Prius Battery Died, Display is gone

Strange.
Hybrid battery was ok, (with 2+ bars?) so the battery "died" is the auxiliar, I presume.
Did you run a few miles to a full cycle and the problem persists?

 

I'm gonna pop out and check my car now. Been off work ill for the last week and it's been -10c (14f) on a night so am a little worried the 12v might be taking a hammering.

Bit of a worry that your car is only 18 months old and having 12v issues.

 

We just lost the 12v battery in my wife's 1.5 year old Cube. Load tested at 7 volts. Luckily it died in the driveway and not on her out of town daily commute. Don't get me started (pun not intended) on Nissan's battery warranty.

 

Several of us have had display problems - I lost the left side of mine, someone else lost the right side of theirs. You could have 2 different problems or the weak dashlights was just a red herring and your battery was ok, just down, and it's really a display malfunction. My dealership hadn't seen the display problem before. Their initial thought was that it had to be user error but after checking it out they replaced the board that controls the display.

 

If you're lucky it's just a dead battery. You can easily test it yourself with this procedure:
http://priuschat.com/forums/newbie-forum/73400-weird-stuff-happening-mpgs-dropping-test-battery.html

 

WOW! I've got the same problem! Wednesday, last week, I went out to the garage and got into the 2010 Prius (only 8 months old) and only 4100 miles on it and it would not start. The dash lights were dim and when I pushed the button to start, the lights got a little brighter and never did get a Ready. A few day before that, it did the exact same thing and I held the button in for about 10 seconds and the Ready displayed, I drove it that day and made several stops and had no problems. However, Wednesday I never did get ready. I called the dealership and they had the car towed (flatbed) to the dealership. They worked on it most of the day and when I talked to them Thursday late afternoon, they could not figure out what the issue was, they did say the left dash lights are on, but the right are not. Friday they called and said they had it up and running but would like to keep it over the weekend to see if it would start Monday morning. They still could not figure out why it would not start. Well, today is Monday and they call to let me know that the exact same thing happened again. They said it possibly is the battery or something is draining the battery. They had to order a battery and will put that in tomorrow, so here is hoping it is the battery and this fixes the issue. I will keep you posted on what happens next.

 

WOW! I've got the same problem! Wednesday, last week, I went out to the garage and got into the 2010 Prius (only 8 months old) and only 4100 miles on it and it would not start. The dash lights were dim and when I pushed the button to start, the lights got a little brighter and never did get a Ready. A few day before that, it did the exact same thing and I held the button in for about 10 seconds and the Ready displayed, I drove it that day and made several stops and had no problems. However, Wednesday I never did get ready. I called the dealership and they had the car towed (flatbed) to the dealership. They worked on it most of the day and when I talked to them Thursday late afternoon, they could not figure out what the issue was, they did say the left dash lights are on, but the right are not. Friday they called and said they had it up and running but would like to keep it over the weekend to see if it would start Monday morning. They still could not figure out why it would not start. Well, today is Monday and they call to let me know that the exact same thing happened again. They said it possibly is the battery or something is draining the battery. They had to order a battery and will put that in tomorrow, so here is hoping it is the battery and this fixes the issue. I will keep you posted on what happens next.

 

Slovewell, it's not gonna happen so don't waste your time at the dealer. They will look at your dash & if they see everything they will say "Can't reproduce the problem. Come back when it doesn't work." They will check the voltage on the 12v battery. If it is within spec they will do nothing. If it really isn't holding a charge the only option is another Toyota battery. If this were the case you'd have experienced more problems by now.

 

I lost the right side of my display last December as we were driving back to New Mexico for Christmas. I've heard of several other instances of this problem so there does seem to be an issue of infant mortality.

In my case, the failure was not related to to any sort of battery problem. We just started the car and the display was dead.

We had the dealer in Santa Fe look at it but there was no way to get the replacement part in time. So we had our dealer handle it when we got home. It took a month to get a replacement part -- apparently due to the fact that almost all production of the part was allocated to construction of new Priuses. Eventually, the part did come in and the dealer did the replacement under warrantee. No big deal except for the hassle of having to go to the dealer more than once and having to deal with the loss of the speedometer for a month Thankfully, as we had ScanGauge, we had redundant instrumentation available.

 

Hmm, the battery in my '73 Pinto lasts on average 8 years. Go figure! Then again, the car will explode if you slam the hatch with too much force.

Wondering if there's some sort of current drain when it's powered down. Hope y'all can get it figured out and advise what the problem was.

 

Just have it replaced under the warranty. Toyota TrueStart batteries made by Johnson Controls that you will get under the warranty are of much higher quality than the OEM Made in Japan Toyota batteries that come with the car. I also don't like the LED indicators on the OEM Toyota batteries, which are truly unnecessary and yet they constantly drain the battery.

If your warranty has expired (older Toyotas), I would recommend the EverStart Maxx batteries (also made by Johnson Controls) sold at Wal-Mart.

 

So it might actually be a fault with the battery? That's actually very good news.

And I just learned something new about the LED power indicators. Surely that's not the current drain which is causing batteries to go flat?

 

An LED could draw about 100 mA or more. That's 0.1 Amp or more. Battery capacity is around 100 Amp-hours. So, in principle it could drain a battery within 1000 hours, which is six weeks, or less.

It's also the battery construction. OEM Toyota batteries don't have as high quality of construction as better batteries sold in US (Wal-Mart EverStart Maxx, Sears DieHard, Interstate, etc.) or the replacement Toyota TrueStart batteries sold at the dealers.

 

Does the car have auto on/off headlights? In my SC430, leaving the headlights in the 'auto' position for an extended period can drain the battery.

Also I'm wondering about the security system. I drive my car only once every few weeks and make sure to leave the alarm off.

Just thinking about little things that can add up and drain the battery more quickly than we'd think. But it does seem odd that the right half of the dash display went off. Is that a sign of impending 12v battery failure or some sort of low voltage condition in the Prius? I wonder.

 

OK, I picked up my Pirus this evening and they informed me that they had to replace the 12 volt battery. No charge of course since it was under warranty. Drove the care home and appears to be fine, won't know for sure, but plan on just letting it sit for 2 or 3 days and see if it really is fixed or have to have to towed to the dealership again. Anyway, I will keep you posted in the next couple of day to let you know whether it is truly fix and it was the 12 volt battery that caused car not to start.

 

The replacement battery I bought from Liberty Toyota for my 2006 lasted ~6 weeks before it was replaced under warranty.

 

Was it Toyota TrueStart or True2? True2 batteries are of low quality.

You also need to pay attention to the manufacturing date of the new battery before you purchase it. If it was manufactured more than a few months ago, it's as bad as an old battery. Once the battery loses it charge, the electrodes start getting corroded and crystals from the electrolyte deposit on the electrodes, which greatly decreases the life of the battery.

 

Most LEDs have a max forward current of ~30mA (meaning that if you design your circuit to allow more than 30mA continuously through the LED, it will tend to get very bright for a short period of time then get very dark for a very long period of time.)

But there is no good reason to design so close to the limit. Depending on the color, most LEDs are adequately bright with a forward current of 10-20mA. Most engineers will tend to design for the lower end of this range.