I'm not driving much=How are you keeping your HV battery charged during the corona virus?

Get one with recondition mode.It will help on a sulphated battery.

I have the CITEK MUS 4.3 Amazon.com. Works great. Does bike/car/frozen battery/recondition mode.

 

All good......except for Harbor Freight.
I won't buy anything electrical from them.......except the little red $7 meter.
I have one of their big chargers that MIGHT make a good boat anchor. Might.

Don't bother.
Having an AGM mode isn't important either.
Once a lead acid battery fails due to sulfation, the "recondition" cycle might get you enough life to make it to the parts store for a new battery. Might. And AGM batteries generally do NOT fail due to sulfation.

I hope not.
A cheap trickle charger can do more harm than good.
You need an automatic tender type charger; capacity 2 to 4 amps.

 

Popular and highly rated Battery Tender Jr. Is currently on clearance at Home Depot for $10! FYI: I ran the car in ready mode all last night\9 hours. Engine didn't come on often. Only used one bar of gas. Damned thing is sooooo quiet.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Hard to buy a quality product when your overriding criteria is to spend as little as possible.

I'm not saying you can't buy a cheap quality product, just that in my experience, it very seldom pans out that way.

 

the "Junior" model is good IF.......
You will be using it ONLY as a "tender" to keep a fully charged battery topped off.
It becomes a bit less desirable as your battery ages or if you run it WAY down because of it's low capacity.

 

That clearance price must have been a local deal: when I look on line at HomeDepot.com, they're $40+

$24.98 at Amazon

The NOCO Genius 1 is $29.95 at Amazon

 

Brickseek.com shows all the Home Depots in Chicagoland with lots on clearance. FWIW: I had decided to buy the Noco Genius 2, but they weren't in stock at the store. When I found the Tender Jr at the clearance price, along with having seen all the high ratings and rave reviews, this decision was a instant no-brainer.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

AGM batteries have a slightly higher volt per cell so AGM mode charges at a slightly higher voltage to ensure the battery is fully charged. Whether any one person thinks that is important is up to them. But any charger is certainly better than no charger.

LOL

 

My daughter didn't drive her Prius for 3 months and the 12V battery was dead even though I turned the smart key system off as recommended in the manual which I read cover to cover 12 years ago. One months later, I charged it and found that the hybrid battery appears dead. Now I am deciding if I want to repair it and sell it or junk it. From what I read, it sound like an expensive trip to a Toyota dealer.

For my advice is drive it regularly even it means going no where.

Meanwhile my 1995 Camry also sat idle. Charged the battery and up it started.

 

Interestingly, there was an article in our daily paper where the implementation of a "faux commute" (as they coined it) for people working from home was demonstrated to have a lot of lifestyle benefits, not just keeping the Prius (or any car, for that matter) is good shape. It also highlighted that developing another deliberate stop and pause habit (exercise, walk to a café, etc) had similar benefits if driving wasn't possible or your thing.

I have been just going out in the Prius 2 -3 times a week if for no other reason than to give it some use.

 

Ended up replacing the Prius with a 2015 Prius C. The Prius C manual clearly stated the car should be driven every two weeks for at least 20 minutes to maintain the hybrid battery.

 

how many miles on the prius?

 

this is why people don't buy hybrids