Anyone using Prolong for a long time?

I believe @jerrymildred has had his a while. @jeff652 can probably provide some testimonials too.

 

We're coming up on three years soon with the ancient Prolong charger. Used it on the '05 for a little over two years before trading it in for other reasons. I did a grid charge 2-3 times a year. Never saw any degradation. It had 150,000 when we traded it. The other '05 didn't last that long. Was running great till a bone head hit us in the back end doing 60+ when we were doing zero at a traffic light. It's a shame, at 176,000 miles, that one was even better than the other one. The '07 my wife drives now just got a battery with cells from a '15 due to a failure of one cell and my desire to make sure her car is as reliable as possible. This was not caused by the grid charger, but a result of heat, age, and a mistake on my part.

How long does it take before the battery starts to weaken? That's like asking how long does iron take to start rusting. It starts immediately. It's just a question of how weak it gets before you feel like you need to do something about it. I never felt like my batteries were weakening, but did notice a very slight performance and 1-2 mpg mileage boost after each reconditioning every 3-6 months. I will say that putting in a battery that's only two or (at most) three years old with only 18k miles on it seemed to make a more serious improvement. But I have no empirical data to quantify that feeling.

 

So you are not using it on your 2013? Is your charger relegated to the pile of gadgets not used?

 

Jerry, are there any figures (or general consensus) on the real life impact of the Florida heat on the traction battery, compared to cooler areas?

 

It's not possible to use it on a PiP. Or a Prime. Or most of the Gen 4s since they have different battery chemistries and/or voltages. But I'm keeping it for the day when my wife's '07 with the '15 battery needs it. I reinstalled the cable with the replacement battery.

 

Hopefully not for a long time.

Were you on the light bulbs or upgrade to the Intelligent system?

 

Mostly, I was just keeping it healthy. I never felt like it was loosing any oomph, but seemed to notice a slight boost after a session with the charger. Very minor, though, because the batteries were so healthy.

The mistake I made was not waiting after the final charge before driving it. It was about 95 degrees outside and I was in a big hurry and just jumped in it & drove off. Went about 4 or 5 minutes and then threw the code. Gory details here: Augh!! P3000, P0A80, P3021, C1259 on an '07 | PriusChat

Re getting rear ended. We were pretty OK. Wife needed some neck therapy. She got an expensive ride to the ER. A friend took me to the ER after the tow truck finished, just to be safe, but I was fine. I had seen that the guy wasn't stopping and got my foot onto the gas, but we were barely moving. The guy was in a 2000 Jeep Cherokee and there were no skid marks. It was a battering ram. It even bent our traction battery. EMTs said they expected to find dead people. He knocked us about a hundred feet, I'd guess. I have one picture here on post #6. I thought I had a thread on it with lots of pictures, but I'm apparently not using the right search terms. Saving what I can from a Crashed and Total Vehicle | PriusChat

None that I know of. But it's generally accepted and observed that heat is tough on batteries. For example, 12V car batteries last 2-3 years down here. But Toyota works hard to keep the batteries cool. It's up to us, though, to try not to bake them too much when not driving. I try to park in the shade, always use the cover in the back, and have an edge to edge sun screen for the windshield to try to keep interior temperatures under the boiling point.

 

Why not use it like a regular oil change?

 

Light bulb. A pain, but I'm poor. Also, I got it long before he had the automatic setup.

No need for it at this point, afaik. She's getting 49+ mpg with mostly short trips and no hypermiling effort. I occasionally take it for a spin to see how it is and get 50-60. That may change in a couple years.

 

I'm pretty sure @jeff652 was going away from the light bulbs for several reasons.

Go bulbless.

 

I originally bought the LightBulb version, but it was a bit of a PIA, so eventually I sprung for the original IntelligentDischarger (much easier, just set and forget!). I would recommend anyone with the LightBulb version to invest in an Extension Cord (ask @jeff652 ) so that the lightbulbs can be placed outside the car since they get quite hot! - hope this helps - Wil

 

Isn't the extension cord known as the Wil Davis special?

 

Er, um… …nope! I think you must be thinking of the alarm fitted on the latest IntelChargers (mutable) - I asked Jeff to devise a way of telling users that the discharge had completed.

Actually I persuaded Jeff to make me the extension cord, even though I could have built my own, however HA use really great aircraft-quality components and I wanted it to be done made good!

 

That's right. But I have it muted so I don't get the benefit of the alert.

But the Intelligent Discharger stops at the desired voltage, just doesn't stay there.

So no babysitting like the bulbs require.

 

I (and others) have noticed the voltage does a "Dead Cat Bounce" after the discharge stops (…to about 192V ) which I was concerned over, however @jeff652 says it was OK, and normal behaviour!

 

Same observation here.

What got me the first time was the wonky charging after a discharge where it bounces wildly until 203 volts is achieved.

Normal as well .

 

Thanks. It was amazing.

The bulbs take almost constant attention. I think I will be saving up for the intelligent discharger when we reach the point where we need to recondition the battery again. You can go to the bathroom, or do some reading (or both!), but make sure you check it often till you get a feel for the rate of discharge. And the lower the state of charge, the faster it drops, so you have to keep changing to lower wattage bulbs.

Same as you and @Raytheeagle. I wasn't alarmed, though. I knew batteries tend to bounce, but it was rather interesting to observe on a battery that big. You can sometimes see the same effect with trying to start a gasser with a nearly dead battery. Sometimes you turn on the headlights for a few seconds, turn them off, and you MIGHT get enough bounce to start the engine if it's in really good tune.