My friend's son cleaned the fan on my 2011 Prius yesterday, and everything seemed to be fine. But this morning when I went to start the car, I got the Check Hybrid System light, and am unable to do anything with the car other than have it in park or neutral. I am unable to perform any maintenance on it myself, and of course having a friend's son work on it - even though he knows cars really well - seems stupid in retrospect, so I don't think I want him to look at it again. I can't get a hold of him to find out what may have gone wrong, so am posting here. KEY QUESTION: would people here take it to a mechanic or dealer, or...? I am wondering if this is some sort of simple fix and what to do about it. Again, I've looked at YouTube videos and checked the forum here for answers to this question before posting but any solutions are just confusing to me. Also couldn't find anything in the manual about this. Any advice is welcome!
Start by having him retrace his steps Many forget to plug all the wiring connections back together And ask him if he removed the orange safety plug from the hybrid battery as a safety precaution, That usually doesn’t get put back correctly, tell him to follow the YouTube process
I'm not sure about the Check Hybrid System message, but the shifter not being able to go out of Park or Neutral are definite signs of a discharged 12V battery. It is likely your son's friend spent a considerable amount of time with the rear passenger door open and ran down the battery. Definitely ask him about the orange safety plug, but if he regularly works on cars, he almost certainly has a multi-meter to check the voltage on the 12V. Hopefully he also has a battery charger that can bring it back to a normal charge (>12.5V or so).
UPDATE: A happy ending! I REALLY appreciate the advice I got here! My friend's son came back and apparently, he didn't plug the safety in correctly. The car now works fine. I really appreciate you all encouraging me to just have him come back. Very helpful! Thanks again!
