I'm hoping to spread the word and get my friend into a prius as he considers a new (used) car. Having owned a prius for a while, I can evaluate potential vehicles to purchase using my knowledge of wear and tear on my own vehicle. I can even access the service menu under auxiliary mode to check the state of the 12v battery while the inverter is not running. Is there any other information that reveals the condition of the car and its components that I can access through the service menu? It would be great to check the status of the HV battery and maybe if the airbags have ever deployed... One more thing...can I connect one of those inexpensive OBDII diagnostic tools to a prius? How can I access the fault log?
You can get a print-out from Toyota for all service that has been performed on the car. Not sure about access of the service menu. H
I believe you can only acess the service menu with a Prius that is equipped with Nav. I know my Gen.2 with pkg.2 you couldn't acess service menu. A scangage 2 might be a good investment. One thing to watch for when test driving a used Prius is to make sure the Hybrid battery state of charge doesn't fluctuate widly, that is a bad sign.
Scangauge - I guess there are less expensive OBD2 readers out there, but I will look into it! I can access the service menu and my prius doesn't have nav. SOC fluctuations. Check! Thanks.
