How to care for a car I won't be driving for a few months

ouch! sorry man. no need to drive it, unless you can't put a charger on the 12v. you might want to pump up the tyres to prevent flat spots.
get well soon!

 

Pull the 12 volt out and store in your apartment? This'll avoid phantom drain, and make it a lot easier to give it a charge. Probably one charge session right after removal would do it.

Depends on your situation really. If someone can periodically borrow the car, that'd work too.

 

Either do what the above posters said or have someone drive it 20 minutes straight every couple of weeks. If you recently replaced the 12v or you can park it in a garage without locking the car, then you can get away with once a month.

 

This used to come up very frequently back in the day when I made submarine patrols for a living, and I'll give you the reader's digest version:
Other than the 12v (aux) battery, it's really not going to matter much in your case.

We used to get "experts" that put their car on stands, and treated the tires, and removed the spark plugs and put oil in the cylinder bores, and put miece traps around their cars, and desiccant packs in the interior..... and on and on, and on.
We also had people that did nothing......and all manner of techniques in between.

In my never-to-be-humbled opinion, people tend to over think things, and you have (basically) three choices......all of which will probably work about the same in preserving your car's long term health.

1. Buddy method: Get somebody (you trust!) to drive the car for about a half hour every other week. It's important to get everything up to normal operating temps, which is why idling the car for a few minutes or just going for a spin around the block can actually be worse than doing nothing at all. If your 12v battery can't go for 2-3 weeks without starting the car, then you didn't cause the battery to go bad, but rather you discovered that you HAVE a bad battery.

2. Umbilical method. Battery tender and an extension cord.
Note: This may not work for you if you park in a space that you don't own, since people may think that you're one of those jerks that steal electricity for their PHEV/BEV. Also....you want to make sure that it's a battery TENDER instead of a trickle charger.
They're not expensive, and the $5 Harbor Freight units work just as well as the $50 Harley Davidson ones do.
I have several, and have used them for years.

3. The Sloth method: Do nothing.
While you're healing, get Amazon to deliver a $50 pocket jump starter.
No.
It doesn't have to be able to start an 18-wheeler, since you're just booting up a Prius with it - so - like the battery tender, you don't have to go overboard with the cost.
Note.....if you're one of "those" Prius drivers that get emotionally attached to your MPG scores and radio presets, then you'll probably want to go with either #1 or #2 above.

(bonus choice!)
4. The Tort maneuver:
Buy the following: a. Neck Brace. b. 2-3 Doctors that will testify that you're emotionally devastated. c. A slip and fall lawyer.
Actually?
You don't have to buy the lawyers. If you got hit in a crosswalk then you should already have a 5-gallon bucket full of business cards by now.

Sue the bum that hit you and then sell the Priussy.
Then....
Who cares whether or not it starts?




Good Luck!

 

My concern would be the fuel breaking down. The ethanol levels in today's fuels have caused me a lot of grief. Fowled fuel tanks, gummed up fuel system and the like. I have two motorcycles that sat for about 3 months due to first child worries and both needed a lot of love to get running again. I used a stabilizer and still no good. As a result I drain the fuel out of the lawn mower when not mowing weekly and pay more attention to fuel in the bikes. I am sure there are others here that can more scientifically explain why and how, I am just offering my experience of parking vehicles for an extended period of time in recent years.