Gen 2 Prius - Dark Dashboard Repair
Overview
Gen 2 Priuses (2004-2009) have this tendency to just go dark after a while. Don’t panic! Your Prius is still functioning just fine in the background. Is this the act of a vengeful god, finally enacting retribution in a cruel and unusual way? Eh, probably not. Sadly, the reality is much more mundane – just a few electrical components failing in a circuit board called a combination meter.
How do we fix it?
By replacing the combo meter. Here’s a pic of yours truly, in the flesh. Or… whatever the circuit board equivalent of flesh is. The components that fail on the combo meter are exactly 3 capacitors and a chip. We replace your board with a refurbished board with all 4 components with new and beefed up versions of their originals, since Toyota skimped on the original design a little bit.
How it works
Since the combo meter has to be programmed for your specific car, we’ll need your VIN and mileage. The VIN can be found in a number of places (see picture), but most commonly it’s found in your driver’s door jamb. The mileage, ironically, can be read off the dashboard. Most broken combo meters work intermittently, so when yours comes back on, go ahead and write down the mileage. Doesn’t have to be exact. Afterall, these are 20-year old cars. A few hundred or even thousand miles is not going to make or break anything. Go ahead and send me the VIN and mileage and i’ll get your combo ordered. Once ordered it’ll take 4-5 days to arrive.
If you’re close-by, I charge $325 to do the replacement. However, if you request that I come to you and you are far away, I may tack on $50-150 depending on how far away you are and whether or not I’m already in the area for some other reason.