Good morning all. I have a 2008 Prius with 190,000 miles that was working fine when I left it home and went on a 5 day trip. When I returned home I went to move it from the driveway. I jumped in and attempted to start it as usual. Foot on brake press start. I put it in reverse and rolled a but down the incline. When I hit the brakes to slow down, the brakes went to the floor and I realized the car wasn’t in “R”. All dash lights and radio were on but the shift will only engage to “N”. I attempted restarting it with the key in the slot, no change. I had driven it before leaving and it seemed fine. I had also changed the 12v 4 weeks ago and its still showing 13v. Previous to changing the battery I had the triangle warning. After changing my mechanic scanned the Prius with a “real” scanner and found no code issues. I dont know where to start with troubleshooting. I need the car so advice would be appreciated.
Check the 12 V again - four weeks is a long time for the battery to sit - and charge up as necessary. You want to see 12.8 - 13.2 after charging if the battery was reasonably new or above 12.7 V in any case, just for the battery's sake.
I hope you don't mean to imply that you will take it for a long ride to charge up the battery because if you do, a long ride will be 16 - 20 hours of driving. Further, it is actually not necessary to drive the car, it just has to be READY to drive, so it can sit in a secure location on your property. Given the above, it probably is a better idea to get a modern automatic multi-stage battery charger and use that as required. A good charger will revert to maintenance mode and can be left on the battery indefinitely when the car is not being driven.
