Best Way To Open Car When The 12V Battery Is Dead?

More commonly I've seen, not insulation on one jaw (which would be kind of weird), but shiny copper teeth in both jaws, only where if you look closely, only on one side are the teeth connected to the cable.

That has to be the side in contact with the metal tab in the fusebox.

But there are lots of threads about electrical jumping of a Prius. What this thread's about is the OP's driver door, where the mechanical key doesn't mechanically unlock the door. It's been a couple weeks with no updates from the OP on that issue.

 

I haven't had the need to work on the locks in our '13 V wagon, so I don't have any first-hand experience with the locks on this car, but I have some experience with locks and actuators on other vehicles. You say the dealer replaced the "locks" under warranty. Was it the actuators or the key cylinders?
If it was the actuators, it could be possible they put the wrong actuator in the driver's door. Many times the driver's door is the "master" actuator that all the others follow. For instance, there would be no provision for a key-unlock on a rear door actuator (or maybe not even on a passenger door actuator -- I'm not sure, and can't check our car because my wife has it at work)

Just a thought.

 

I realize that jumper cables often only run the wire to one side of the jaw. My big cables won't make any contact with the little tab, but our other set (bought specifically for Prius) will fit, although you still need to check to make sure the jaw on the tab is touching on the "wire" side. To make life even easier for next time, I bought a small lithium booster/jumper pack that has nice small jaws AND are build so both sides of the jaw are connected to the wire.

 

The Prius v has an air vent duct near the 12v battery that goes out and under the rear of the car. The vent should stay closed unless air is vented out. You can think about wiring a charger cable (with a diode to prevent shorts). The problem is the vent ducts may stay open permanently and that could allow bugs and dust from the outside going in.



As for me I installed a charger port inside the right light cover door.

 

Actually some chargers won't charge if there is no voltage because it's blocked by the diode. So a diode may not work for some chargers. Alternative is to just keep the cable cover sealed and waterproof.

 

Just looking at this fresh...

why not

1. open the driver's door with the mechanical key,
2. connect a "memory retainer" to the OBDII socket (providing 12v power)
3. use the power to open the liftgate the normal way

Seems like a good off-label use for a cheap memory saver tool.

 

The op claimed the mechanical key did not work without power which is normally not true. But in his case the mechanical linkage or the cut of the key may have been bad. For the rest of us who have tried the key ahead of time, a normal jump or jump box at the fuse box would work if the user knows it takes a couple tries to initiate the computers.

 

Concur with all of this. Was gonna comment, then saw the intitial post was some time back. Was the mechanical key missing or something?? Didn't read the whole thread.

It might take more oomph than a 9 volt battery the cheapies use?

I have a Clore JNC660 jump pack (old school with a fairly skookum battery inside) which has a cig lighter socket. I plug a Clore Solar ESA30 memory saver cable between that and the OBD port. Something like that would work well.

One wrinkle for my setup though, if it was me with the dead battery: I've got the jump pack and memory saver cable stored in the tray under the hatch floor.

 

Not likely a memory saver would allow the hatch motor to operate to say nothing of initializing powered down cpus. A jump pack would work if the user realized the cpus require initiation time.

 

Well the $20 one from walmart looks like it can deliver at least a few amps, and it's going straight to B+... so even if it isn't enough juice to do the hatch-popping, it stands a chance of being accumulated in the 12v battery so you could try again later. The walmart offering terminates in a car lighter plug, and the kit includes a matching socket with spring clips that could go on a pretty good variety of batteries.

That ought to work nicely with most jump packs and loose batteries. Way more power than the 9v type.

 

The roadster has single point failure hood cable pull and trunk lid lock. Some rig an emergency cable loop front and rear to open each compartment. A front loop would work with the Prius to provide physical access to the under hood jump points. Likewise a rear loop for the trunk lid lock.