Hey guys, is appreciate any help you can provide. I was sleeping in my car last night while I left it running, which I've done a million times before, and I woke up this morning to all of the lights on. And every so often the seatbelt light would blink and beep a few times. Turned the car off and turned it back on, same thing. Windows and windshield wipers would work but super sluggish. When I turned the headlights on the dash lights would dim. And when I pressed the brake the dash screen would go black until I released the brake. Put it in drive and nothing. No power steering, gas power wouldn't activate or anything. I was on E yesterday after work at 5 and put half a tank in so maybe I'm hoping that it was just bad gas? But honestly it sounds like some sort of hybrid system problem.. Idk what the deal is, and I'm terrified because my insurance literally expired a week ago. It's a 2013 Prius c. If you have any questions or advice anything would be welcome. Thanks in advance.
By any chance, did you accidentally leave the ignition in an accessory mode instead of READY? If so, then is seems likely that the engine could not start to recharge the traction battery and 12V, so the 12V battery ended up getting drained too far to boot up the car. Not relevant to this situation. And if you can still afford to pay it today, you ought to be within a grace period where it will be reinstated with no problem.
I'm pretty sure that I had the car on, but I could be wrong. Regardless, the car still turns on, but when I go to use anything, (headlights, brakes, windshield wipers), Its like it's draining too much power and it's like the gas engine isn't starting at all, which would charge the battery. I'm not sure at all what's going on honestly. I'm at work right now but I will try to sort some more stuff out when I get back.
I.e. the car only partly turns on, but is unable to fully turn on. The first order of business is to check out the 12V. Measure it if a voltmeter is available. Those symptoms suggests that it needs a recharge or jumpstart. This requires caution, as this is where many people have inflicted very expensive damage. A portable jump pack, if you can borrow one, will be much safer than jumping direct from another car. A 12V battery charger, left on for a while, is even better. The second order of business will probably be the charge on the traction battery. Hopefully it isn't drained too low to start the gasoline engine, but was protectively disconnected before it got that low. If the traction battery is not down to the minimum, then you do have something different going wrong. 'ON' is not good enough. It must also be 'READY'. All the other dash lights are lit up the same way, or very similarly, so it you don't look for the 'READY' indicator, you could easily fail to notice the difference. The easiest way to fail to go 'READY' when turning the car on, is to forget to have the brake pedal fully pressed down when starting up. E.g. you can start a standard automatic transmission car without your foot on the brake. But do that in a Prius, and you end up in the wrong mode.
