2007 prius loses power. Red triangle, ((!)) And VSC lights are displayed. I pull over, turn car off, wait about 10 minutes, turn car back on, drives fine with red triangle only light on. Park at my house overnight. In the morning....no lights car drives fine. Happens about twice a week. Cannot keep losing power! Too dangerous. What can be causing this?Mechanic says he cannot diagnosis problem without lights being on, so by the time I get it to him the lights are off.
"Your mechanic" doesn't have to correct tools then. A copy of Techstream would be the official way of doing it, but a $10 bluetooth adapter and a phone work just as well. You need to read the codes. When the lights go off, the codes are stored historically. Most probable causes for lack of power that fixes itself is inverter overheating. This problem is commonly caused by a failed or blocked or empty inverter coolant pump. It could be anything and without codes it's all guessing. But that's where I would start. Open the hood with the car in READY and check for fluid movement in the inverter coolant reservoir.
You probably have a failed inverter pump. That's been a common failure on these cars after 100k miles
My prius does the exact same thing. Have taken it to 5 mechanics and none have been able to help me. Just as I am ready to give up and buy another vehicle, the red triangle, the (!), and the VSC lights turn off and it drives fine. Should I give up on this car?
I saw that advice some time ago and I checked the pump for movement. There was movement and I also told the mechanics to check the inverter pump, but they always responded that the car was fine. I sought out hybrid mechanics who said that they could read the codes and even my local Toyota dealership failed to solve the problem.
