2004 Prius Transmission Or Battery Problem?!

April 14, 2014

Wondering if anyone would be able to identify the problem that I am having with my 2004 Prius.

As I was driving earlier today the car suddenly lost power. It still
drove down the block but when i pushed on the gas pedal it would not
accelerate. I parked the car, turned it off and turned it back on and
the car still had trouble accelerating. I drove the car back down the
street to my house and as I was pulling into my drive it lost all
acceleration.

When I turn the car on now, all of the lights on the dashboard light up,
but the engine doesn't seem to turn on. It seems as if its in some sort
of emergency shut down, and the car wont move at all.

Would this be a transmission or Battery problem? The car has 170k miles
and I have never experienced any problems like this before. I'd like to
get some input as to what the problem might be before I Shell out
$300-400 to get it towed to a dealership and have they look at it.

Here is a picture of my dashboard:

April 14, 2014

As odd as it may seem, it could be the auxiliary 12V Battery, If you have a volt meter, take a measurement across the 12V Battery posts and let us know what voltage you see. You can measure on either the Battery itself (in the back right guard) or use the jump-start point in the engine bay. (Consult your owner manual, if you don't know where it is.)

After this put the car in ACC mode (by pressing the start button twice with your foot OFF the brake) and measure the voltage again Let us know what this voltage is too. Next, have someone put the headlights on and observe whether the voltage is steady or drops, and if drops at what rate does it drop. If the voltage drops below 10 volts, stop testing.

Finally, put the car in READY mode (press the start button once more WITH your foot ON the brake), measure the voltage again and let us know this voltage. Leave the car in ready mode for 10-15 mins so the battery can recover from this testing.

Let us know how you get on.

HTH

April 14, 2014

Check the 12v as above. Also double check that you've got some petrol in! The picture isn't clear and I'm not familiar with a LHD dash, but if you've run out of petrol the car will run on electric only at reduced power. As there is no running engine to charge the Battery up, the Battery will run totally flat and the car will stop.

If you have run out of fuel and run the HV Battery totally flat you MAY be lucky and get the main dealers to charge it back up again. You'll need at least 10 litres for it to register. It has been reported that running the HV battery totally flat can cause permanent damge to it.

The car has a fuel gauge, it has a 'miles remaining' gauge, it beeps when you get to about 10 litres and flashes to bottom bar at you. If you ignore or don't notice all of those, then what more can a manufacturer do?