Left the headlights on...car won't turn

yes, take it in. they might try to charge it and give it back to you if it passes. if not, they should give you a new one.
i would not tow it in unless i had to. call them and ask.

 

The Prius doesn't take much battery power to start the car. But you have to be careful.

 

A dead battery is more likely to freeze. How likely depends on how dead it is.
Other than that, cold will actually prevent some of the damage from sitting in a discharged state.

The best "fix" for this problem is to leave a small charger connected at the jump points for 12-24 hours to be sure the battery is fully charged again. Just normal driving might not bring it back to "full" for days or weeks.

 

that's what i did with my daughter's '08 the other night when it was dead. in the morning (6 degrees) it started fine, and she was able to drive it to the mechanic for replacement.

 

Erin, hopefully everything turned out OK this morning so turn this into a learning experience and get a small jump pack to leave in the car. Powered by a small but powerful LiOn battery that periodically needs a refresh charge (topping off), it will have enough juice to immediately "boot up" the Prius and allow the big hybrid battery to crank start the gasoline engine. Even in a worst case scenario and allowed to lose most of its charge (it would take months), you could quickly refresh the jump pack in a few minutes from any wall plug before starting the car.

For use in the Prius, you don't need one promising to crank-start an F250 diesel as that is overkill; it only needs to provide 12 volts to get the computers back online and open the HV battery contacts. Once started, you'll want to leave the car on for a long period (30 min.) to allow it enough time to charge the 12v back to normal levels. If safe and secure, you can simply just leave the car on and in Park to do this. Non-hybrids typically need to be driven to get the charging system up to the 14v region but anytime the Prius is on (ready mode) it is putting out 14ish volts to the little 12v battery. Note: don't use accessory mode; must be in ready mode!

automotive jump pack - Google Search

 

Well yes and no. I would recommend to get a smart charger, 4 amp range hook it up and let it run to completion.

 

I've used a couple of CTEK's: the 3300 and the 4.3. Prices have gone up on them, it's a bit surprising. I use the 4.3 primarily now, but the 3300 is cheaper/simpler, and perfectly fine.

 

One good choice. But not to be confused with the cheap junk that Harbor Freight sells under the CEN-TEK brand name.

Also Battery Tender brand. Schumacher from WalMart.
Any brand name that you recognize from an auto parts store; Die Hard comes to mind.

A good automatic charger with 2 to 4 amp capacity should be priced from $20 to $30 or so.

 

I bought two of these (one for in the garage, and one in the house to trickle-charge the various 12V packs I have laying around)
from Sears: (DieHard 6V/12V Battery Charger & Maintainer 28.71219) - I bought them back in the fall in a sale for ~$20 each. I have one of the pig-tails permanently wired into the fuse-box of my 2009 Gen II Prius so that it can be plugged in every time the car is in the garage! Here's a picture of the pig-tail:



Ooops , I meant to post this one (…shows location where it's wired in!)

 

Thank you for the suggestions Mendel. I just ordered a 4.3 - been meaning to get a decent smaller fully automatic charger - guess I could call it a late Christmas present to myself - (although the 2015 four in the driveway is a somewhat bigger Christmas present, more on that in a later post)

 

Does the later post come complete with pics?

 

I'll start a new thread with the whole story