Have any dealership follies?

After routine service of my 2012 Prius C the advisor told me that my 12V battery was almost completely dead and that I'd need a new one. But the printout from the battery tester showed that it had been set to "Previa" instead of "Prius C". I have no idea if they mixed up the printouts or (more likely, IMHO) they actually set the battery tester to check the wrong type of battery - needless to say I didn't bother replacing it. At the next service (at a different dealer) the 12V battery checked out fine.

 

Get your own battery tester, say Solar BA5. The more you can wrest control of basics away from them, the better.

 

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Not just to test the battery, but to keep a record of how it's holding up over time. I see that Canadian Tire has a simple and cheap load tester that should be fine for that purpose, I think I might pick one up.

 

Simple and cheap might be the old school I think? I got the Solar BA5 through Amazon.ca, around $65 IIRC. High tech, much more accurate, and easier on the battery. The dealerships use similar but high end.

Even just checking voltage with multimeter is not a bad start.

 

If it was a conventional vehicle I'd probably be more concerned, but the 12V battery in the Prius never needs to pump out a huge jolt all at once so I think simple would be fine. Especially if I'm able to establish a track record to gauge it by.

 

There was a video kicking around, a guy demonstrating all the devices that could assess batteries. Digital multimeter was bottom of the ladder, indicated decent voltage. Conventional load tester, the kind that's been around for donkey's years, basically a toaster with clamps, also passed the battery. This sort of tester is very fudgy, and taxing on the battery, btw. Then he used the Solar BA5, and it found the Cold Cranking Amps way too low, failed the battery. The big brother of the Solar is what the dealerships use these days, also Canadian Tire and others.

I've tried finding that video again, so far without success. Will try a bit more though.

Hah, found it:

 

Rear spoiler is fine. Toyota mounted it on the car pretty well. I agree that would not be my choice to push the car, but it should not have caused any harm.

 

You just reminded me, of how off-topic I'm drifting.

 

Inasmuch as battery testing is directly related to the dealer folly I experienced, it doesn't seem off-topic to me.

I watched the video - very interesting and thanks for the link. But I'm still not convinced I need a better tester since the Prius C battery never experiences the kinds of loads that you need to crank an engine. As long as the voltage doesn't show an excessive drop under the kind of load that the "toaster tester" puts on the battery it should be fine in the Prius C, or so it seems to me.

 

My car came with the original, now 4 year old, 12v battery and has been a bit of a puzzle to me. I have had an incident where the voltage dropped enough that I got strange codes and warning lights appear (ABS/Trac etc). So I've had the impression that the state of charge isn't being kept up all that well by the car (despite me driving 4 to 6 hours per day)

With a conductance tester it seemed to have about 45% state of health. However, after a good discharge/re-charge out of the car, the tester tells me it is 98% SOF - ie just like new - which is hard to believe of a 4 year old battery!

I'm reluctant to take it to the dealer while it is still borderline, as they may well tell me it is still okay and charge me for the test. I'm told that here in the UK it is replaceable under the cars 5 year guarantee, so if it was clearly a 'dud' I'd certainly try the dealer and see what they say

Having read a 2010 thread by Britprius about using a mobility battery, I decided to bite the bullet and do the same. I now have a 55 amp Lucas mobility battery installed and expect it to outlast the car!

Why bother ? I'm a driving instructor and if my car puts on the engine warning or other warning lights during a driving test, the examiner would probably cancel the test and I would have to recompense my customer! So the £100 I spent on the battery is cheap insurance, and tax-deductible!

(It may also be handy when we occasionally use a 12v 'fridge in the car)