Battery problem with Toyota Prius

I had not heard of this, but will follow with interest.

Is the Prius set up with a battery to drive the car and another for accessory lighting and so forth?

"Is the Prius set up with a battery to drive the car and another for accessory lighting and so forth? "


yes.

and for starting the engine...

Ive got a 2007 Escape Hybrid and its a dream car. Ive only had one problem with it and that was a breaking in issue.
Driving these guys frequently is one of the responsibilities, otherwise the "Ghost amp draw" (like the time and sensors) will dry up the little battery in a few weeks.

I know a few people who have slapped much more powerful batteries in theirs to solve this problem.

Cycloptichorn

Anyone know how many amp-hours this battery have in it fully charge?

cant help you. I dont screw with the battery at all. All I know isthat Ford puts 250 nickel hydride batteries in series =330v/ 20kw so its about 60 Amp, But I have no idea about amp hour ratings for anything.
The dirty secret with all hybrids is NOT to screw with any after market **** that messes up the amp draw. I knew several folks atht added different "Big dick" sound systems that messed up the circuits.
The standby and "instant on" and p[ower supply **** are all these "Ghost draws" that need constant start ups. I let mine run down once when we went away for about 2 weeks and I let sparky just sit there. Fortunately there is a charge station in the car so I hit it with a trickle for a day and she came to life again.

POrsches are famous for all this ghost draw crap too. The newer ones like the Red Pepper have all sorts of ghost draws, that they reccomend no sitting around for longer than a week in colder weather.

Interesting - I never received any notices of these responses.

Well, getting to the point: No one warned me that topping off the battery charge was a constant requirement. I would never have bought the first Prius if I'd known. (I'd actually gone in for a Corolla...) After all, one of the reasons I don't have a dog is the need to walk it daily; I don't go for the idea of having to do the same with a car. I do know that the hybrid setup is a greater drain on the battery than the more familiar engines, but this is ridiculous.

Right now I can't even call the Triple A for a few days - we're having a little snow problem in Boston. Even if someone did show up, I wouldn't begin to consider driving it around through our many many inches of snow in order to keep it properly recharged. Of course, I could drive it round and round the building's enormous basement garage; I consider this a fallback solution to battery death, but still to drive a car nearly every day and have it go dead less than 36 hours after shutting it down is a real pain. GRRRR

You would not need to drive it, so much as turn it on and let it run till it's warm...

(this takes away from the eco-friendliness, I'm afraid...)

Thank you, Rockhead; I'll try that, but I'm still going to get rid of it.

And thank everybody else, too; now I know it hasn't been stupidity on my part but more a lack of communication on Toyota's.

To my mind, it's more of a design defect than a communication problem. Why would anyone want a car that requires driving every 36 to 72 hours. Sounds like a great idea for the majority of people who are designed to drive their cars.

I am extremely perturbed with my 2008 prius because from the moment I got the car, the battery died. Didn't think anything of it, but then over the years then battery cont. to die. I told the dealership and they said they couldn't find anything. I explained that sometimes my car door wouldn't lock, or the car headlights wouldn't cut off when I turned off the car. Or I would turn off the car and the car would make a beeping sound like the car was still on when it was off. Of course when the warranty was up, they find a short in the car and that is why the battery keeps dying and they told me it was going to cost me over $100 and hour for them to look for short and it could take a day or two to find it! AT $100 AN HOUR!! And that does not include the cost to pay for it to be fixed! Really? I am extremely disappointed in Toyota.

Hello Friends,

The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle. We also expect battery technology to continue to improve: the second-generation model battery is 15% smaller, 25% lighter, and has 35% more specific power than the first. This is true of price as well. Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs came down 36% and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the car went on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.

Thanks and Regards,
Umang Kumar

For years my 2006 Prius drove like any other car. I could leave it for days or weeks and it would always start. But in the last year the battery just keeps dying. I had the dealership replace it and it was dead again within a month. The strange thing is that it only seems to happen in colder weather, October - April, Maryland weather. I left it alone this July for seven days with no problem. Last week (October 25) I drove it for several hours on Friday and it was dead by Saturday night.

Well I would have them look for any small ongoing drain on the battery and in that connection any update of the firmware of the car done just before the problem showed up.

As far as winter months showing it more, those type of batteries do not like cold weather at all.

My mp3 player refused to work for more then a half hour outside in Detroit winter weather even when I have the player right near my body heat. Thankfully I live mainly in the Miami where that is not a problem.

anyone know what the actual daily (in amps or watts since:Watts = amps x voltage. ) draw from the 12V battery is when the car is not in use? If it were not many amps then perhaps a small trickle charge solar maintainer < 5 watts per hour attached to the car and left in the sun could keep the 12V battery happy. Could such a panel (with a backfeed diode block) be permanently attached and go unharmed even as the vehicle is driven?

They sell such chargers at RV and boat supply places and they do indeed work.