Help with this...only 2 blue bars on battery (pic)

The traction battery state of charge gauge has the following number of bars and colors:

8 green bars ~ 80% state of charge
7 green bars
6 blue bars
5 blue bars
4 blue bars
3 blue bars
2 purple or pink bars
1 purple or pink bars ~ 40% state of charge

When the air conditioner is running in hot summer weather and the car is being driven in stop & go traffic it is normal for the SOC gauge to show 1 or 2 bars. Otherwise when the car is being driven at speed the gauge will normally show 4-6 blue bars.

7 or 8 green bars usually happen only when the car is being driven downhill on mountainous terrain.

Good luck with your purchase decision.

 

If the seller was sitting in the car with it on waiting for you, the hybrid battery would drain to that point before the engine will kick on to maintain the charge. It should get back up to the normal 5-6 bars within a couple miles of driving.

 

sooner or later, they all go bad (batteries)

 

when in doubt buy a new car, you are already at the dealer

 

Add the price of a hybrid battery installed to what you are paying for the car. If you think that is still a good deal then go for it. From what I have been told you cannot check the life of the battery so you will not know if it is about to fail. A used car with 145k miles can need a few things. I just did a tune up on mine with spark plugs and serpentine belt and other basic things at 160k. Headlight bulbs are expensive and they may be gone without you knowing it. I bought mine from the dealer with 140k miles last year and everything was working fine. And hour into the drive home a headlight was out and the door lock acuator stopped working. Acuator is over $500 installed. Headlight is between $50 and $300 depending on what you get and where you get it from. To this day I still have headlight issues and told it could be the ballast. So buying a car of that age and miles will cost you something in the near future. It's better to buy a new Corolla or Yaris for less money or a new Prius if you can afford one of you don't want surprises. If you are willing to spend $1,000 plus the cost of a hybrid battery within a year then you should be fine. I believe a Prius C is under $20k new.

 

chevy spark is Daewoo like the Yugo's of the 1990's but much worse

 

spark gets some good write ups, maybe a payoff involved, idk.

 

what is the asking price?

 

Unfortunately you can't tell a lot from the initial battery state, because even a brand new battery will go low like that if the Prius is left parked and in ready mode for a while. The real test is how widely and how rapidly the state of charge varies once you are driving, particularly once the engine gets up to normal temperature.

It's probably a bit difficult if you haven't done a lot of driving in other Prius's, so that you have something to compare it to. However if you can take it for a slightly longer drive, especially with some hills, it would be more telling.

 

weak mileage for both..whoa

 

The battery bar means nothing to how good the battery is. If you are really serious about buying a Prius you should get a Bluetooth code reader so you can see the battery state as you are driving it.

 

check the last post date before replying.

 

Just bought a 2006, 134k miles, with a supposed rebuilt battery.
I'm curious, do you ever get all green bars? My top bar never turns green (always white) is that normal, or is the battery not working 100% ?

 

congrats and welcome!
you can get all green under certain circumstances. down a looooonnnngggg hill, or certain highway driving.

give it some time. if it never goes all green, you just have to live with it until the battery fails

how are your average mpg's?

 

Go up to Lake Tahoe. On the way back you should get all green bars at least once.

 

Just take it west out of the Caldecott tunnel and it’ll hit green bars.

Our 2010 would do that frequently.