2000 Prius engine dies out... HELP!!!!

We're having problems with our 2000 Prius that only has 35Kmiles on it. Here's the story...
My wife's driving it to work down the highway and suddenly the MASTER WARNING LIGHTS go on. The gas engine dies and she limps off the road on the electric. When she pumped the accelerator the gas engine would kick in until the next stoplight. She moved the car an hour later and all the warning lights, etc. came on again. I got in the car a few minutes later an everything's runs perfectly for the drive down the highway to the Toyota dealership.
We had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM problem three months ago when the car was VERY low on gas -the dealer said that sometimes when the gas is very low the Master warning light gets tripped. It takes one or two starts afterwards for the computer(?) to reset itself. Since then it hasn't happened again and everthings been fine. This time the tank was 2/3rds full.
The Toyota dealer has told us that they think it's the "accelerator" and it will cost us $700 to fix as they don't think it is under warranty. WHAT THE...!!!!/!?!?!?!?!?

I have my doubts about their diagnosis. I think there's just some minor problem somewhere.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

If you actually have a 2000 model, this doesn't apply. That was the first generation.

Starting with the 2001 model, the second generation became available. A handful of those had an issue with the accelerator pedal. (Mine didn't.) Owners had them replaced under warranty. It was no big deal.

It should be covered until 60,000 miles. But since you are under the 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper coverage still, the dealer is clearly not doing his job.

JOHN
http://john1701a.com

I just had a similar thing happen to me a couple days ago. Driving on the freeway at 65 on a nice Indian summer day and every light, bell and whistle started going off as I suddenly lost power. I made my way over to the shoulder while realizing that the ICE had shut down. I was able to go a couple hundred yards uphill to a safe spot (luckily) and there I waited for the tow truck. The first couple times I tried to restart, after 15 minutes and a half hour, all the lights still came on. Then a half hour after that they didn't and the car seemed fine. Nonetheless, after reading the manual, I still had them tow the car to the dealer and check it out. After checking the error codes, the dealer told me that the car thought it had run out of gas, so it shut down! (It had about 3/4 of a tank). They recalibrated the ECU and told me that they had heard of no repeats after this was done. I will definitely keep you posted, because this seems like a HUGE safety issue to me, and I think Toyota should take it seriously. Good luck! -Paul

Test codes they found were:
P0A08--B2799--B1207--B1271--P3191

Thanks for your reply guys! We decided to go ahead with the repair that the Toyota Prius technician said was necessary (i.e. replacing the electronic throttle and sensor unit.) The original quote for the repair was a shocking $732 (Can) but they offered to cover 60% of that even though the part was "out of warranty." I am still skeptical of their diagnosis but as we haven't had any more problems this past month we'd like to think that this WAS actually the problem. Hearing about your Prius cutting out with 3/4 of a tank is making me wonder about it again. Most master warning light/engine cut out problems seem to occur with low fuel levels. Apparently the fuel level doesn't always have to be low for the engine to die! Hmmmmm.
Thanks for the error code info! Good luck with your Prius -hope everything has been fixed.
Dave M

I'm wondering if the new models sort of take this into consideration... a salesman today told my family that on the 2005 model, even if the car has NO gas in it, it will still run a short distance on the battery only (far enough -hopefully- to get to a fueling point). It almost sounds like this model has tried to "solve" this previous problem....