Battery level change?

i got my prius on January 2. The battery level indicator almost always had mostly blue bars. It didn't change much, it was about 2 bars less than full. Sometimes it would go down a bar but that's about it. Once in a while it would completely fillled with green bars.

I read posts in this forum that said it's normal for the battery charge indicator to go lower than more than half filled with blue bars, but mine never did.

After I had the car about a month and a half, i took it to the car wash by my office. There was no line, i was first, and only one car behind me. They took my number and said they would call me when it was ready. My office is next door, i went back to the office and got busy.

About an hour later, i figured my car would be ready, and they probably forgot to call. I walked over and found that the guy was just bringing my wet car out of the wash tunnel and had not yet begun wiping it off. I was annoyed about this, i didn't know why they would take so long, they never had before.

I went back to my office, got very busy, then an hour later, i went to get my car. It was done and parked. I got in and drove down the alley to the parking structure for my office, and was shocked to see the battery charge indicator was at one purple bar. I didn't even know they had purple.

I couldn't find anything in the user manual about it. I called a dealer, my agency that i had gone to before. I told the service guy what happened and asked whether that was a serious problem, and if it was about to go dead. He was very abrupt and said i would just have to bring the car in. I asked a couple of questions to see if i could just get an idea of what those bars meant, but he continued to be abrupt and impatient, and insisted i would have to bring the car in. I realize this probably means he has no clue what the bars mean on a Prius.

I then called the Toyota customer service number to ask for tech support on this issue. I got a rep who was very very nice, friendly, and said that the reps were not able to provide any technical information, but could refer me to a dealer. I explained that the man i talked to on the phone would not give me any information or even talk to me, just saying i had to bring it in, but this was late on a friday afternoon, i live a long way from home and from that dealer and i wasn't sure if it was ok to drive the car at all, or what to do about the battery appearing to be run down. She then put me on hold and after a while she came back, she had researched the issue and gave me useful information, including reassurance that the car was OK, she told me what the bars meant, and she said i should just go drive it around for a little while with all the power things turned off, which i did and in less than 10 minutes it was almost back to normal.

I was still worried though that something happened at the car wash to damage my car.

Since that time, my car easily goes low in the bars, i get the purple bars in a short time, sometimes when i'm driving, which surprised me, and also, i have for a long time eaten my lunch in the car and listened to the radio, it's relaxing, quiet, private, a break from my very intense job with lots of people and their demands and needs etc. So, now, when i sit in my car at lunch, it seems whether i keep the ignition on or just the other stuff but not the motor, it doesn't matter. In about 10 or 15 minutes i have two purple bars. I am pretty sure this wasn't happening before. Before i turn the ignition on at lunch, i first turn the headlights off and no other power is running except the radio.

This is alarming to me and i feel bad that my car never did this until that day they inexplicably kept it at the car wash for about 2 1/2 hours.

Shouldn't i be able to sit in the car at lunch listening to the radio for less than a half hour without the charge going down so much? I realize (from reading posts) that one bar still means it has 40% charge, which is reassuring. But is this OK?

 

thanks for all the reassuring replies. Is it normal for it to go from 6 blue bars to 2 purple bars while i sit in the car listening to the radio for about 20 minutes while having a quick lunch? i didn't think it ever did that before, until the thing at the car wash? What's the right or best way to sit in the car for a period of time, less than a half hour, without draining the battery a lot? I don't know the right words to ask this. OK, Is it better to leave the engine on, or to turn the engine on, by putting the foot on the brake and hitting Power twice, or is it better to just hit power twice without putting foot on brake, i hope that made sense.

In my previous normal car, Accord, when i ate lunch in my car, i would just turn the key to the second knotch, without engaging the starter motor. I wouldn't turn the engine on. There was never any evident stress on the battery from doing that, just listening to the radio, nothing else on. On rare occasions when it was extremely hot, i would turn the engine on so i could run the AC too. What is the right way to sit in the car listening to the radio for under a half hour, without any bad effect on the battery?

 

Thank you so much for explaining this in such detail. Thank you for telling me what the words for these things are. BIG help.

 

Thanks for all the info on the battery level and what the bars mean. Mine seem to go down faster than they did before. Maybe i just wasn't paying much attention before. But i didn't know that if i pressed the power button one time, i could still run the radio. I did that today. The bars still went down pretty quick over a half hour period, but from what people are saying, i understand it won't result in my car being dead and unable to start. That was scaring me.

 

yesterday was the first time i tried it with just the ACC on. I did notice that i couldn't operate the windows so i turned it on to Ig-On mode in order to open the windows (thanks Dog Friend for the terminology and clear detailed explanation). Then i turned it off and back on to ACC to listen to the radio.

I will need to do this again and pay more attention, but i thought that when i turned it to Ig-ON, it had the usual 6 blue bars, and after lunch, 20 minutes or so later, when i went from ACC to Ig-on again, it was down one or two bars, and i anticipated that if were to remain in the car another half hour it would continue to go down.

Given what you're saying, i understand that's not possible, so i need to try it some more and pay more attention to the sequence the details of what i did. Assuming as i did that the bars could still go down in ACC mode, i just assumed they did. But maybe, there must be another explanation, so i have to pay more attention next time. I just thought to myself at the time, that the bars seemed to start going down almost right away, and wondered if that was normal. but now i'm not sure what happened.

 

It doesn't ever go down over night, only when it's on. It seems to go down whichever mode it's in.