Parasitic aux battery drain

obd2 device. Pretty commonly installed by an insurance company to lower rates.

 

Yep, used and new car dealerships install them. Makes it easier for loan companies to repossess the car. They often fail to turn-off and remain a constant draw on a system.

 

It's not clear to me if it was actually plugged into the obdc port or if it was just in the general area.
I thought the obdc port would power down after a while.

 

There's an active fused wire that goes back to the battery - that's why 3nd party accessory installers' go after it.

 

Thanks. The OBDLinkMX+ adapter I just got says it has a battery saver mode that consumes 2mA.
Would that be too much to be kept plugged in all the time?

 

Almost all accessories say they they have low shutdown currents and they do until they don't.

2-10ma extra is ok. It is always important to have a 12v battery with 75-100% of its new capacity since normal parasitic draws will kill a low capacity battery in a week, sometimes in an hour. I had one fail to Ready the car following a thirty minute drive and a 15 minute shopping stop.

Because a hybrid has no 12v starter motor, normal early warning signs of a discharged battery do not occur.

Carrying an easily accessible (not hiding in the hatch area) lithium jump pack is the best way to avoid stranding. Assuming the drivers know how to use it under the hood at the special jump point.

Now that most of Toyota car's are going hybrid only, many novices will learn these lessons the hard way.

 

Just a reminder for those snow birds; you need to take that jump pack indoors with you. They won't work at or below freezing.

So ya' hiding it in the hatch; ain't going to cut it. It would just be an expensive anchor. I've got two very old jump packs in my garage. Replaced the gel cell in each of them. The oldest one twice. One of them get tossed into the trunk on road trips; after a quick check.

 

I’ve got a Clore Jump-N-Carry 660 (JNC660), with an aging battery, and a bit of a quandary:

So, buy a conplete new one for $207~, or just replace the battery, for $248~…to be fair, there are third party batteries, much cheaper, but I suspect for “reasons”:

 

Back in the day cars had built in voltmeters. Luckily this is by far the easiest instrument to add to any car. There are combination voltmeter, ammeter, USB port devices which plug into the power port below the dash and cost around $10-$20. On Amazon look up B01N00I4TM, for instance. It won't normally show the 12V resting voltage, because there is no power to that port when the car is off, but it will be close to it (around .2V lower) in ACC mode (power button pressed once without foot on brake). The same information can be had on the MFD, but only after a series of magic motions to reach the special menu. When devices are plugged into the USB ports it will show how much current each is using. If the charging system gets wonky the aberrant voltages will be shown. I don't know if the inverter ever fails like that on a Prius, but alternators do on other cars. So if one day I look over and see 15V on its display I'm going to be turning the car off before the high voltage fries the 12V battery. (My mother once had a car that ate 3 batteries one after the other. At the third one her mechanic finally got around to testing the alternator, and it was putting out 18V.)

 

Yea; don't buy from the vendor. Those are 'off the shelf' batteries and usually has better specs. than original in the same configuration. I didn't pay more than $30 for mine - But that was before tariffs. Mine has a pump built into it; so it's a nice all in one.
I don't know if you have battery+ stores up there. You can drag that old battery in an they'll give you the current specs. n options for better specs batteries in the same package configuration. I've been getting 8+ years out of those old gel cells. Don't switch to lithium, your old charger wasn't designed for that. You can buy a lithium jump pack during Amazon Prime days. Don't have a clue what the life cycle of those are.

YMMV