Switched Oil from 5W30 to 0W20 after 193 miles, watching mileage.

My mileage stayed low all winter. Some of that is from the cold weather of course. It was really hard to get 50 mpg in Florida this winter though on one longer trip. I managed OK but I could see that it really wasn't as good as before.

Today I checked my 12 V battery and it was 11.98 volts, too low. Since I have a trip tomorrow to Lansing MI from Muskegon, about 100 miles, I paralleled my Booster battery to the 12V battery. Now I get 12.98V. I hope to see the usual fuel mileage. I have had about 5 drained batteries this year. One from 4 days of very zero temperatures. I boosted the battery from a spare auto battery I have on a float charger. The other dead batterys have been from left on dome lights.
I may have to fork over some loot and buy another battery. I haven't slow charged the battery though yet so I'm holding on. I just checked the 12 V battery and it was 12.50 with the booster connected. I switched off the booster and the volts dropped to 12.40 V. I will check it again tomorrow morning and see what happened over night since I left the booster switched off. I took some pics to show what I did.

 

I got 11.98 this morning. I got 13.8 V when I turned it on . It stayed at 11.98V this afternoon even after I ran a short errand and before I hooked up the booster. If things don't change a battery is in order.

I am amazed that the battery's die like they do. I'm used to the old lead acid battery's just chugging along just fine even with nasty abuse. Although with out an MFD that keeps track of your gas mileage I may not have know how much the fuel reduction really was.

 

Quote: you can take the battery out and take it to Autozone or similar to have them charge it for you.

I do have a Schumacher charger with AGM settings but I haven't dug that out yet.
I ran the road test today and it helped just a little on mileage. I think since the original battery is in circuit and it is drawing excess current.

I just tested the battery and the Shumacher charger said 12.7 volts and 65% charge. (That's very low) I set it for AGM and 2 amp charge. I'll check it again in an hour. 9:00 PM here now. Once it is charged I'll unhook the charger and check the battery tomorrow morning.

The booster battery was a good test. It showed me that if you need to boost a Prius aux battery it will do it.

Although when the zero degree cold flattened my battery after 3 days the Schumacher charger wasn't up to the task. It took a fully charged auto battery and booster cables hooked to the fuse box connection to make it start.I wanted a quick start though.

But if the battery is just low it will work.

It didn't make the mpg of the Prius any better though.

 

I don't have a clue how old it is. I'll run out to see if it has a warranty date on it.
I didn't see any date. Heck, since the battery is in the back, it looks too clean to be bad! LOL

My Schumacher SC1200A charger said 100% charge with 12.9 volts.

 

The battery is toast. It read 12.2 V and 57% charge this morning. I'm recharging it again this morning.

What is better, the OEM or Optima battery?

 

I found an Exide Edge FP-AGM51JIS at
Exide® FP-AGM51JIS - Edge™ Group 51 JIS Flat Plate AGM Automotive Battery
for a great price. This looks like this is the way I'll go.

 

Easy Rider 2
Quote:
The color is about perfect too, and just starting to darken a bit.
The color of engine oil from one brand to another tells you NOTHING.

It usually is an additive or two that causes the change in color and not the base oil itself.

I was comparing the color from when I poured it in to the color of the oil is now. So far several thousand miles on it it has darkened some more. I'll keep an eye on it. It did need a tiny of oil amount the last time I checked it. I added a cup more oil. LOL

 

Last weekend I changed the aux battery. I got the longer SKS battery and I had to cut the battery mount plate down to allow the battery to fit. That is the part that rises up to keep the battery from shifting towards the front. A hack saw does a nice job. It took about 2 hours, maybe less since It was a really nice day and I wasn't keeping track.

The old battery ended up with 12.16 volts when I pulled it out. I checked the new one and it was 12.5 volts and I hooked up the Schumacher charger to bring it up.
The charger immediately said 100% charged and 12.9 volts. So Installed it.

I always got lots of sparks when I hooked up the ground wire. Then when I started it the dash lit up really nice. Now I know a better way. First unplug the power cable from the battery. ( Thats how I cleared the dash lites.) It is the larger plug towards the left of the two on the battery cable connector. The release tang in on the bottom. Now when you mess with the ground wire no sparks and no lit up dash.

When I was loosening up the bolts that held the brake module the front bolt removed very hard. The back bolt was completely rusted up and the head broke off. I didn't drill it out and just left it alone. I did use a liberal dash of anti seize compound on all the bolts to make sure that they will come out again.

I found out that the spare tire area and the battery pocket were both half filled with water. I think the hatch gaskets don't work that well. I took a 3/16th drill bit and drilled both large rubber plugs in the spare tire area and drilled a hole through the battery pocket bottom through one of the large holes there. Gotta keep the water draining. Most cars have drain holes, maybe the designers were very sure that the hatch gaskets would always work.

I'll check voltages before I head off to a ballgame soon and check the fuel mileage.