It does let me know when the key fob battery is low. I bought my car used and it's about 4 years old now.. I'm thinking the battery might need replacing soon.
no. you can easily test it though. i check mine along with oil level and tyres pressure, at the jump point under the hood. 1 '13 shouldn't need a new battery, but since you're not the original owner, there's no way to know without test. or just spend the 200+ bucks and be done with it. there are cigarette lighter adapters that will show the voltage in aux.
It sort of does, in that random things will start happening with various ECU's that fail to properly boot, leading to odd codes and other electronic gremlins.
As an industrial electrician, my motto was "When weird things happen, check the neutral." With the Prius, it's "When weird things happen, check the aux battery." At four years, if you lived in Florida, you'd probably be needing a new battery before long if it hadn't already failed. Since you're in CA, I guess it would depend on if you're in Truckee or Needles. If you suspect that it's nearing it's end of life, I suggest that you test it or have it tested.
What helps most when future PriusChat readers come to an old thread wondering if it fits their situation or not, is the actual observations, that is, what are the things that happen that you believe to be random, what observations lead you to attribute that to ECUs failing to properly boot (do you have JTAG equipment on them to watch them boot, for example?), what are the odd codes, etc.? When that kind of information is in your post, two kinds of good thing can happen: first, other PriusChatters may be able to respond to you and say "oh, that suggests such-and-such", and second, later PriusChatters with questions of their own can easily judge whether your thread is related to their questions. -Chap
That would tell you voltage and whether you have a bad cell but unless you do a load test, it's not going to tell you available amperage, which is much more important. For example, nine AAA batteries will equal 13.5 volts, but nine AAA batteries aren't much good when it comes to a car.
On my 2009 Gen II, I push the start button once, foot off brake. Wait for MFD to "boot up." Then push and hold the "Info" button to the right side of the MFD while turning the headlights on and off three times. The MFD will show "System Check." Select Menu, then Display Check, then Vehicle Signal Check. It will show the voltage on the AuxBattery, which should be ~12.5V, turn the headlights on (to load the battery) and if the volts go below 11 or so, then your AuxBattery might be on the way out. If the system goes to "Ready", then the voltage will go up to ~13.8V which shows the inverter is working, but the AuxBat might still be flakey! Good luck!
I am a big believer in preventive maintenance. "Running until failure" can be, at the very least, frustrating, not to mention expensive. I changed my 12v battery at 4 years and will continue to follow that schedule.
There is no particular reason.. It's just that, in my experience, those batteries last 3-5 years. It will be 4 years in August I believe. The weather here is pretty moderate, so I'm thinking I should have at least 1 more year.
I think ti's much easier to do on the 2nd gen prius.. I remember when I first got the car, I tried entering maintenance mode but it wouldn't work.
When it starts not opening the car when you walk up and reach with your hand and when it doesn't detect the fob when trying to start just replace it how to video on u tube Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I won't dispute the validity of the load test to immediately rule out a battery in need of replacement. But the simple resting voltage test is a nice, quick check. If the resting voltage is less than 12.5 volts then I would look into it further. Amperage, or "cold cranking amps" language in regard to the little Prius 12V auxiliary isn't really applicable since ICE start is performed by the hybrid battery through MG1 and the 12V battery is just there to boot all the computers.
^ This. I wouldn't completely discount the value of a simple voltage check; it's what I mostly do. More convenient, in that you can check at the jump point. But for more in-depth assessment do a load test periodically, directly at the posts. For DIY a "solar BA5" is good. And yeah: the car will tell you more or less nothing, just behave weird, and maybe a lot of completely off-the-mark warnings, to further confuse matters.
