My wife is working out of town. Her 2018 Prius Prime Plus has been sitting in the garage plugged into the charger for almost 2.5 months. Today, we decided to start it. To our surprise, the car is totally dead. I put a fresh battery in the key fob thinking that was the issue, but no deal. I tried to lock and unlock the doors and nothing happened. Sitting in the driver's seat with fob in hand, I pushed the start button. Nothing happened. Something tells me after a time of no use, the car, electrical system goes to sleep. Any ideas on how to resurrect this cute little girl?
my guess is that you killed the 12V battery under the hood. Your Operations manual clearly states to unplug your car when it finishes charging, While plugged-in the car performs more internal systems checks using power solely from the 12V battery. Your 12V battery ONLY charges while your traction battery is charging, so those 2.5 months of non-operations plugged into the wall outlet basically made your car perform unnecessary extra systems checks and killed it. You'll need to recharge your 12V battery and get it checked. I'm pretty sure it won't pass a performance test. Hope this helps...
What they said ^ /\ above. If the fob on the start button doesn't work than open the hood and put a trickle charger on the 12 volt battery for a few hours, or get one of those newfangled lithium jump packs and see if that will wake her up. And don't leave her plugged in for months Owners manual says 3 days max in the lower 48.
Yes, you definitely can't leave the Prime plugged into the wall for extended periods. I use a Noco Genius 1 ($30 on Amazon) to keep the battery topped off on my Prime when I'm out for extended periods. I have two vehicles that sit on a Noco Genius 1 for 4-6 months at a time and start right up like we never left.
You guys are AWESOME!!!!! I put the small battery on a charger right after I read your posts. 15 hours later I went back and checked. The battery was fully charged. The fob worked as it should. And the car responded as if nothing had ever happened. This is just great. I cannot thank everyone enough for all your help. What a blessing to have found you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please stay safe and well in all you do.
