battery ran down

The intermittent red flash is the immobilizer system.

I have seen this occur when the car is left running, shifted to Neutral.

The Power button eventually trips to its illuminated orange state, and many of the dashboard lights start flashing, indicating the 12V battery is low on charge.

When you leave the car parked overnight, do you shift to "N", press "Park", or just shut it off via the "Power" button?

 

When you power down the car it automatically goes to Park. The flashing light is an alarm but is not the issue. Interior lights left on can run the battery down and usually are the issue. Those lights run on a 12v battery that is half the size of a normal car battery.

Most likely the rear hatch was not closed all the way or one of the map lights or vanity lights was left on.

The rear hatch sometimes looks like it is closed but it is not. If you try to lock the car with the hatch open it will beep to warn you. If you don't lock it (like when in a garage) no warning. It is possible to turn that light off where it does not operate with the hatch or replace the bulb with a led. I did both, switched the hatch light off (very little light anyway) and replaced with an led (which would allow it to run longer without killing the 12v battery).

The map and vanity lights have an auto (center) position where they will go off automatically. However if you manually turn them on at the light, they will stay on and can run the battery down. So you have to be aware of this if you or your passenger use those lights.

A portable battery booster will start the car in these situations but you have to get one and keep it with the car. Also you have to know how to correctly hook it up to the engine compartment fuse box connection points, a process that is not obvious and should be tried before you need it. There is information in the manual and a couple of good youtube videos demonstrating how to jump it. The booster types that "start" a car through a cigarette lighter connection will not work as those connections are off when the car is off.

Finally on my 2012 v3 with Display Audio, checking the 12v voltage in realtime: Prius v Display Audio Service Menu w Battery Check | PriusChat

 

'when you park the car, don't leave it in park'. now, i think i've heard everything.

now that your battery has died, you're going to have to watch it's health. time to buy a charger and voltmeter, or battery.

 

The key is shutting it off via the Power button. If left "on" in "N" it will kill the battery.

 

I agree, with a little correction - leaving car in "N" for a long time will kill BOTH 12-V and Hybrid batteries. The car will beep at you and show red triangle if you try. But it can be done. So ALWAYS shut down the car using "Power" button before leaving it.

- Alex

 

The road service tech's advice can't be found in the manual because he is wrong. Ignore him, obey the manual instead.

I strongly suggest paying attention to Rjparker's comments above about interior lights that could be left on, draining the battery overnight. I'm susceptible to that, so changed all the potential battery-killing lights to low current LEDs. This extends the time to discover the problem by 5X-10X, more than enough to survive overnight.

They all have this. It indicates that the immobilizer has been activated, preventing thieves from hotwiring the car. The battery should be able to power it for months.

 

Everybody has kind of tap-danced around the likely real problem which IS.......the dealership likely abused the battery by letting it go flat repeatedly and now you are paying the price.

This is likely to re-occur again and again until you get a new, fully charged battery.
That will require a warranty visit AND a resolve to NOT accept "no trouble found" as a good answer.

 

Agree

 

The fact that a 2014 was apparently sold as late as January 2015 lends credence to that possibility.

Besides interior lights left on, and the hatch not being fully latched, another trap to watch out for is any door not fully latched. Even with all lights off, that will kill the battery about as fast as a dome light. (I already made that mistake once.)

 

Let's take a vote, just for grins.
Who here thinks that will make any difference to anything ??
I sure don't.

 

Their logic is impeccable, though - put your foot on the brake to start the car, take it off to stop it.

 

I had the interior lights suddenly come on while I was driving. It turned out the rear latch wasn't completely closed and a speed-bump caused it to open slightly. I'm sure it could also happen when it's parked.

 

There is a warning when the door or hatch is left open. But you have to try to lock it. Dealer discharge is not the most credible as many of these batteries have been discharged multiple times and are still running years later. My 08 is seven years old with the original 12v battery and has been discharged at least three times. Toyota has an excellent charge controller algorithm.

The brake, park, and or neutral things are laughable, I would avoid anyone at the dealer who told you this in the future. Obviously it not a good idea to forget to shutoff the car and it is worse to forget to shut it off and leave it in neutral.

What you will find out is that the average guy here knows more about your car than almost any Toyota salesman and many, many of their service advisers.

 

My Prius arrived from the dealership with a bad battery. It went dead after 10-15 mins in acc-mode. The salesman said it had gone dead "dozens of times" in the showroom, due to the doors being left open and such. I asked them to test the battery, they said it failed, and they replaced it.

The Prius is a good car for you. You don't need to know much of anything to drive it. Just be careful not to leave anything electrical turned on for very long.

Most of us will look for the cheapest replacement battery once the factory one fails. There is a difference between how a good battery and a cheap one handles going dead. The cheap one may be damaged beyond repair, and the good one may be damaged only slightly. However, I can say with certainty that my factory Toyota battery was in bad shape on arrival.

 

Any dealer who's stupid enough to leave the 12v battery connected in a showroom car doesn't deserve your business.

 

My dealer is the least-stupid I have ever dealt with. However, taking the battery out of a showroom car to preserve it seems a bit more-stupid in my opinion. Customers are less likely to be impressed by a car that won't turn on or start. I've seen battery-maintainers attached to other showroom cars, but I wouldn't hold it against my dealer for not doing it in my case.