Today my friend asked me to jump start his car (non-prius) and I agreed. When I open my plug-in prius hood, I got confused about where to connect jumper cables. There is no visible battery and battery terminals? Out of embarrassment I have to know step-by-step procedure for these two questions. (1) How can PIP jump start other cars? (2) How can PIP be jump started? Thanks Adi
Don't do it. To much can go wrong ($$$) using a Prius to jump another vehicle...and be very careful if you need a jump.
If your Prius needs a jump: Yes and this is how; How to jump start your Prius by Larry Miller Toyota of Peoria Agree with previous poster: Don't do it!
I have to agree with the above=DON'T do it. Others on the site can give you the tech reasons, but it is too big a gamble with the electronics on this car, and besides the 12volt in the Prius is small and not very powerful.
Due to the small size of the Prius 12 volt battery, it cannot be used to jump a car needing a full sized 12 volt. I would only jump a Prius at the battery under the left rear fender. That being; I would only do it myself with a jump box. I'd only use the said jump box to jump the other person's car.
On 1): Toyota (and everybody here) advises against it. If you want to go ahead at your own risk, the 12V battery is in the trunk on the right side. On 2): in the front jumper box at the left side under the hood there is a red cap which houses a +12V terminal. Connect the 12V from the other car to that and connect the ground to somewhere in tour Prius where there is a ground. The manual should cover this, so RTFM.
The 12V battery in a Prius (plug-in or standard) is very small, since it does not have crank the engine, as the battery is called upon to do in a conventional car. All it has to do is boot up the hybrid system control computer. If the gasoline engine needs to be started, that is done with power from the large hybrid battery. Apart from not being able to provide enough amperage to start a conventional car, the current drain and various voltages that can be fed back to the charging battery from the other car can destroy the expensive electronic systems in the Prius. Even putting the Prius 12v battery on a charger if you somehow manage to drain it has a particular protocol to avoid damage to the car's systems. The best way to think of a Prius is a self-moving computer system.
What he said. Mostly because the Prius (and any hybrid for that matter) has a small 12 V battery that should NOT be used to run the starter on a conventional engine. To each his own but if it HAS jump points in the engine bay, there is NO good reason not to use them. Much easier and probably safer too. Really ? I don't think so. Reference please.
The prius is not good to jump start other cars, granted, but what is wrong with hooking up and turning your ignition on for say 10 minutes to charge someone else's battery? I've done that twice before. As long as you don't reverse the cables, I don't see what would be bad about that. Leave the other car off and don't try to start it until you've disconnected yours.
Glad that t was your car; NOT mine... I'm NOT into the act of living dangerously. Let the AAA or other road service do it. I would NOT even AAA touch the battery on m Prius. There are too many expensive horror stories.
Potentially what is wrong with that is: What if the crippled car has had a catastrophic battery failure, due to a short inside or outside of the battery ? I might just connect the two together for a few minutes......IF the spark at the last connection wasn't a huge one......but I would NEVER turn the donor car ON. NEVER, when it is a hybrid. And probably never with a conventional car either. If the crippled car won't fire off immediately just by being connected to a good battery, the owner needs to call a tow truck.
This subject was already discussed in length long time ago. BTW I bet (not tried it though) that 6 size AA Alkaline batteries connected in series to give 12 Volts will "jump-start" the Prius with a drained (but not ruined) 12V battery, when the array is connected correctly to the terminal at the engine bay, i.e. will be enough to bring the car into "ready" mode and then disconnected. No danger either. OK, maybe size C batteries...
You need at least 8 AA cells (9 would be better), connected in series with each other and then that assembly connected in parallel with the onboard battery. I think several owners have done something similar already.
Starting on page 544 of my 2010 Owners Manual, the connections for jumpstarting the Prius: (There's two step 4's, but hey.) And a caution, against using the Prius to jumpstart another vehicle, at the under-hood jumpstart terminal, on page 547: It's not clear to me from the above, if it would or wouldn't be ok to jumpstart another vehicle by connection jumper cables directly at the battery under the hatch floor. I wouldn't do it, due again to the diminutive 12 volt battery in the Prius. Also, whenever you're hooking up, be VERY careful to not reverse polarity: it can blow fuses (at the least) and might damage expensive electronics. Maybe just get a jump pack, for future?
1) Read a tale from here and see if you think its a good idea to jump a car from your PiP. Jump-Starting Weirdness, 100 Amp Fuse | PriusChat Personally I would go with something like this: (weighs about a pound) and cheaper than replacing the 100 AMP DC/DC fuse. 2) I've actually jumped my previous Prius (2005) with 2 9-volt transistor batteries.
