I have a 2001 Prius with 207K+ miles on it. Last week I had the main computer replaced, hoping to fix the ongoing 'dying' issues, but it did not work. Today I took it backand received two codes - one indicating the accelerator sensor, and one called code 3009 which is described as 'high voltage electrical leakage' which could cause bodily harm. The dealer basically told me the car is unsafe to drive, but fixing it will cost a lot of $$ because they don't know the cause and they will have to literally tear the car apart to find it. I need to know: is the car unsafe to drive; has anyone been through this before? I am tempted to get rid of the car ASAP, although I still owe money on it. I am not excited about buying another Toyota given their inability to actually fix the car. I find that appalling - basically they say 'we can try this and charge you a lot of $$ but we can't guarantee it will fix the problem.'. Insights? Experience? Advice?
That's a lot of miles and, as Gal said, this seems fairly straight forward....there's a 'short' of some sort. If your dealer is uncomfortable find another. But yea, I'd assume the car is unsafe until proven otherwise. Call Toyota Customer Care, they tend to be pretty helpful on these uncommon Prius related problems as they like to keep track see what's going wrong and do things to prevent them in the future. Did you have the recall done for the battery electrodes? Was everything OK then? Have they looked for corrosion on the battery? I wouldn't put down to one dealer's service dept. a blanket 'anti-Toyota' bent. 207k miles is pretty good on any car to start with. And, you'll find the same degree, or worse, incompetance in other brands service deptartments as well. You need to specificially ask them what they've checked specifically asking about battery corrosion or damage to the HV cables.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Sep 9 2006, 10:23 AM) [snapback]316943[/snapback]</div> ah, good point. it's not that often that a mechanic will tell you a car isn't safe to drive... mainly just in serious conditions.