Just got my 2006 up and running. Only light is the tpms. I replaced sensors but still on. Went out to drive it and started up. Had to run back in the house for about a minute then returned. All dash lights were illuminated, abs, traction, check engine, triangle etc. car backed up but would not go into drive. Put in N and coasted back to park. When push start w/o brake, the MFD comes on and looks normal. Then when pushed with brake, briefly says “problem” then shows car in red. Will shift into N but that’s all. Update: unplugged all batteries and sat all night. Then opened up the dash and unplugged/replugged connectors and all is working, except gas gauge is blinking. Any ideas? Here is a before pic and after. I hate to leave the house and get stranded. Was lucky to be home
Btw has a new 12v battery and was showing 12.47v during the issue. Hybrid was replaced in not too distant past. Is there a central ECU/ECM on these cars, maybe under the dash?
There are multiple ECUs in the car, about a dozen in a Gen 2. Generic scan tools don't know how to get trouble codes from all of them. That leads to the most common time-waster phrase always written on PriusChat, "shows no codes". If there are warning lights on the dash and the scan tool being used says there are no codes, that scan tool doesn't make the grade. One way to make progress is to read trouble codes by the jumper-and-light-blink method, which gets any scan tool out of the picture. Disadvantage of that is not all ECUs in the car play the light-blink game, so it won't give you codes from the ones that don't. But the brake/skid ECU definitely does, so if you have any of the ABS, VSC, or ((!)) lights on, you can at least count blinks to get the codes from those, and then you know more than you did. Those can be posted here while working on improving the scan tool situation to get any other codes that might be present. Naturally, when the warning lights come on, you do want to collect the trouble codes before unhooking the battery or doing anything else that causes them to be lost.
The blinking gas gauge is normal due to the 12v battery being disconnected. It will recalibrate itself and indicate normally after a while. 5 minutes to 5 hours to 5 days. It seems to vary.
I really appreciate you taking time to reply with some great info. The only other strange issue I’ve observed is a clicking sound under the dashboard somewhere near the combo meter. It sounds like a computer hard drive when a pc is booting up and is random. I took the dash loose and ran a tube under there to listen but couldn’t find it. Doesn’t sound like under the hood or the coolant I’m or brake booster.
Just from your description of the sound, I'd be willing to bet that's one of the HVAC servos, common issue, easy to fix when there's nothing else of higher priority. But I'd say your "car won't move, all dash lights on" is probably higher priority and you'd be happy to deal with the HVAC servo at a later time.
Thanks for replying! You are exactly right...I got in the floorboard and looked up and could see one of the servos attempting to move a damper. I tried to "help" it and apparently broke off the plastic rod going into the air vent. So I guess now I'll have to replace the servo and the damper. It appears there are 2 dampers there, a lower and one right above it. It's the second one up that broke.
FYI came home and all was working fine. so I put it back together. I left off this pigtail that was "spliced" in between the harness and the MFD. Not sure what it's for but everything still seems to be working. Image of the spliced in wiring harness (with the little circuit board) is attached
You are in for an unenviable slog. What normally happens with those servos is not that anything mechanical needs help, but only that the sensor that reports back the current position starts to send a wavering signal, so the computer thinks the thing is moving off position, and keeps trying to position it back. Generally nothing more is needed than cleaning up the contact surface inside the servo, as that linked post describes, a job of mere minutes. However, if something of the linkage or damper is now damaged mechanically and needs replacement, that will be the whole laborious out-with-the-instrument-panel procedure.
Yay, can't wait! Thanks for the reply. I had to do this on my wife's Jeep Commander when the evaporator core started leaking. Fun times ahead!
That looks like some kind of aftermarket widget. If it plugged inline to the MFD I would wonder if it is an add-on for the audio system. Cut off the covering on the circuit board and you might be able to pull numbers from the chips. (maybe a bluetooth interface?) If you have warning lights on the dash then you need a scantool capable of communicating with all modules on your prius to find any codes. Many here use a mini VCI cable with a (pirated) copy of Techstream from amazon or ebay and is installed on an old windows laptop. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Yes that is what I was thinking also. I found another one on the back of the non functional DVD player and just removed it as well. Thanks for the info!
