AHH! Love affair with prius over?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by ca-prius, Mar 17, 2006.

  1. ca-prius

    ca-prius New Member

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    I have been getting around 44mpg on my 2001 Prius. I was in love.

    It was on our trip back from Seattle to SF, that my husband and I noticed the huge triangular warning sign come on. It was so scary, we immediately pulled off the road and checked into a hotel. The next morning when we drove it in to the local Toyota dealership, the nice man there told us to fill our tank (it was on 2 bars). Sure enough, the light went off after this. HUH?

    When we got home, we decided to drive our Prius in for the battery recall, we didn't want to encounter any more complications! However, soon after that the mileage seemed to slip down to 36.6 mpg and the huge triangle warning light seems to keep coming on and off intermittantly!

    We again took it into the Toyota dealership, however, they couldn't get the light on to diagnose the issue.

    I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.

    Thanks!!
     
    #1 ca-prius, Mar 17, 2006
  2. aaf709

    aaf709 Ravenpaw of ThunderClan

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    Wild guess.....bad gas cap. I understand if the cap isn't on right you'll get an error message. By filling the tank it was put on correctly, but can't stay that way.
     
    #2 aaf709, Mar 17, 2006
  3. Sufferin' Prius Envy

    Sufferin' Prius Envy Platinum Member

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    Good candidate.
    As part of the Smog Check program in California, one of the tests done is a vacuum seal check of the gas cap. You could see if a Smog Check station will test only the gas cap for you to see if it has gone bad.
     
    #3 Sufferin' Prius Envy, Mar 17, 2006
  4. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    No... bad gas cap will only trigger the check engine light. Red triangle is a hybrid system malfunction.
     
    #4 Jonnycat26, Mar 17, 2006
  5. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    the red triangle is the master warning light. is it possible to let your mechanic drive your car for a day or 2, to see if he can reproduce the problem? my DH is driving a different car every other day since he gets the "intermittent problem diagnosis" tickets at work... but he nails down 99% of the weird, infrequent problems that way. sometimes even after a few days it will still be on its best behavior but most of the time... they catch it.
     
    #5 galaxee, Mar 17, 2006
  6. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Gotta see those diagnostic trouble codes. I won't make my usual guess because the problem occurred while in motion, not a cold morning startup.
     
    #6 tochatihu, Mar 17, 2006
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