I bought a 2009 Prius with 230,000 Miles.

Be really careful to use nothing but the kosher TOYOTA ATF WS fluid in the transaxle. And, it very simple to do, but dealerships often have no experience with it, will fight you tooth and nail to not do it, and/or grossly overcharge for the service. Shop around.

Also, no offense, but I would try to shake the notion of getting a "full service". Instead, have a read through the Toyota Maintenance Schedule, look up the car's service history, have it checked over if you want, and settle on specific things that warrant doing, a few at a time. Dealership will try to hard sell a lot of money makers that aren't needed, could even be detrimental.

 

Why do you say this? Because it's a "lifetime" fluid? I'm sure they would be capable of doing it if a customer requested it.
So easy to do and one of the things I really liked about the eCVT. A non-hybrid CVT with a torque converter is much more expensive to do and may not be done correctly by some mechanics.

 

Priuschat member experiences mainly. Dealerships responses:

1. It's "lifetime" fluid (as you say)
2. It's very complex, requires techstream, specific temperatures, gonna cost you, and on and on. (I believe there's some other Toyota vehicle they're thinking of?)

And yeah, I've done ours myself, 3 times now, simple and straighforward drain-and-fill. Comparable to doing an oil change.

 

sounds right.

 

Actually I use eBay completed sales for 'fair market' price. A 2010 with 56k went for $8.2k and a salvage title for $5.8k. CarMax offered $6.0k. Mine went for $8k with Garmin GPS and receiver hitch.

Bob Wilson

 

Glad you're enjoying it. A couple ideas on the door lock:

Any key maker can make a duplicate door key for you. I use one for my wife's car since she only has one fob. I programmed my fob to work in her ignition slot and use the key for the doors if I don't have her or her fob with me when I drive it.

I said earlier that replacing the door lock motor is finicky. Don't let that scare you off. The only finicky part is making sure you get the shaft lined up with the hole it goes into. The rest is a piece of cake. You should be able to find a replacement on ebay. That's assuming it's the mechanism at fault and not the sensor.

 

That looks pretty good for what appears to be an ailing 12V battery. It still has some life left in it, but you should probably replace it soon. My last one actually got down to between 8-9 volts at rest. I'm surprised it would even turn on the computer.

 

My 3 year old 12v battery has similar charges. I think your battery is fine for now. If it gets below 12v unloaded, then I'd look into getting a replacement.

 

I never know how to respond to 12 volt readings taken thus. You've gotta check it with everything off, with a digital multimeter. Under the hood jump start point is fine.

 

Good point. That is the only way to really know how it is.

 

Why wouldn't the display reading be usable? I understand that there's more that the battery is powering if the screen is used, but it seems to me that could easily be accounted for, as it would be consistent between vehicles.

 

If you want the true resting voltage then what Mendel says is true. However, it is not the most important reading when looking to see if the battery is usable. That voltage is the loaded voltage. For our purposes the MDF readings are fine, just not ideal. Using a voltmeter at the battery is the ideal.

While this is not going to cause problems starting or using the car, it is technically flat. If you are interested at all in getting long life out of your current battery, it needs to be fully charged immediately. An OEM Prius AGM battery in good condition will charge up to 13.2 V and after resting should settle at 12.8-12.9 V. You either need to drive more or purchase a good automatic charger that has an AGM setting and use it regularly (fortnightly, monthly) depending on your driving patterns. After charging and sitting (min 2 hours), the voltage at which it settles (i. e. how far below 12.9 V) will give an indication of how far the battery is off from needing to be replaced.

In a way these batteries are very forgiving, given their small size, as they do not have to do any heavy lifting, unlike regular car batteries that have to crank the starter motor.

Watch out for the tell tale sign of impending demise of the 12 V battery, the momentary flash of the master caution light (aka the triangle of doom). This is the only warning light that does not light in the start up self test. The momentary flash is the low 12 V warning.

 

I may be overthinking it, but as soon as you're using the car, turning it on, to analyze the battery, you're muddying the waters. How much is the battery loaded, and what's that doing to the voltage. It's like checking tire pressures while they're warmed up.