Living at the top of the mountain with one bar at shut down

If I were you I would start saving for a replacement battery. I would also not try to recharge the battery at idle. It will recharge when you go down hill.

 

The battery has lasted far longer than its design lifetime so it could die at any moment, whether it is turned off with one bar of SOC or more. I wouldn't worry about it, just get ready to replace the battery when it dies.

 

Not much concern about the one bar state. That is actually indicating about 40% of total battery capacity. Toyota was very conservative in using the battery range, as evidenced by getting 300K miles from it. It does not allow over or under charging under normal circumstances. But.... I suspect that you will be needing a new battery pack before too long. If you see the indicator going from one bar to all green and back at shorter and shorter intervals, and you start to hear the battery cooling fan in the rear running at max, then the writing is on the wall.

Read up on all that can be done to keep the car running a lot longer: change transaxle ATF, coolants, clean air filters, clean the battery cooling fan....

 

Wow...you got the wrrrrrooooonnnngggg car for that terrain. PLEASE tell me you don't drag it up the Rockies through the Eisenhower tunnel to get to ski country, Sterling or Love's....

 

Hi Travis, that's not really necessary. It would be much kinder to it to allow it to idle for a minute or so before you start to drive the next day.

The large change in elevation where you live could be fairly punishing on the old HV battery, and actually the descent more so than the ascent. Can you tell us roughly how many miles that 2000' ascent is over.

Also, do you notice all 8 green bars on the battery when you drive it down to Denver (at the point when you stop and park it), or is some of the charge used up by then (like at 7 or less bars)? This is actually more important to the battery's health than parking it at home on 0ne bar. (That is. If you can, try to avoid parking it in hot weather at full 8 green bars).

 

Ok, since your commute starts out downhill there's not much point warming up then. I start out with some uphills and it punishes the battery a bit if the engine is stone cold (as it tries to use the EV as much as possible until the engine is warmed for one minute - even though the engine is running it still tries to use battery power!). So I warm up for one minute and it makes things easier on the battery.

If you have to accelerate briskly then warm the engine, otherwise I wouldn't bother if it's downhill. The engine will run anyway for the first minute or so.

When you're coming home you want to preserve the SOC (state of charge) as much as possible, so warm the engine for 40 to 60 seconds if it's been sitting long enough to cool down. A warm engine stops the SOC rapidly depleting in first few minutes after start up. This is not a minor effect, it is very noticeable and a very important technique for preserving battery charge!

On your ascent, start with the engine warm and try to get a feel for how much power it will allow you to take without draining the SOC too much. Look at the the arrows going in/out of the battery graphic (on the energy monitor display). With the engine running, green arrows in means excess engine power is charging the battery, and orange arrows out means battery power is being drawn to supplement engine power. You might be able to adjust your speed/acceleration profile to limit the amount that the battery discharges. If this is possible then it's likely to reduce strain on the battery and boost your MPG somewhat. Often this can be achieved (at least to some extent) by increasing speed as much as possible before the steeper hills and letting the speed drop a bit during the climbs (getting a run-up as it were).

 

I just took my 2006 Prius (86,000 miles) in to Toyota dealer in Lakewood, because I felt my HV battery was going bad. He said about the same thing - that the Prius was not made for mountain driving. That mountain driving depletes the battery down, and charges it up, much farther (to more extremes) than it was ever intended to do.

I wish they had told me that when I bought the car! (I already know it's not made for snow, unless you get really good snow tires. )

I drive a part of I-70 in my daily commute: I go from home at 9300' (near Black Hawk) through Central City, pick up I-70 at the bottom of Floyd Hill and go to work at 7300' (Genesse). I used to get 40+ mpg, now it's down to less than 36 (in the summer).

What's worse is the battery fills up and gets depleted 10 times faster than it used to. I used to start up Floyd Hill with a full charge and get to the top with the battery gauge depleted but still doing over 70 MPH. Now it's slows down to 60 MPH or less before I get halfway up, and I can barely pass the semis creeping slowly up the hill.

I saw similar things happening when we went up I-70 over to Vail and Glenwood Springs a few weeks ago.

So I take it in for service, and they tell me they can't do anything because there are no "computer codes" showing anything is wrong! Then I checked the warranty and I noticed how convenient it was that they "can't find anything wrong", even when they test drive it, when I only have less than 8 months left on the hybrid system warranty! After that, it will be the $2600 plus labor!

Did read right that I might be able to buy a used HV battery for $500? Then can I just plug it in myself, or do I have to get someone to install for me?

 

I don't mean to throw the thread off track but I must say this had me rolling at dinner! Gotta say that's a great philosophy. I want to frame it and hang it by my workstation.

LG-AS695 ? 2