Prius won’t start: 12v battery or something else?

Tried to start my car today and this kind of thing happened. At first I thought everything was ok and tried to shift from P and it wouldn’t let me. Then I noticed the dash going crazy. First most of the dash lights up and flickers, then only part of it flickers, then at the end only the triangle with exclamation point of the left side flashes.

I looked through some other threads and thought maybe it’s the 12v battery (hasn’t been replaced, just shy of 90K miles). But would the key fob still open the doors and would the dash act like this if the 12v was dead?

Should I try to jump it and see what happens?

Sorry for the poor quality video, it’s sunny outside.



Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

The triangle icon kept flashing but since nothing else was happening I hit the Power button a few times to get it to change from red to off (no light on).

Honestly it’s probably less hassle for me to go buy another battery and swap it out rather than get it checked by the dealer. But if there’s a known problem that causes this, besides the battery, then that’s probably the right idea.

 

This is probably a dumb question, but I guess I need a multimeter to check it, right? I visually looked at it and it looks fine, there is no corrosion.

A neighbor wanted to see if he could help and we tried to start the car again and this time only the triangle with ! icon was flashing. I popped the hood to show him the place we could jump it and near the fuse box there’s a constant humming/buzzing noise.

 

Thanks Mark. I guess I will try to jump it in the morning and if that works take it too Autozone for them to check it.

 

The AM2 fuse is listed as 7.5A in both the manual and fuse box cover. I checked that one and it was ok. Unfortunately the car is parked on a somewhat busy city street and I can’t access the other fuse box without having my feet out in the street...

The buzzing sound seems to be coming from this piece with the X1 sticker on it (which is directly to the left of the fuse box). It went away shortly after opening the hood (this being an hour or more since I last attempted to turn on the car).

 

Update: getting a jump worked. Drove to autozone where the unhelpful employee said they don’t check 12v batteries in hybrid vehicles and wouldn’t install a new battery either. I just bought the new battery, drove home, installed it and took the old one back.

The car seems to be running fine so hopefully that’s it. I’m actually due for my 90K service anyway so I’ll see if the dealer will uncover any other potential problems.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

I’ve been driving only a little less that normal as I’ve still been going to work at least 3 days a week this whole time. But it was still the original battery so that’s probably what did it. Hopefully the car will start tomorrow when I give it a try.

The Autozone guy did give me 10% off the entire transaction for no reason (at least no reason that I could tell), so it wasn’t all bad I guess.

edit: I just realized I posted this in the wrong forum (should have been in the gen 3 forum).