My daughter just called from California, I'm in RI and she flew out there to drive her Prius home after having left it there last winter. (Because her job status was unclear and she might need to go back. But now she has a job in Florida.) Well, the traction battery seems to not be holding a charge very well. She is now drving thru the Rockies and it seems to have the power, but when she stops for awhile, the battery drops to 2 bars and it has trouble going up towards full like it used to. She thinks the battery was working fine when she left LA. Could this be just a mountain thing? She has driven thru these mountains before and can't remember it acting like this before. Also, the temperature gauge is reading 72 degrees all day long. Even tho she knows the temps outside is changing. The car was stored in a garage but was not run very much. She replaced the starter battery just before starting this trip. Any thoughts? It is just barely over 100k miles now.
It is certainly possible that the traction battery has deteriorated during storage. I think your daughter should continue to drive the car and not worry about it for now (since worrying will not help the battery to get better.) If she sees warning lights appear, then she should immediately find a nearby Toyota dealer to read the DTC and provide a diagnosis. The outside air temperature sensor is located in front of the radiator and can be easily seen when the black plastic cover over the radiator is removed. Perhaps it needs to be replaced.
She will be fine once over the Rockies if no codes appear!. I would think this sounds very normal for climbing the Rockies. Lots of horror stories in the mountains especially when hot, and I'm sure it is hotter than 78?. H
Thanks for the response. I've sent your thought to her, as well as stuff I found on other sites. I do suspect her battery was damaged and tho she has 101,000 miles on the car, she is going to see about warranty repair anyway hoping that Toyota is still going out of their way to maintain prius good will. Tho I suspect they've sold so many Prii now they can revert back to their corporate core and deny any repair under warranty. Oh Well...
Please check the 12v battery. A bad 12v battery can cause random issues in modern cars. I am sure the engine light would have come on if you had serious problem with the traction battery.
If there has been dogs in the car alot the battery cooling fan can get clogged causing the battery to run hot. Mine was very furry. My fan runs in the mountians when I am going down hill and the battery is charging after being drained down to a few bars.
Thanks everyone. She made it home to NY and tomorrow she brings the car here in RI where she will be storing it again for a few months before she moves to Florida and take the car with her. She has a good job down there so expects to sell it soon. Anyways, she said the battery never got above half the bars but her gas mileage was only slightly lower then she got on prior cross country drives. This is about the 4th time she has done this in this Prius. She is convinced the car is mad at her for leaving it in LA for so long so she tried talking real nice to it the whole way home. When she gets to RI and leaves it with me, I'll take it out about one day per week. The problem is that I sold my 04 Prius last May for a 2012 Volt and I really don't like using gas any more. I think gas use is a moral failure. Since I bought the Volt I've only used 6 gallons of the original tank and I'm at about 2500 miles.
Ruining a big traction battery is also a moral failure :_> Run the car for a half-hour once per week and it should be happy indefinitely. (You don't even have to drive it, just make it Ready and in Park with the parking brake set.)
