Our 2005 Prius battery died during a service at the dealer

How old was the battery?

They likely pushed it to extinction due to doors left open for protracted time. But your recourse hinges a lot on how new it is. I mean, if it's over 4 years old, I wouldn't get too riled: it's getting close to replacement time anyway.

That reminds me, our's is closing in on 5 years now...

 

Whoa: the battery is 10.5 years old?

 

Which battery died?

 

No, who's on first, lol. Ok, starting to emerge, that's it's the car's hybrid battery, not the 12 volt battery.

 

This has nothing to do with the Tech, the battery was ready to go.

The good news is you are already at the dealer and they cannot charge you another diagnostic fee for this. You can request they call Toyota HQ to ask for a goodwill warranty and see what they can do for you. Chances are, they'll pay for a portion (or all of it).

 

You answered this question in your OP - you allowed the fuel level to get so low that the car ran out of fuel while it was being serviced.

Same answer as above. It is not really the job of the service tech to fill your gas tank...

A failure of the traction battery due to an out of fuel situation is normally considered owner abuse - so do not be surprised if you do not receive any financial assistance on the traction battery replacement.

 

How does the battery prevent itself from depleating? Oh yes gas engine has to kick on

 

The likely issue: 2nd gen's are happy to run the battery right down if the car runs out of gas. This has I believe been rectified on gen 3, but that's cold comfort for you.

They can get a special charger in, that may rectify it.

Another possibility: doesn't a dry car need at least 3 gallons added, before it'll start? Maybe they're not aware of this, put in maybe just one gallon?

 

Dealer got code p0a80 block 14 bad.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember hearing it was only the '04 and '05 that had this problem.

 

I don't think its likely the dealership did anything incorrectly to damage your battery, It most likely hit a unusual low state of charge while being serviced.

Since it did go down at the dealership, perhaps the dealership would go to bat for you and get you a really good deal on a new one through a Toyota goodwill gesture.

As others have mentioned a whole pack grid charge may bring it back or you can have the code reset and take it on a long drive with limited AC use. (have an inexpensive generic OBD reader handy to reset a code if it comes on during the drive)

 

I can't, cause I'm just shooting from the hip, will defer to your info on the subject.