Letting the car sit for 16 or so hours, going to drive it there is noticeable lack of acceleration and the display shows the battery with 1 purple bar. After a few minutes and once the battery gets a couple or few bars acceleration returns to normal. Its almost like an old turbo engine sensation. If the car is parked for a few hours and then driven again its fine. I assume what I'm feeling is the electric motor not being able to supplement the ICE like it normally does. Its a 2007 and I'm fairly confident its original so I'm not surprised if its beginning to die
Any lights on the dash, or known codes thrown? How many miles, and how long have you owned it? Have you cleaned the HV battery fan yet?
The HV battery control limits it's discharge rate based on many things, one of which is "state of charge". You can see this if you have an android phone, a bluetooth adapter and the "Hybrid Assistant" app. Two purple bars is about 42% SOC. At this point, the car will act like a dog, as the current discharge rate from the battery is limited, to ensure the battery isn't drained too low. As the battery charges and gets into the "blue" bar zone, the discharge rate limits are raised and the car has more power available. If your car is in the 'blue zone' when turned off, but showing purple bars upon start-up after sitting for a while, you most likely are in the early stages of HV battery failure.
Makes sense, thank you for the input. My intuition thought thats what it probably was. Unfortunately i have iOS
No cel's and I dont have a code reader but I'm pretty sure I can go to advance or autozone and theyll scan for free. Has roughly 230k on it right now. Owned it for about a year, previous owner is a prius mechanic for toyota. I had not thought about cleaning the HV fan yet, but makes sense and could possibly prolong my battery Given that were approaching Florida summer temps
If the hybrid battery tanks to purple just sitting in a fast food drive thru that's Stage 1 of battery death. If you have not thrown any codes yet the battery is recoverable with a Prolong Charger System. Mine was getting real bad about a year ago and a Prolong discharge/charge woke it right back up. Looks pretty good now no longer tanks to purple at the drop of a hat. Got another year out of it. The longer you can keep that battery in your car the better the odds are in getting a newer cheaper replacement battery system. Hundreds of posts about the Prolong Battery System. Use search forums button up top. if you sell the car you can then sell the charger too so its a pretty good investment. Once the battery cable is installed its easy to do changes on it. The battery likes that. Tic Toc.
And yes when in purple there is no hybrid battery participation so not only is the anemic little engine propelling the car by itself its also trying to charge up the flat battery at the same time so take it easy on the car when in purple. Baby it till it gets some blue's back.
Yes, your battery is weak and beginning to fail. Sorry, it's bound to happen but at least you're getting a warning. GOOD LUCK!
