I like my 2012 C, but I'm paranoid about the lead-acid battery

If you suffer from mental illness in the form of abnormal anxiety then I'm sorry.
Best of everything in dealing with this issue.

However my basic advice doesn't change.

TRY...not to worry about it.

The consensus seems to be, that from new, you should get at least 4 years.
So more than likely you've got a good year or two of reliability.

In two years, you can have the battery checked.

I would further suggest to you, that most of the worst case scenarios even if you did have a premature failure, aren't really all that bad.

The advice to get AAA, and then not worry, might be very good.

Batteries fail in vehicles all the time. And usually, it manifests into being a minor expense and perhaps an annoyance. Usually NOT that bad.

You have a newer vehicle, with no real reason or evidence to believe your battery is going to fail anytime soon. I think you are OK in this arena.

 

Try not to worry about your battery. Your car is only two years old. When it is four years old just take it to your Toyota dealer and have them put in a new battery. That way you will be safe and good for another four years.

 

jeez,,, mental insults against a valid question,,, not good.
anyway, exactly how horrible and small is this twelve volt battery anyway? should i put a real Harley battery (or 2) under my rear seat instead?
oh and btw my friend's Scion xB 2012 battery just failed so don't always count 'em past two years.

 

Thanks, but this seems to address why AGM is better than traditional batteries. That was not my question.

My question was why are you saying that a "brand name" battery will necessarily be better than the OEM battery in the Prius C?

 

The part of my post that you quoted does not say that......so I went back and looked......and I never did say that, unless you remove a few words from one of my sentences.

So, let's try to clarify.
I don't like "cheap knock-offs" of anything.
There are cheap AGM batteries imported from China that don't perform good.
That's why I said "name brand AGM".

I am not necessarily implying that a fresh healthy OEM (wet cell) would be inferior to a new wet cell battery from anybody else........because I don't know what the quality of the OEM batteries IS.

I think it is "penny wise and pound foolish" to put in another flooded wet cell battery of any type when doing a replacement because an AGM would be vastly superior.......in most cases.

 

That bit is what I'm puzzled about.

 

What exactly is the OEM battery ?
I'm assuming it is a "standard" flooded wet cell battery.
If that is true, pretty much everybody agrees that the new AGM technology is much better.

If the OEM battery is also AGM, then I have made a mistake.....probably.

 

^ Pretty sure the Original Equipment Manufacturer battery is Absorbent Glass Matt type (per the hatchback Prius), due to being in the cabin.

 

From the doco I can find, it's definitely a sealed lead-acid battery but Wikipedia tells me this term can mean either a gel battery or an AGM battery. I can't remember the last time I had a car that still used a flooded wet cell battery - neither of my previous Corollas had them, although my first Corolla no longer had its OEM battery by the time I bought it. The Camry my mother bought in 1996 definitely came with a sealed lead-acid battery.

However my understanding is as above, that the battery was AGM due to being in the cabin (and in a c, the battery is even closer to the passengers than it is in a liftback).

 

I kind of wonder: WHY Toyota puts the Prius 12 volt battery anywhere but the engine bay?

 

Performance wise, being in the middle helps with weight distribution and we all know the Prius line was made for performance.

 

Well all seals are not created equal.

Some flooded wet cell batteries use a slightly different chemistry to minimize the gassing and associated water loss and are "sealed" except for the vent, meaning only that they are not intended to be opened to add water.

Then there is a true pressure seal used on the AGM, which does not have a vent in most applications.

If it does, it would be associated with a pressure relief valve and under normal conditions would not vent to the atmosphere.
I'm not sure about a GEL type as I've never had one of those.

I was just about to go out and look at mine........until I remembered that it is under the back seat.
Maybe later.