Buying a 2012 Prius C - Torque Battery Block Test

c only has 10 blocks in its traction pack, so who knows what data the app stuffed into the meters for 11-14. Those blocks only exist in the HV packs of the bigger models.

 

I'm not experienced enough to judge a pack from a picture of an app, but I would be at least somewhat encouraged by seeing 1/10th of a volt difference between blocks.

I don't know what to tell you about the steering. Ours has exceptionally light steering relative to other cars, but I've only driven 2018 models. Does that one have stock tires, and are they properly inflated? Aftermarket plus-size tires or pressure deficiency can affect the feel a lot.

A downer 12v battery can have all kinds of weird effects on these cars, things you would expect and others you wouldn't.

 

Looks ok to me.

How many miles on your Prius?

Good luck and keep us posted .

 

How long has it sat idle after the accident?

The mileage seems ok, but the idle time may have put some self discharge stress on the individual modules.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

These cars have electric power steering but I don't know if the power assist taps the low voltage or the high voltage system.

Knowing that there's accident damage makes me a little nervous there- it could be that the power assist is functioning just fine but the linkage is bent and binding somewhere. I'd get a pro to check that out.

 

We had a 12V battery start to fail (age-out) on our 2012 C and low voltage (11 to 12V) had no effect on the power steering.
Because we don't drive a lot during snow season, the old 12V battery wouldn't start up the car on a really cold day. Had to charge it up.
The new 12V battery seems to be working very well so far..

 

Get the Dr prius app. I had to pay for the wifi version because my OBD2 runs on Wi-Fi. It will tell you everything to buy or run away!

 

Got the Dr. Prius installed, and my new Panlong Bluetooth OBD2 OBDII
should be here tomorrow. Just curious about the condition of the 144v pack.
It seems to be working the same as it did when new. We'll see..

 

Got a screen shot. Dr. Prius can also save a Excel type file.. My tablet saved big ones, but the phone file was smallish..

 

Cool! Did you do all the nice battery test? 0.03v is a pretty good number.

 

Yesterday I watched the videos and read about the other tests, but I had other stuff to do today,
so I just did a little bit of discharging by driving around on our street (slowly) in EV mode,
while keeping an eye on the ten voltage readings. Pulled over to the roadside a lot.
I was somewhat surprised by how little current was used by the headlights and the AC.
If it had been a warm day, I think the AC would have used a lot more power.

Anyways since I live in a hilly area, what I wanted to do wasn't easily possible. (ICE ran on steep parts).
At some point I want to get out on a large Flat area and drive around in EV mode
until the voltage gets somewhat low.. Maybe 2 or 3 bars on the dash display.?.
Seeing the voltage differences at that point should be somewhat more informative,
than what I saw this morning.

 

Your voltage diff looks good, so i wouldn't think much would be off with the high voltage battery. You can do the battery life test without moving the car. In fact that is the only way to do it. I would however suggest you go down a long hill to charge up the battery via regenerative to around last 1-2 bars then start the test which it will tell you to top it up with gas and break together method to start the test. Beware! Its usually a long and cold test with the AC. Running. Oh don't park where something could trigger the backup sensor... my ears were still beeping hours after.

 

I'm a little fearful of running at max RPMs on a car that has never been driven very hard.
I don't recall ever seeing the top bar of the SoC display illuminated more than a couple of times. Out of 8 bars, we almost always see 7 as our max. Maybe running high engine RPMs + a long hill with controlled braking would do it..
But, I would end up sitting in a small fast food parking lot. I would really prefer to run this test in my driveway.
I guess that watching the app current (amps) display, while running charging would tell me if the engine alone would bring up 8 bars..

 

Well you can charge it up by flooring both the gas and break like how they want you to do on the app and it will work totally too within your driveway. I had a fear of doing that too at 1st then i realised the app knows what its doing. And the prius has a failsafe that will communicate with the app prompt you what to do. You will realise you will cycle the flooring maneuver a few times to get a full charge and move you to the 3rd step of draining the battery by keeping the needle in the estimated area or draw to calculate your battery capacity and to monitor any balance and load issues. Very good app if i say so myself!

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I watched the video and plan to watch it again before running the driveway test.
The App is nice. I used it the other day on a Pizza trip with my wife driving, so I could watch the amperage, SoC, discharge etc. Cool!

I see you live in Taipei. After a few days in Singapore, my daughter's family flew to Taipei last year to visit with my son-in-law's extended family. I have a two year old grandson who goes to Mandarin classes (I have a car-seat in my RAV4). That little guy is the happiest kid I've ever seen. Life is good when you're a Grandfather..

 

Good luck with your PC! I've always wanted a hot hatch hybrid. I just moved to Taiwan recently, I did wanted one in Canada but there is so much distance to cover and not a lot of traffic like here.
These little ones are great to zip in the city!

 

Our In-Laws live in Calgary Canada. I got a lot of pictures on drop-box when they all went to Taiwan last year, and even found
few live-cams to watch the traffic..

It's interesting sometimes so see such light traffic.

We have a lot of traffic here in MA and narrow streets (converted from cow paths) with limited parking. The little 'C' is perfect for 98% of our trips around town. I only use the RAV4 when my wife is using the 'C'.. I've got a trip to Calgary and maybe Taiwan on my bucket-list, I would go in the summer, since I like it warm. Have a good day!