Help - PiP seemingly dead

What might work is to use entune to start a charge once a day so that the circuit activates and freshens up the 12V battery. What happens if you use entune and the HV batttery is already at a full charge? Will it still spend a few minutes charging or will it just ignore the request?

once the 12V is dead, I think your toast and can't use entune.

 

I found when the car is fully charged, but the 12v is dead, replugging in the evse does nothing. It won't charge because it is full or because the 12v is dead it can't detect that the evse was inserted. There are many band-aids to recover when it happens, but I want to see it fixed. I have heard of 3 people who had this issue without a load on the battery.

 

The reasoning for that goes back a ways. The idea was how to easily explain a safe way to jump start a vehicle with a dead battery. The decided procedure was that you should connect the negative to the engine block, away from the battery...even though, electrically it is just as good to connect right to the negative connector on the battery. The reason is that when you have a dead battery, especially, a couple of decades ago you may have have a non-maintenance free battery and opened the cells and checked the electrolyte levels. Some procedures even had you opening the cell caps and covering with a cloth. This is because charging generates hydrogen gas, which at the right level can explode. If you "removed" the jumper cable, with a lot of current flowing AND the hydrogen level was high enough AND a spark jumped from the jumper cable to the battery you could ignite the hydrogen. But if you were connected 2 feet away or so this wouldn't happen.

So don't worry (much) about this when you haven't been vigorously charging your 12v battery and you aren't connecting or disconnecting a cable with lots of current flowing.

Mike

 

Can you do a remote start or "cabin conditioning" with entune? IF so, it might energize the PiP into "Ready" and refresh the 12V from the HV battery. Doing a daily, or semi-daily, remote start/freshen might keep the 12V from draining all the way down.

 

Yes, this would work. But only on the advanced model. Which, incidentally, will also drain the 12 V battery quicker, since it keeps its cellular radio on all the time. Actually, I wonder if that's the issue? That if the car is parked in an area with a very weak/no signal, the car ends up draining the 12V battery way too quickly as the cellular radio tries to find a network in vain?

 

If this problem is only happening on the "advanced" model, I would suspect the communications link (cellular radio). Another culprit to look for would be bluetooth radios that get stuck "on" searching for a phone to connect with.

 

In my case, I have a basic, and I don't use Entune or a smart phone at all.

 

but you do have keyless entry which is running all the time

 

Over the years, whenever I've had to hook up to a 12 volt battery, either to jump/charge, or just checking the voltage, I'll just blow once or twice across the top of the case. Can't hurt

 

I try to do this door locking "best practice" in garage, but when I gave out this same advice I got corrected that this does not snuff out all battery drains. Of course, in Gen2 we have the SKS slow drain which can be switched off.

PS- I am under the impression Gen3 have much less SKS drain

 

It's been moved into the Vehicle Customization settings in the navigation. See pg. 640 of the Owner's Manual.

 

oh wow, good call. good news, no need to pull fuses!
if you have tech stream/torque/scangauge, you can also turn off remote a/c and wireless key entry…

 

If we're gonna be totally accurate here, it's the inverter that charges the 12V battery.

 

I don't believe the "cigarette lighter" is on when the car is off so the trickle charger doesn't work unless you connect directly to the 12V battery terminals.

 

sks is the system that allows you to enter and start your car with the fob in your pocket, purse, etc. there is some draw, but not much if it's working correctly. i have left my 08 for upto 6 weeks at a time with no issues. the pip may have other things going on, i don't know. as far as a trickle charger, i don't know about the lighter socket, but there are charging posts under the hood you can use. hopefully, you won't need them. all the best!

 

okay, so SKS = smart key system, which bisco already described.
you mentioned you left the car in the garage. how is the signal there? i believe Toyota uses Verizon for the service.
honestly, at this point i suspect SafetyConnect/Entune is the culprit here. perhaps along with a shot battery.
keep us posted and have a good trip!

 

One cell bad. Definitely a bad battery to start with. Access socket is only live in Acc or ready mode. Keep car locked at all times, then you can be assured that nothing is on or forgotten . .9ma = .ooo9 Amperes. That's tiny.

 

Saarp,
The dealer is correct; there is no oil change at the 5K interval, but rather an inspection and top-off of fluid levels and tire rotation. Oil changes are at 10K service intervals.

 

the SKS is not Running all the time, it is on standby, but the SKS and car are only communicating within a very short range, probably 3 ft. Or less AND only really actuated when the door handle is touched.