack and it ran fine until Sep;
2) Sep 2013: ran Dx on check engine light: "arching all over the place" so replace spark plug wires;
3) Dec 2013: got oil changed
4) Jan 2014: ran Dx and was told crack in piston;
5) Jan 2014: got second opinion and told wrong spark plugs were used (single electrode vs triple electrode)-replaced all spark plugs; got car inspected and had oil changed again as it was dirty;
6) Feb 2014 mechanic is stumped, but found an article about clean oil and changed the oil again. Oil was down almost a quart.
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I’m having an issue with my 2004 Hyundai Elantra cutting off, and what to check for next. Basically I have a very intermittent issue where the car seems to lose electrical power for a split second (or possibly total loss of gas – as in, it doesn’t seem to be misfiring, just seems to totally lose all power). If it happens when I first start the car up, the car will start up for a second and then cut off. It also happens randomly when driving at any speed, and when it happens while driving, it just goes out for a split second, and then cuts back on and I can keep driving, so the RPMs Rev up for a second as a result when it kicks back on, but then goes back to normal. But it is completely intermittent, as in, some days it will not do it at all on my 30-min drive to work. I even went a whole week without it happening. But this week it has come back. Some days it will do it 3 times, some days 20 times. Some days its hard to get my car started, because it keeps cutting off when I start it. But so far after I try around 5-10 times it will start up and keep going. Also, this may indicate nothing, but when it goes out for that split second, I can hear a click, or electrical sounding click coming from the dash/instrument panel area. Which is what makes it seem electrical in nature, but I could be wrong, could be a spark/gas thing.
This has been happening it seems no matter what the weather is outside (its been anywhere from the 20s to 60s here in the last few weeks) and it doesn’t seem to matter if the car is warmed up or not. Also, so far the check engine light has not come on, so it makes me think it might not be a sensor, since those will usually trigger the light when they start going bad. Also, when the car is running, it runs perfect. Idles perfect, drives perfect, no misfires, no hesitation, etc. The ONLY problem is it cutting out. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter if the fuel tank is full or half empty. I had read in one place that if the vapor recovery charcoal canister gets full of gas, it will vent liquid fuel instead of vapor, which can result in car cutting off or running rough, but this usually only happens when fuel tank is full. So I suppose it could be this, but I doubt it.The car has 180k miles. Iridium plugs have 60k on them. Wires have 60k on them. Original fuel pump and fuel filter. I wouldn’t think it would be the filter since when it runs it runs perfect. I guess could possibly be the pump having an intermittent issue. Trying to avoid replacing that for now unless I knew it was the problem.
What I’ve done so far:
•I made sure the battery cables are tight and clean at the connection
•I checked as many grounds as I could find, they all seem good
•Alternator puts out a perfect amount of voltage
•I swapped the ECU main relay and fuse with another relay and fuse in the fuse box that were identical
•I swapped the Fuel Pump relay with an identical one in the box
•I replaced the Crankshaft position sensor
•I cleaned the Mass Airflow sensor (though it looked spotless)
•I looked around for any vacuum hoses that were disconnected. Didn’t find any
•I’ve tried resetting the ECU (unplug battery for a while) and I thought that fixed it at first, but then it came back a few days later. And now resetting ECU seems to have no effect.
Some possibilities of what it could be:
•Fuel pump intermittent issue?
•Camshaft position sensor?
•ECU problem?
•Catalytic convertor going bad?
•Some other sensor going bad?
•Possibly the vapor recovery charcoal canister is full of fuel as described above
•ignition coils – but I doubt it since you’d usually get a misfire/engine light when those go bad (from experience)
•Fuel pressure regulator – but I doubt it, based on the symptoms. Seems like I’d have other symptoms.
I’m not convinced of any of these above, and some of them I wouldn’t know how to check (like for a bad ECU). What it might be? Getting nervous driving 75mph on the interstate with someone behind me and the car cutting out. Luckily so far it doesn’t cut completely off when I’m up to speed with someone behind me!
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I have a 2002 Jetta TDI Manuel. New to me from brother. While there are some issues I can deal with ....soft touch turned to goo, etc there is one thing I am worried about.
He said the lights(all electrics) will go out intermittently. Head lights, turn signals, radio, interior lights. He says the car runs fine while the electronics are out (except no headlights). Usually only happens for a few seconds but occasionally will last minutes. Longest it has happened is 10 minutes and the lights all come back on by themselves.
What could cause this and what needs to be done for fixing? He is a outboard mechanic and has kept the car up great, but he doesn't like to mess with wiring/electrics. I'm sure he has checked the basics.
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I'm experiencing intermittent steering loss only when I'm turning, left or right, on my 2004 Excursion. I was told it could be the outboard u-joints, so I've replaced them along with the ball joints. Still have the problem. For grins, in park I tried turning the steering wheel left and right, no issues. But when I applied the brake and tried turning the steering wheel, it felt like I had no power steering. Not every time.
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