Dead Prius plug-in

12v battery? does the fob work? dome lights? headlights? perhaps left a light on or door ajar, draining the battery. try stepping on the brake pedal harder if the fob and lights work.

 

Does the (red) light on the fob go on when you try it? I'm betting it does, and it's your 12 volt battery that's run down. Do you by chance have a digital volt meter?

Maybe a door was left ajar, something like that. There's about a million "courtesy lights" on the car, and a lot of them can't even be switched off. On ours for example: open either of the front doors and you've got the door panel light, the illuminated door sill, AND a couple of little lights under the dash.

 

if you charge the pip, it charges the 12 volt at the same time. but if it's flat, that may not be enough.

 

FOB battery needs replacement?

 

On any ordinary car, not a Prius.....when the car doesn't start, you call AAA for a jump start. The logic applies here too with a Prius

 

If you have AAA, let them handle it.

If not, you can open the rear hatch manually by folding down the rear seats, removing the cover to the back tray (where your manual is), then you'll be able to see a manual lever on the hatch area that you can open the hatch with. It's a small tiny sliding lever from left to right.

 

Anything that will supply 12V to the jump points in the engine bay should be fine. Even 8 D-Cells in series could work, or so I've read.

Just make sure the polarity of your jumper is correct.

 

Actually is really simple to jump a prius. Open the hood and take the fuse box cover off. You will see a red flip up cover over the 12v copper tab. Hook red cable to this and black to an unpainted spot on the frame. Boom you're jumping your prius! I had to learn this really quick when I ran my 12v down during a 16 minute ferry boat ride.

 

There's a metal key in your fob. That'll unlock your car, power or no power.

I know it's no laughing matter, but: if you can't figure out how to get the ley out of the fob, there's instruction...: in the Owners Manual.

 

The only thing is that the hatch door is electric actuated so it can't be opened from the outside if you lose power. You have to crawl over the back seat and use the emergency release.

 

That sounds like locking your house and car keys in the car, and the spare car key is in your house.

 

You can jumpstart and/or charge the battery at the under-hood fuse box.

 

Here ya go:



If you get it running, via a jump start, you're not out of the woods. You'd do well to pick up a digitial multimeter and a (3~4 amp range) smart charger. Hook the latter up per instructions, let it run to completion. This could well take up to 12 hours. Then drive it for a day or two. Then check the voltage (at the underhood fuse box is fine).

If it's in decent shape, it'll read around 12.6 volts.

 

watch them to make sure they don't cross polinate the positive and negative, costs big bucks! find the jump point under the hood and have it ready for them. make sure they clamp the positive to it, and negative to an unpainted bolt or stud for grounding.

 

Correction: that'd be 8 cells in SERIES, not parallel . Otherwise you're still at just 1.5V, but with 8x the capacity (mAh).