VSC indicator on dry pavement

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by dipstick22, Nov 23, 2024.

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  1. dipstick22

    dipstick22 Junior Member

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    My 2008 Prius is a few hundred miles from 300,000. Last night, driving on dry pavement at about 55 mph, perfect driving conditions, the car started vibrating, VSC light came on for 2-3 seconds, then went off, but the vibration continued for another few seconds (maybe 10 at most). Then back to normal. My son-in-law had the car for a few months and reported that it had happened to him, but this is the first time I've seen it myself.
    1. What is causing this?
    2. What is the correction?
    3. Is it dangerous to continue driving the car?
    Thanks.
     
    #1 dipstick22, Nov 23, 2024
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    He'd probably have to look at the freeze frame data and see what the skid control mechanism is reporting He probably have to have the scanner hooked up while this was happening or try to make the problem repeat itself a bad hub which would think would have a code. A bad wheel bearing vibrating enough causing the sensor inside the wheel to report poorly when it's vibrating something along those lines.
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Nov 23, 2024
  3. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Freeze frames usually go with trouble codes; if the VSC just thought it was doing what it's built to do and didn't set a trouble code, there probably isn't a freeze frame in that sense.

    Gen 3, I know, has an "ABS History" screen you can look at in Techstream, shows what all the sensor inputs were the most recent 4 times either ABS or VSC was active. Kind of like freeze frames but for normal operation instead of a trouble code.

    But I don't remember if gen 2 had that.
     
    #3 ChapmanF, Nov 24, 2024
  4. dipstick22

    dipstick22 Junior Member

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    I forgot to mention that I did NOT get a check engine light. We have talked about giving this car to our daughter who drives 2 children in booster seats in the rear. I know that a 300,000 mile car is, by definition, a bit of a reliability risk. My biggest concern is safety. The car did not swerve or become unsteerable. The whole episode lasted about 10-15 seconds. I doubt that I can recreate it at will. Any suggestions? Frankly, I have low confidence that the Toyota dealer would be of any use.
     
    #4 dipstick22, Nov 24, 2024
  5. dipstick22

    dipstick22 Junior Member

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    ChapmanF - you and I have chatted before in this forum. I am trying to decide if the Prius is worth trying to "save" or just let it go. Is there an opportunity for a direct chat?
     
    #5 dipstick22, Nov 25, 2024
  6. dipstick22

    dipstick22 Junior Member

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    Re-opening this after some time away for family matters. I rolled the Prius over 300,000. It is not generating any check engine codes, but the gas engine is definitely running rough. A while back, I saw a code for a misfire on cylinder 1 (that is from memory). The other day, the VSC light came on briefly, right in the middle of what felt like several misfires in a row on the gas engine. Then the misfires stopped and VSC light went off. No engine check light.

    Based on this, I'm planning on doing a tune-up soon. I'm pretty sure it is way overdue (like 150,000 miles overdue).

    QUESTION: Would using some fuel injector cleaner be a good idea before the tune-up? If so, what kind?
     
    #6 dipstick22, May 4, 2025 at 2:33 PM
  7. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Some years ago we had a thing going where we would send a set of injectors for restoration, to a facility that would clean them on a bench (piping in a strong injector cleaner and operating the injectors in an ultrasonic bath) and restore them with new caps and O rings and such, and report their before-and-after test performance. Then we could send the restored ones to someone who had old ones to send to the restorer to keep the thing going.

    Often people would have tried running in-tank injector cleaning products before trying this, and the overall impression from the way the before-after-test results came out seemed to suggest that the bench restoration was very effective but the in-tank products didn't seem to do much, at least not to improve injectors that were bad. Maybe they're more effective at keeping good ones from going bad.

    But another thing we found was that something like two out of three sets sent in for restoration were not bad at all on the before-test. It seems to be quite possible for these injectors to go lots of miles without problems.
     
    #7 ChapmanF, May 4, 2025 at 3:41 PM
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