Low Battery engine behaviour

Sounds like another case of incompetent service department to me.
It will probably get worse and then maybe they can "find" the cause.

 

I think it's normal. The Prius was never designed to keep the battery topped up all the time, nor run the engine as little as possible.
It was designed to stretch a gallon of fuel a lot farther than any other car in it's class, while providing good performance, interior space and reliability. It achieves all that and more.

 

Seriously, lol, worst reply ever. Maybe read thread through first.

 

It's easy to imagine all sorts of problems where none exist.

 

When a car consistently acts one way and then all of a sudden starts acting another way, it's not some kind of magic or non-existent problem. I'm willing to wait now with my receipt to see them eat their words.

 

If your battery is draining while the car is off, there is a problem. Especially if its fully charged when you pull into work, and it's almost empty, (2-3) bars, when you get in it to go home. See if you can leave the car with the service department for the day when you don't need your car. Like on your day off. I know doing that is a pain in the nice person. That way you can duplicate your problem for them. Sounds like this should be fixed as soon as possible.

 

That might be a problem if that picto-gram were an accurate measurement of battery capacity. I'm not so sure it's intended to do much more than give us an assurance that the system knows what it's doing. Voltages are not good indicators of true battery capacity, (and I'm not sure it's a straight read-out of voltage) because it can fluctuate due to temperatures and chemical reactions which can occur after the battery is idle for awhile.

 

I've never seen my battery bar fluctuate from full to empty just from sitting off before, though. I have seen it drop or raise 1 bar, but never more than that.

 

Has your MPG taken a drastic hit as a result of the fluctuations in the battery?

 

I have not noticed a decrease in my MPG but I'm sure there is some minimal decrease. It only occurs when the car is out in direct sunshine.

 

In a g2 Prius this can be caused by a bad 12 volt battery.
Its low and it puts a big load on the inverter and guess
Where the inverter finds power? This happens very fast.

Has the car ever needed a 12 volt jumpstart?

 

never had to jump it. It happens occasionally, but it is not clear why it happens when it happens. I thought it was heat, but it happened on a nice day as well.

 

posted in error. sorry.

 

You could try posting in the regular Prius (not Prius c) forum maybe someone there has a Prius with a similar issue.

 

well, this thread is two months old, but just for funnies, i'll jump in.

 

Under those conditions you can forcecharge the HV battery if you like. You can conceivably charge it all the way, if you have time in traffic. For safety use both braking systems. It may sound wierd and dangerous, but it is not. Keep car in drive, keep foot on brake. Use handbrake also.l

 

Step on accelerator.

 

Should anybody have any doubts about this procedure, try it in a empty parking lot.

 

Update?

 

I have not experienced serious issues in a while, no idea. Maybe it doesn't happen during the winter, find out soon. It's already getting toasty in Dallas.