[hbark]

2004 Prius, about 7K miles. About 5 minutes after leaving work, a bunch of dash lights came on, and acceleration was lost. Coasted to the side of the road. Couldn't even turn the power off. Nothing happened when I pressed the accelerator.

Gas tank was full. Sorry I can't remember the exact lights that came on. Plus the upper left of the navigation screen had some red display symbol.

Called AAA (if this ever happens to you, call the Toyota Roadside Assistance thing, I never even thought of that, duh...).

While waiting the 45 min. or so for the tow guy, I tried starting again, and it started up. Seemed to be able to drive, but I didn't want to take the risk. At least I could sit there with the A/C on and not melt. I was actually able to drive it up on the flatbed towtruck. All those warning lights were still on.

Got to the dealer. Backed the car off the truck and into a space, dash warning lights were still on. Turned it off. A mechanic happened by, asked what's up, I told him, he said "do you have gas" and I said yeah, I just filled it up a couple days ago, here let me show you. I turned it on, and voila no crazy dash lights show up! WTF! He says the computer stores all that info, though.

I'll give an update when they tell me what happened.

Of course, I got there past 7pm, and there were no rental cars left.... what a pain.

Trying not to get too upset about this....

 

[Justice]

A mechanic happened by, asked what's up, I told him, he said "do you have gas" and I said yeah, I just filled it up a couple days ago, here let me show you. I turned it on, and voila no crazy dash lights show up! WTF!

Not to make light of your situation... but what you have described seems to always happen to me (no matter what car I am driving).

i.e. I hear a loud thump as I am driving a light comes on, smoke bellows into the air. It stays this way for a couple of weeks, then the very day I take it into the mechanic everything goes back to normal three blocks away from the repair shop. It is almost as if the car knew it was in deep kimchi.

 

[Jonnycat26]

2004 Prius, about 7K miles. About 5 minutes after leaving work, a bunch of dash lights came on, and acceleration was lost. Coasted to the side of the road. Couldn't even turn the power off. Nothing happened when I pressed the accelerator.

Sheer curiosity... may or may not be related... but had it rained recently?

 

[hbark]

Sheer curiosity... may or may not be related... but had it rained recently?

It rained a lot over this past weekend, but not past Sunday morning. But, I wasn't out driving during the heavy rain period.

 

[Jonnycat26]

Sheer curiosity... may or may not be related... but had it rained recently?

It rained a lot over this past weekend, but not past Sunday morning. But, I wasn't out driving during the heavy rain period.

A lot of failures like yours... I had one very similar... are caused by water getting into the car's internals. Apparently a piece of insulation doesn't hold up all that well. You may want to grep on "M5 connector" and search for prius died type threads on this forum.

In my case, they had to replace the inverter. 2800 more miles later and I have not had an issue.

 

[hudel]

Prius venerable to rain and/or dampness

Prius venerable to rain and/or dampness

It seems about 80% of this sudden death syndrome have a common thread of rain...

My money is with Jonnycat26's suspicion

I'll bet Toyota does a "recall" about wiring before the end of the year...

:roll:

 

[BIF]

Cross fingers....

It has been raining nearly every day the past couple of weeks what with Tropical Storm/Hurricane Alex off the coast.

No problems here. My Prius probably thinks it's a boat by now!

EDIT: I wish you luck, and hope you get it fixed quickly.

 

[hbark]

Status update

Day 1 -- and probably to no one's surprise -- nothing found yet. Since the service wasn't scheduled, they didn't even bring it in until after 1 pm. No rental cars available. What a pain.

Stay tuned for day 2.

 

[jamarimutt]

I will definitely stay tuned.

Check posts in this forum and in priuschat.com; what hapened to you has happened to several other 2004 Prius owners.

 

[stevesol]

Is this the issue that the latest recall covers? I heard that it had to do with moisture insulation around the engine compartment...

 

[hbark]

Prius Resurrected Today

Well I picked the car up today.

They recovered the codes or something from the car's computer. Uploaded them to the master Toyota computer in the sky. Toyota identified this in some service bulletin (which, I guess means it happened before), and downloaded the software or whatever to the local Toyota dealer. They updated my car's computer, checked everything out, etc. That whole computer process, they say, took like 8 hours.

The invoice (zero cost, of course) says, for all tech weenies:

INSTALL SCAN TOOL AND FOUND CODES P3191 AND P0A0F RE=PROGRAM ENG. ECU AS PER BULL. EG027-04.

End of story. Hopefully forever.

 

[Rich D.]

That's interesting. I wonder if I should request the latest revision of software when I take mine in for its first oil change. I've had to update my DVD's software and also an HDTV tuner. More bug fixes. :wink:

Nice forum, by the way.

 

[kerlyn]

My 2004 Prius died yesterday

I Googled "prius warning lights" and was led to this forum. My experience was almost identical to hbark's. Several warning lights, car "died", power off/on cleared some but not all. Still had master alarm (red triangle w/ "!"), engine check, and red icon on LCD this AM after car sat all night in my driveway. Gassed up this AM before dropping car off at dealer's and that cleared remaining warnings!?

It was not raining yesterday but it was a 90+/90+ day here in MA.

Waiting to hear from dealer.

-K-

 

[bairkurt]

EG027-024

Similar experience - My brother-in-law was driving the car (04 prius, 10k mi, no previous trouble at all, no recent rain) when he got the M.I.L, check engine, and hybrid system warnings, simultaneous with loss of power. I was able to "limp home" (official Toyota terminlogy) on electric power - about 1 mile away. Next day, no warning lights at all, car drove fine to dealer. Service manager said that if the lights had cleared, no codes would be in the computer. She suggested that high octane fuel, 10W oil, or a loose gas cap could be the culprit. I drove it for 2 weeks with no problems and had them check for codes when it was in for the 10k service.

Lo and behold, there were codes that led them to perform the EG027-04 repair. This is a reprogramming of the Engine ECU that needs to be done after or in conjunction with the SSC 40D reprogram of the Hybrid ECU and Battery ECU. The affected cars were produced prior to VIN # JTDKB2#U#40076912. My car's VIN ends with 17684 and was delivered in November 2003.

 

[inventor00]

Same thing happened as bairkurt - all warning lights came on, battery drained, was able to get off freeway. Waited 2 hours for Toyota emergency service and gave up. Car warning lights went out, so drove home, then to dealer next day.

Dealer did computer upgrade from verision 1xx to 2xx per
Technical Bulletin:

REPROGRAM E.C.M AS PER BULLETIN EG027-04
Which they said takes 24 hours to do by the way. They then have to drive it 15 miles to test everything.

Now "Fanny" is home.. Hope it does not die again...hard to get to work that way, especially with a 6 month old car.
Also Vin is before VIN # JTDKB2#U#40076912 (got car in Feb 2004), so it fits.

 

[kerlyn]

Update to "My 2004 Prius died..."

Here's an update to the message I posted on 2004-08-30. I failed to mention that I took delivery of my Prius in July. The dealer informed me that my car had already been programmed up to EG027-04 level. Nevertheless, they disconnected the battery and reprogrammed the engine controller again. I have not had a reoccurrance.

They did see the "engine failed to start" diagnostic code stored in the car's memory, but I was told that wasn't sufficient to diagnose the cause of the fault. Unless you have a light on when you drive to the dealer, they can't find the problem.

The only news that was somewhat comforting was an explanation of why the "VSC" indicator came on; apparently when there's a master fault the car automatically shuts down the VSC.

 

[palo alto pinto]

I had same problem same diagnosis, and a repeat performance. After reprogramming, everything is okay, but Toyota wanted to buy the car back from me. I let them (lack of confidence).
Lesson learned: The toyota roadside assistance number is not found easily in the owner manual (especially at night, emergency) but I found it the next next day ON THE WINDOW!. By the way, this sticker does not exist on the other model Toyotas, a fact that doesn't inspire confidence.
Mark

 

[zinzindorff9]

Mark, These are an entirely new breed and not many would sell at all without the tremendous warranty program. The 2004 has had three years of testing by successfull previous owners and we can only hope the "bugs" have been worked out. They have been "priced right" at the factory and the company has certainly been standing behind them. Toyota is in the "car" business and they are not stupid so my guess would be that you would find the Prius certainly as reliable as a Camry. Because of the "MFD" I think a lot of folks look at them as "toys"

 

[SkipHuffman]

I had same problem same diagnosis, and a repeat performance. After reprogramming, everything is okay, but Toyota wanted to buy the car back from me. I let them (lack of confidence).
Lesson learned: The toyota roadside assistance number is not found easily in the owner manual (especially at night, emergency) but I found it the next next day ON THE WINDOW!. By the way, this sticker does not exist on the other model Toyotas, a fact that doesn't inspire confidence.
Mark

My roadside assistance numbers are in a separate book and a card in the documentation packet.