Hi everyone! I've owned my 04 Prius since it was new and it just passed the 90K mark without a lick of trouble. Until today. As I was leaving an appointment and turned on the air conditioner, I noticed it was blowing tepid air all of a sudden. (It had been working fine up to that point.) Then I proceeded to get on the freeway and about 2 miles down the road, both the Master Warning Light and the Malfunction Indicator Lamp came on. I pulled over, call the extended car roadside assistance and had it towed to the dealership, but of course they won't be able to look at it until sometime tomorrow. I am sure this could be a million things --- but does anyone happen to have any ideas based on the A/C behavior shortly before it happened? The car was running fine as usual and I never would have known there was an issue had it not been for the lights. Also, I did have the oil changed and new tires and an alignment done this past Monday. For what it's worth, could any of that (possibly someone did something wrong?) have any bearing on this issue?
The A/C being all electric pulls a lot of amps, most probably the inverter coolant pump stopped working, and the inverter stopped putting out enough amps to run the A/c at the higher temps, then it got hot enough to set off the warning lights. Amazingly this car to my knowledge doesn't set off the warning light immediately when the inverter pump isn't working, at least that's my experience.
Thank you so much! You were right! It was the inverter pump and was covered under my extended warranty --- yay! Blue Belle is back on the road with her happy driver and looking forward to the next 90K miles.
