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Is voltage low enough to be concerned?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by hubmacfan, Jun 17, 2013.

  1. hubmacfan

    hubmacfan Junior Member

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    Four
    I tested my 12v battery's voltage in accordance with this thread. The unloaded battery had voltage of 11.6v. Applying a load reduced it to 11.4. Once charging, it had a voltage of 13.6.

    Is that low enough that I should be concerned? I have a trip next week and I'm scared of getting stranded out-of-state with a dead battery.
     
  2. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

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    A two year old battery should normally not need replacing. If you make a lot of short trips, the battery does not have time to charge properly.

    According to the Owner's Manual your battery has a low state-of-charge. If you have a battery charger you may want to try charging the battery overnight and retest, or leave the car in Ready mode for a few hours.

    For piece of mind during your trip, you may want to purchase a portable battery charger/air compressor device to carry with you.
     
  3. macman408

    macman408 Electron Guidance Counselor

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    When you say unloaded and loaded, are you using the Nav system diagnostics to tell you the battery voltage in ACC ("unloaded") and IGN-ON ("loaded")? That is most definitely NOT unloaded, and is horribly inaccurate as well - when my car was about a week old, I used the Nav system to measure the voltage while also using a multimeter at the same time; the Nav said 11.5V, the multimeter said 12.17V. When truly unloaded (all doors closed, all lights off, no key in range, etc. for >5 minutes), my battery was 12.50V. Your battery sounds like it's probably in the same range mine was when brand new, so I wouldn't worry about it unless you have other reason to suspect your battery.

    If you want to measure your battery accurately, you really need some sort of external device like a multimeter or a battery tester. I don't think there are any sensors in the car that are accurate enough to gauge the battery voltage reliably, and even if there were, using them adds a load to the battery, thus making an absolute measurement impossible. (Relative measurements are still possible, but you have little to go on - should you think about replacing the battery when the car says 11V? 10.7V? 11.2V? Who knows!)
     
    cwerdna likes this.
  4. hubmacfan

    hubmacfan Junior Member

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    2011 Prius
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    Four
    That is exactly what I did.