My wife’s birthday is Monday and while out buying her presents the dash of our Prius lights up like a christmas tree, and a very unhapy looking icon shows up on the information display.  It reminded me of the Sad Mac that apple computers used to display.  Then, the car lost all power.  Fortunatly, I wasn’t in traffic where this would create a hazard.  I pulled over and tried to restart the car a few times, to no avail.  After about 10 minutes, the car started, and I drove it into a parking lot.  I waited some more, and after a succesful start, drove another mile.  This stop and go behaivor continued for another 30 minutes.  I finaly ended up at a gas station, and called my home teacher.  While waiting for him to arrive, I pulled out my blackberry and found an article written by some great mechanics that said that said filling the car up with Gas fixed the problem.  Now, the problem isn’t that the car is out of gas, just that for some reason, the Prius’s Bladder type tank (I think we all have extrapolated that it’s due to the bladder at least) is preventing the engine from getting the last quarter tank of gas.  So even though my car still had a gallon of gas, and the gauge said 1/4 tank, the engine wasn’t getting fuel.

My home teacher arrived with 2 other friends and a big truck to help me get the car home, fortunatly, once I filled it up, everything seemed to work fine.  Unhoooking the auxillary battery and re-connecting it cleared the “Triangle of Death” (not to mention our programmed radio stations   ).  I am a little concerned still, as the main screen flickered on and off and the classic hybrid “clunk” noise was made repeatedly when the car wouldn’t go, but I am just going to hope it’s all ok and rack those things up to side affects to an uncommon state in a complex system.

It was a HUGE relief to read the article about other people having the same problem.  The owners manual calls the light the “Hybrid System Warning Light”, and says that it indicates a problem with the motor (I assumed electric motor), inverter, or some other fancy part.  So, when I saw the light an image of a large sum of money leaving my bank flashed before my eyes…  I just figured something this smart, with an integrated touch screen, wouldn’t flash this scary looking icon, and stop engine power unless something was seriously wrong…  I guess I need to remember that while Toyota engineer’s may walk on water they still can’t make a car run without gas.

Tags: Cars, Prius