Cannot start 2010 Prius after 3 weeks vacation

I was looking at the deltrans and got stuck on gel, agm and desulfation.

 

Just get a simple and reliable Battery Tender Jr..

Pep Boys, Wal-Mart, wherever

 

Couldn't you use one of the fancy remote starts that works via the iPhone app where you can start the car from France? Doesn't Toyota have a version of OnStar that can send signals to the car, unlock it etc?

Just hit that once a week to keep the car charged?

Or leave the car running and locked. How much gas would it use to keep its battery charged up over a few weeks? It shuts engine off an on.

Or get Toyota to replace the stupid "fart button" with a "storage charge button" that the owner sets when parking the car for extended periods which will turn the engine off and on to keep the batteries charged.

 

I was thinking about getting a CTEK 3300. They have an accessory whereby you plug a cable into the "cigarette lighter" socket. Is there any reason not to do this with a 2011 Prius?

 

The "cigarette lighter" socket is not hot when the car is off.

 

That is a good reason not to try it.
They may have done it to ensure that I open the "trunk", take out the tray, and expose the 12-volt battery, since it should be well ventilated.

I hope I can keep my garage door closed when I charge overnight. There is a ridge vent and a gable vent to the garage (my gas fired boiler is in there too, but it gets its air direct from outside, and vents direct to outside).

 

Using a trickle charger is good if you are near power. When you leave your car at the airport and it will not start you have to jump the car. Another option is to use a small battery pack to power up the computer. I just ordered the following.

PH-BH281 C Cell (8) Battery Holder $4.49
PH-48-450 Auto Battery Power Cord $5.79

From Cheapham.com

This should do the trick.

 

Anyone having battery issues like this is a 2012? Or was this mainly a 2010 issue?

 

I would bet it is with all Gen III models. The passive locking system drains power. I would expect it to affect old batteries more than new ones.

 

All of these solutions are helpful, l but they are only stopgaps. The real solution has to come from Toyota. The Prius has more stored energy than 99% of the vehicles on the road. Can we just direct some of this energy to the SKS system so that it doesn't deplete the 12v battery? Or just direct 1/3 watt to the 12v battery when parked.

 

I have a 2011 Prius. I am not experiencing any problems, but I do not wish to. I used to live in Buffalo, N.Y., and we used a special anti-freeze in the windshield wipers because the blue stuff all froze up in bad weather. And a spray called Gary's Melt to get ice off the windshields when it was too hard to scrape off. Since I drove English cars at the time, I always had a battery charger trickling in really cold weather so my car would start in the morning. (These were new, so had good batteries.) Many people used block heaters as well.

I have been in N.J. since 1965, and we had really cold weather only once since then, by Buffalo standards). I ordered that charger because on a really cold day, my local dealers will be out of stock. I like to be prepared.

 

So far we have heard little to nothing from 2011 and 2012 owner. Seems like it's mainly a 2010 issue.

 

I don't know that I would make that assumption.

1) the Gen 3 doesn't have a flip switch to turn off SKS like the older models, so all years (2010-2012) will be draining the battery when stored.
2) whether your battery starts after storage is related to how strong it is going into it. Even an original 2010 battery that is well charged has as good a chance as a depleted 2012 going into storage, IMO-- ie, a depleted but newer battery may fail to start.
3) the 2011/2012s may not have enough time on the road and sitting around experience as the older models, so there may not be reports.
4) basically, it's a function of the status of the battery and also the charge level going into it.
5) also some people may have had a bad full discharge of the battery on the 2010s (which would be user error) from which the battery would never fully recover, and perhaps the 2011/2012 is too new to see reports of that yet.

anyway, the bottom line is that I have a 2011 and I'm getting a trickle charger for when I can't drive it more than 1/week. I don't think my model is exempt from these issues.

 

True. But reading through this thread it seems like the people that had the trouble had it happen within the first year or two of owning it.

 

While the lack of a switch is true on the Gen 3, they also added a time-based disable of the SKS system. After the car sits unused for several days with the fob out of range, it will disable the system to save the battery.

I can always tell when this happens; to get the car to unlock, I actually have to pull on the handle, it doesn't unlock right when I touch the handle.

There are still other systems in the car that draw power when SKS is disabled, of course. My guess is that they got rid of the SKS disable because the SKS is no longer a large drain on the battery when the car is off; with the automatic disable and reduced power requirements that you might expect from later-generation wireless chips, other systems are probably the majority of the total energy use over the weeks (or, if your battery is healthy, months) it takes to fully drain the battery.

 

I got he parts fast. Here is the final product.



I reads 12.94V on a DMM.

 

Get a regulated 15V, 1A (or greater) power supply, a 1N5401 diode, an extension cord, and a plug in timer. (The first two are available from Radio Shack and the last two are available from Home Depot.) Connect the diode so that the power supply can charge the 12V battery but block leakage current. Set the timer for 15-30 minutes a day (exact time not critical), plug it in, then use the extension cord to connect the power supply to the timer. 15V minus a diode drop is about 14.4V, the perfect charging voltage for a lead acid battery. It is not a good idea to leave it charging 24/7 (causes electrolyte loss), so the timer restricts the charging time.

 

If you have AC power you are better off getting something like this. It takes care of all the timing and monitoring.

Black & Decker BM3B Battery Maintainer & Trickle Charger

 

I did find out my Viper Alarm will autostart the car if the battery gets down to 10.9V and run it for a period of time. I am going to turn that on.

 

You'll be surprised that those gadgets just hold a steady 13.8V. Not bad, but not as good as applying 14.4V on an intermittent basis. (I found that info from an IEEE paper.)