Heavy Traffic Draining Hybrid Battery

"In summer, just roll the windows down." I'm guessing you never spent a summer away from the West Coast. We should all be so lucky. A cool evening on the other side of the Rockies is 80 F with 70% humidity. ;-)

 

Even the West Coast gets hot. In July and August the Palm Springs average high is over 107* and the average low is over 75*. Over by the Colorado River it's even worse. In Needles, CA the averages are 107+* and 83*, respectively.

 

Squint?

 

Ok so here’s my question. My car used to get great mpg’s now all of a sudden my gas engine is constantly running. I cant even barely touch the throttle and hope for electric pull. This has been going on for about a month. It’s an 09 with 101,000 as of today. Prior to this i was getting approximately 470 miles to a tank. Now I’m not even getting 300. I cleaned my battery fan out and it helped my cars rpms drop. However get this. No check engine lights at all. I’m lost. Just lost. What’s going on?


iPad ?

 

Are you seeing your State of Charge on the Multi Function Display changing rapidly? I would suspect the hybrid battery is weakening with that drastic a change in MPG. Some loss of MPG is normal in extreme heat with the AC running constantly.

 

That’s what I was afraid of. No my screen went out two weeks ago and my local Toyota dealer keeps telling me its been ordered when it comes in they will call. So I cant see anything that’s going on.



iPad ?

 

You can't be certain until you actually start seeing trouble lights coming on while you are driving, but if you want to keep the car longer you might want to start inquiring about the Prolong Battery Conditioning system sold by a member here. (I can't post a link, the Search function in PriusChat doesn't seem to be working at the moment).

 

Your HV battery is showing signs of getting weak and unbalanced after a long hot summer. Since you're probably out of warranty, you should look into battery maintenance (grid charger) or eventual replacement options (new or rebuilt).

GOOD LUCK!