I have a 2013 Prius with ~85k miles on it. I recently towed it using a 2-wheel tow dolly (only front 2 wheels on dolly) for a move. The drive was ~360 miles. During the drive, the tow dolly's left wheel popped and had to be replaced roadside. After getting my car off the dolly, I found that my 12v battery had died during the tow. When I jumped the car to get it started again, I had my VSC light and a few other lights stuck on. Then I realized that I needed to replace the 12v because it was fully dead and had never been replaced. Got that replaced (left the old battery unplugged for ~3hrs during the process) and all of the lights turned off except for the VSC. Now the VSC light is still stuck on and I can't figure out what the issue could be. I also tried resetting it by entering maintenance mode, but no dice. Now trying to see if I can figure out what the cause could be before dropping ~$200 at a mechanic to figure out the issue. Any ideas?
I wouldn't say dropping $200 out of mechanic to figure out the issue would necessarily be a good thing because the cost of the repair could be problematic and if the diagnosis isn't proper and you have to pay for this stuff it gets silly really quickly. You don't have access to tech the Toyota software do you work with a garage that you've been to or used before that has a good bi-directional scanner a u t e l is one company that comes to mind there are others they look like tablets and they plug up to the car with the OBD2 cable and they can communicate both ways they can bleed brakes and talk to the cars 21 computers or whatever it is these days and make sense of it all That's the kind of scanning you need and then the person doing the scanning needs to have a relatively good head on their shoulders in order not to be one of those people that just jumps to conclusions and it's a fine balance actually The VSC light is your vehicle skid control light so right now does it seem to hard to get to 55 mph you feel a jitterinesss in the car trying to reach speeds You won't notice it much at lower speeds but trying to get to citywide highway speeds of like 50 55 it'll feel like the car is trying to slow down even buck a little bit It's not a happy camper You can do this by having an incorrect tire size on the car. Generally it's not going to hurt you or the passengers or cause you any strife other than what you're feeling right now if that in fact is happening so getting the codes red and seeing maybe you damage the wheel sensor on I would guess the front of the vehicle when whatever happened with the tow dolly happened It is possible something to certainly be looking at as it's just a 10 mm bolt holding a piece of plastic in that looks at a tone ring if you will while you're at it check the other side it could be some dirt or crap on the end of the sensor something that simple you'd feel foolish paying five or $600 for somebody to fix that when you see how fast this takes with regular junky hand tools that most people might have in a drawer in the garage of the carport maybe not..
Take the car to a local auto parts store that will read trouble codes for free. Then come back and report what trouble codes were found.
