I am planning a carputer installation in my newly bought 2010 Prius. To power the computer, I will be using the 12V Battery. Will this void my warranty?
Well, I think its okay to plug things into those accessory outlets.... You could also use a fuse tap that is removable... I guess maybe if you told us a little more information...
I am not plugging the Mac Mini Directly into the accessory outlet but rather using a DC-DC converter (by Carnetix which acts as a power supply) connecting directly to the 12V Battery. I do have a 15A fuse in between the battery and the DC-DC converter. Hope this makes sense!
The answer to your question is "Maybe" or "it depends". If you connect any accessory to your battery and it causes a problem, then it would void the warranty for that problem. If you connect an accessory to your battery, directly or indirectly, it will NOT void the warranty on your paint or probably not on the ICE. That is why people have trouble answering your question. Too many variables. Car manufacturers are famous for claiming that almost anything will void your warranty, and they can usually make that stick if it is really important to them because they have thousands of experts already on the payroll so they can usually find at least one of them who will testify that but for your mod, the defect would not have occurred. You would have to prove that any modification that you made did not cause whatever you were claiming was broken and wanted repaired or replaced under warranty.
I also plan on adding a backup camera which powers using the reverse tail lights. Does that mean it can void the warranty for my tail lights?
Any modification you make to the car might later be claimed by Toyota to void some aspect of the warranty. If you are going to live in fear of that, don't make the modification. May of us have modified some aspect of the car to no ill effect, but every situation is different. Thankfully there are people here at PC that have extensively modified their cars and now we benefit from the experience of those who have added everything from advanced audio, all the way to a plug-in rechargeable vehicle. Do what you want, but accept some risk. If you can't accept some risk, never drive or touch the car and you should be fine on the Toyota warranty front.
He wrote - between battery and DC/DC converter. He can add a 15A fuse in that way w/o any risk (except to drain his battery).
