i got this prius for free from my sister 2 years ago. i did a few infrequent 100-300mile trips the next 6 months. then it sat idle for most of another 6months. the next following six months i took it on a long road trip and half way through the trip the battery completely failed on me and i replaced it, and then i would let it sit for weeks at a time and each start up, it would need a jump. i didnt drive it the past six months and now the 11-13 month old battery is at 1.5v the only troubles i know this car has is a bad infotainment screen ...can that cause problems that utterly kill the expensive AGM battery?!?! ugghhhh, i just wanna sell this car but i imagine that will be difficult with a dead flat battery.
my next question! will jump starting the car and driving it with the low 12v battery cause computer issues? i put the battery on a trickle charger and it will only stay up to about 9-10v and quickly drops once the trickle charger is removed. i imagine when the car is running, the system will also only run at about 9.5v and this will probably cause tons of computer issues, ya/na? i think my best bet is to buy a used $75 battery from pick n pull and throw it in the trunk (probably wont fit in battery slot) sell car and tell them that i recommend they replace the battery. does anyone know what size battery i need to purchase as well as any wire-adaptors i may need to purchase? also when i noticed the car wont jumpstart from the terminals under the hood, but will jump start fine if you connect to the difficult-to-access battery terminals in the trunk ...whats up with that?
Oh it'll be very difficult because it's an old Prius owned by somebody that doesn't know much about owning a Prius and so on . So disconnecting the battery was never even thought of ever? That's quite interesting I would think trying to sell the car wouldn't even come on your radar . Maybe donate to PBS . That sort a thing . because certainly selling vehicles powersports equipment and the like sounds like twill be problematic for ya.
Your driving pattern is not conducive to keeping the 12 V battery in good health. With the time frames you mentioned, it probably is impacting the large hybrid vehicle battery in the back, as well. If you are not able to use this car as a daily driver, or at least do 20 or 30 miles every 2-3 days, then you really should consider selling it. If you want to hang onto it, then you need to drive it at least 50 miles once every 2-3 months and hook it up to an automatic multi-stage 12 V battery charger (that has an AGM setting) to keep the 12 V battery healthy. If you are intent on selling it, then yes, definitely put in a new AGM battery. You will just have to chalk it up to experience. It's worth thinking about.
Yeah but I've got multi lugs in the back now so I can plug up anything I want back there if it fit tray I'm out . Noco copies of now less than 100 . Motorcycle batteries work well like a 30 .and on n on . It's just your lack of connections it keeps you from doing anything back there quickly once figured out . Than you can have any 12V ya want . And have lots of options and costs
can you recommend a multi-lug connector? also i assume the car's electronics wont run properly with a dead 12v battery (even though alternator is putting out 14v) is this assumption correct?
Pretty much correct . Or you have system on tender . Get it ready . Drive to get new 12V. I just use heavy lugged eyelets made by old company called copper cast. The eyes get you to most electrical terminals in use today in most anything.
Your Prius does not have an alternator. It has a DC to DC converter that is located inside the inverter assembly. It takes high voltage from the hybrid battery and reduces the voltage down to 14.1 to 13.2 volts. If the DC to DC converter is working properly and the car is READY, the car's electronics that are connected to the 12v system in the car will work properly. If fact, you can disconnect the 12v battery, and the car will run properly until you turn it off.
If you conduct that experiment in a gen 2, depending on how you disconnect the 12v battery, you might or might not get a trouble code about the remote charge-voltage sensing.
i called the battery shop and they said theyll replace the 10month old battery for me "just bring it in." ??!! its an industrial battery shop. only problem is the shop is 550miles away and oh dang my buddy just drove out there and back a week ago. i guess ima take a nice little vacation. well the battery has been on and off a 2amp trickle charger for a few hours at a time for a couple days now. i just disconnected it and it was reading 11.9v. i suppose if i can get it holding a 12.0-12.5v charge it should be good to drive up there, ya? alternatively, i was thinking i could slap in the smallish battery from my old ford ranger, and use a "multi-lug connector" to haul my battery up there for replacement. could i instead utilize one these walmart products without damaging my wiring harness? also one of these quick disconnects would have been nice to keep on the battery. i left the battery in for my dad/sister to move the car around when need be, but i guess they never needed to, doh
Do you have a jump pack? You could use that to start the car (as long as the 12V doesn't have a hard short in it, in which case excitement may ensue) and then once in READY the car will just keep going until you turn it off. If you have to stop, which presumably you will unless you came with a 2 liter capacity bladder, just jump start it again to keep going. All that said, if you get to the shop, and they test the battery, they may say it is good. Electronic testers, even the Medtronics ones, are not good at determining how many Ah an AGM battery has. Use a DTL150 or something similar to actually measure the Ah capacity at C/20. Technically it has to be run all the way down to find the full capacity, but that isn't a great idea even on a good battery, as the full discharge will damage it, and this one is already having problems. You might try discharging it from fully charged (12.8V - ish, with no surface charge) at a constant 2.25A for two hours with a safety set for 12.0V. Then let it recover open circuit for an hour. See how far the battery voltage has fallen. Look at posts 14 and 17 in this thread IV discharge curves for a working Prius 12V battery? | PriusChat the 2 hour curves for a bad battery (14) and a new good one (17). Note that at the end the bad one was at 12.35V and the good one at 12.7V. (The DTL150 does not log those data points, the voltages were taken manually using a DVM and the temperatures with an IR thermometer on the battery.)
