My 2006 Gen II Sat Outdoors Completely Unattended for 25 Months

Hello all. My first post here, but I lurked and learned much valuable info in the 5 years I owned my Prius. I sold it today, which is a good thing for my current situation.

I'm posting to maybe ease some worry and concern that others may experience if they must leave their Prius sitting for an extended period of time. My experience may or may not be typical.

I read some threads here and was quite concerned that leaving my Prius completely unattended, outdoors, uncovered (in a secure parking area), for 25 months, would result in a nightmare scenario of bad batteries and other issues. Not started once for 25 months, through two severe WI winters!

I'm a trucker, and over 25 months ago I drove the Prius from Salt Lake City to Wisconsin to do a lease/purchase on a new truck. I'm single and rather independent, so I parked the car in a lot where I was told I could, and spent the last two years driving about 140,000 miles each in the truck, living in it, and when the mood struck assorted cheap motels. It's a grand life.

The two and a half years prior to this, the Prius sat repeatedly for 3-6 months at a time as well in SLC (where I was a company driver for another outfit), sometimes requiring a jump, but I never had any other issues due to its lack of use. I learned about disabling the smart keys with the button under the steering wheel in this forum, and at some point got smart and started disconnecting the battery.

So except for driving the Prius for a number of months as a ride share driver (that's what they called it when it began and we were all basically working illegally) in San Francisco shortly after I purchased the car (from a Santa Monica, CA Toyota dealer), the car sat. I put 18,000 miles on the car in 5 years, and the bulk of that was in San Francisco. I'm the second owner, 129,000 current miles, and I paid it off in June.

Well to get to the point, I arrived back in WI last week, and of course the first thing was to do the Prius climb into the back to open the rear hatch from the inside. Always fun. I added my own personal touch when I shifted my weight putting my elbow full force onto a quart of Mobil 1 sending a fountain burst of oil into the air all the way up to the rear window, me, and down into the black plastic storage compartment. Luckily the carpet was spared.

I reconnected the battery, but the portable hand held jump starter I had purchased a few years back was going to need to charge overnight. I was going to head to the motel in my truck when a fellow driver drove up and offered a jump.

He had cables, and the Prius fired up immediately! I thanked him profusely (nice folks up here), and slowly drove a mile to a gas station to air up the tires. They were not flat! I had valve caps on them, and they only needed a few pounds each! I did an $8 car wash at the station, and drove a few miles to a motel at highway speeds. I later drove down a freeway about ten miles and turned around. The bars on the funky Prius animated display were green by the time I shut it down. Zero warning lights, certainly no red triangle, no problem!

The next day was another test. Was it going to start again, under its own 12V power? Yes! And every day after that! It does have a Toyota OEM battery, which the dealer may or may not have replaced just before I purchased it in 2013.

I drove to the local Toyota dealership, bought two wiper blades and just the rubber refill for the back all three were rotting and torn), and also got the cabin air filter. It is located behind the glove box, and can be replaced easily without a single tool.

Replacing that filter was the "worst" issue. I got it because the air conditioner had a funky, stale smell. Turns out it was more funky than stale. Mice had made it their home for the rough WI winters. It had yellowish sound proofing (I think) material all over it that the mice had brought from somewhere else in the car. Packed all around it. Cozy, and covered with thousands (I swear) of teeny tiny mouse poops.

But it slides right out, and I cleaned the plastic holder, yanked out the yellow material, which came out in clumps, and I was done. I'm hoping of course that the insulating material was judiciously removed from wherever. I didn't investigate further. They munched out on hard candy in the glove box too. Wrappers were shredded. A little Ozium in the vents and the smell is gone. They do not appear to have entered the main interior of the car.

The next few days I cleaned all the glass, the interior, vacuumed, and placed an ad online. I ordered two key fob case shells here and got the new key blanks cut at a hardware store. Two batteries too. Highly recommended! You need two tiny screwdrivers (the replacement screws use a larger one), so I got these.

The hardest part is separating the two halves on the old ones. I used a sharp knife blade. Remove circuit board and tiny gray chip in front. drop into new case, and snap shut. I watched a youtube video, but you don't need to do all kinds of cutting, and you certainly don't need to use glue with the new ones. I even used the old backs with the Toyota logo. The new and old pieces are interchangeable. There is a tiny o-ring gasket over the battery that is not mentioned in the video.

The first person to come see it yesterday morning bought it. She is absolutely thrilled with the car, and brought me a plate of homemade food today when she returned something I had inadvertently left in the car.

I truly believe she will get many more years of trouble free service out of the car.

Thanks for this great forum, and happy motoring with your Prius.

Oh hell I had to remove all the links because I'm not allowed to post them since this is my first post. That's what I get for being a lurker...

 

Mods I saved my post with Amazon and youtube links. If you would see fit to allow me to post it that would be very kind of you.

 

Apparently I'm not allowed to pm links either.

 

This is unacceptable.

 

What kind of forum is this anyway? (Is that 5?)

 

Hey Tideland thanks! Here is my post including the links. Feel free to replace my first post with it if you like, since I can't edit.

Hello all. My first post here, but I lurked and learned much valuable info in the 5 years I owned my Prius. I sold it today, which is a good thing for my current situation.

I'm posting to maybe ease some worry and concern that others may experience if they must leave their Prius sitting for an extended period of time. My experience may or may not be typical.

I read some threads here and was quite concerned that leaving my Prius completely unattended, outdoors, uncovered (in a secure parking area), for 25 months, would result in a nightmare scenario of bad batteries and other issues. Not started once for 25 months, through two severe WI winters!

I'm a trucker, and over 25 months ago I drove the Prius from Salt Lake City to Wisconsin to do a lease/purchase on a new truck. I'm single and rather independent, so I parked the car in a lot where I was told I could, and spent the last two years driving about 140,000 miles each in the truck, living in it, and when the mood struck assorted cheap motels. It's a grand life.

The two and a half years prior to this, the Prius sat repeatedly for 3-6 months at a time as well in SLC (where I was a company driver for another outfit), sometimes requiring a jump, but I never had any other issues due to its lack of use. I learned about disabling the smart keys with the button under the steering wheel in this forum, and at some point got smart and started disconnecting the battery.

So except for driving the Prius for a number of months as a ride share driver (that's what they called it when it began and we were all basically working illegally) in San Francisco shortly after I purchased the car (from a Santa Monica, CA Toyota dealer), the car sat. I put 18,000 miles on the car in 5 years, and the bulk of that was in San Francisco. I'm the second owner, 129,000 current miles, and I paid it off in June.

Well to get to the point, I arrived back in WI last week, and of course the first thing was to do the Prius climb into the back to open the rear hatch from the inside. Always fun. I added my own personal touch when I shifted my weight putting my elbow full force onto a quart of Mobil 1 sending a fountain burst of oil into the air all the way up to the rear window, me, and down into the black plastic storage compartment. Luckily the carpet was spared.

I reconnected the battery, but the portable hand held jump starter I had purchased a few years back was going to need to charge overnight. I was going to head to the motel in my truck when a fellow driver drove up and offered a jump.

He had cables, and the Prius fired up immediately! I thanked him profusely (nice folks up here), and slowly drove a mile to a gas station to air up the tires. They were not flat! I had valve caps on them, and they only needed a few pounds each! I did an $8 car wash at the station, and drove a few miles to a motel at highway speeds. I later drove down a freeway about ten miles and turned around. The bars on the funky Prius animated display were green by the time I shut it down. Zero warning lights, certainly no red triangle, no problem!

The next day was another test. Was it going to start again, under its own 12V power? Yes! And every day after that! It does have a Toyota OEM battery, which the dealer may or may not have replaced just before I purchased it in 2013.

I drove to the local Toyota dealership, bought two wiper blades and just the rubber refill for the back (all three were rotting and torn), and also got the cabin air filter. It is located behind the glove box, and can be replaced easily without a single tool.

Replacing that filter was the "worst" issue. I got it because the air conditioner had a funky, stale smell. Turns out it was more funky than stale. Mice had made it their home for the rough WI winters. It had yellowish sound proofing (I think) material all over it that the mice had brought from somewhere else in the car. Packed all around it. Cozy, and covered with thousands (I swear) of teeny tiny mouse poops.

But it slides right out, and I cleaned the plastic holder, yanked out the yellow material, which came out in clumps, and I was done. I'm hoping of course that the insulating material was judiciously removed from wherever. I didn't investigate further. They munched out on hard candy in the glove box too. Wrappers were shredded. A little Ozium in the vents and the smell is gone. They do not appear to have entered the main interior of the car.

The next few days I cleaned all the glass, the interior, vacuumed, and placed an ad online. I ordered two key fob case shells here and got the new key blanks cut at a hardware store. Two batteries too. Highly recommended! You need two tiny screwdrivers (the replacement screws use a larger one), so I got these.

The hardest part is separating the two halves on the old ones. I used a sharp knife blade. Remove circuit board and tiny gray chip in front. drop into new case, and snap shut. I watched a youtube video, but you don’t need to do all kinds of cutting, and you certainly don't need to use glue with the new ones. I even used the old backs with the Toyota logo. The new and old pieces are interchangeable. There is a tiny o-ring gasket over the battery that is not mentioned in the video.

The first person to come see it yesterday morning bought it. She is absolutely thrilled with the car, and brought me a plate of homemade food today when she returned something I had inadvertently left in the car.

I truly believe she will get many more years of trouble free service out of the car.

Thanks for this great forum, and happy motoring with your Prius.