How do I fully lock the car after disconnecting the 12V battery negative lead? It seems to me that the driver's door mechanical lock only works for that one door, not the hatch. Thanks!
Hatch opening switch is electric so basically it’s always locked. Doors can be locked by just turning the mechanical lock switch to lock position.
But this begs the question: Why are you wanting to do that in the first place ?? It is NOT necessary to disconnect the battery for storage periods of less than 60 days or so ........IF the battery is fully charged to begin with AND it is not old and weak.
Thanks for the replies. So I am stood at the car with the driver's door open, the hatch open and everything is unlocked. Is this the right procedure?: Press central locking button on driver's door to engage lock Disconnect 12V battery negative lead Close all doors Use mechanical key to lock driver's door Now all the doors are locked, right? Thanks!
And then the reverse is?: Unlock driver's door with mechanical key (pulling on door handle first) Crawl into back Manually release hatch lock Reconnect 12V battery negative lead Unlock all doors Thanks!
~ I sometimes wonder why Toyota elected to put the 12 volt back there. So it has to be AGM, cost an arm and a leg? The same bunch that put the instruments in the center of the dash, and dorky wheel covers over utilitarian, black alloys?
A potentially easier way to disconnect the 12V battery is at the hood. Then you don't have to crawl into the hatch area and find the manual unlock lever when the time comes to reconnect the battery. To do this, open the hood, find the main relay/fuse box next to the inverter, and remove the lid by pressing hard on the latch in front of the box and pivoting the lid up. Find the dedicated jumpstart terminal covered by a red plastic cover. Unlatch that cover and pivot it up to show the terminal. Use a 10 mm socket to remove the nut next to the terminal. Use long-nose pliers to pull up the wire that was secured by the nut. Now the 12V positive cable is disconnected. Screw the nut back on to the threaded stud. Close the red cover. Place the wire that you removed on top of the red cover. Replace the main relay/fuse box cover, close the hood. Lock the doors, then you are done. Another poster suggested the 12V battery will withstand a Prius storage period of 60 days. Let's see what this means to the battery: 0.02A quiescent current draw x 24 hours/day x 60 days = 29Ah. A new, fully-charged 12V AGM battery for the Prius has a rating of ~40 Ah. It is usually considered bad practice to allow the battery to discharge more than half of the battery's rated capacity in terms of avoiding negative impact to the battery's service life. The car might or might not start at the end of the 60 day period (probably not since most people will not have installed a new 12V battery that will perform at spec and was fully-charged prior to storage), but either way it will require serious recharging for the battery to be restored to normal capacity. (This means more than running the car for 20 minutes and calling it good - the battery will have to be recharged at least overnight if not longer.)
Thanks, however knowing my luck I will accidentally touch the body or the inverter cover with the handle of the socket wrench... I tried the hatch method outlined above and it worked. Thanks for everyone's help.
OK so make it 30 days. Some people seem to think extraordinary procedures are needed just for a week of non-use.......and they are NOT.
