After only 92 months of flawless service, the 12 volt battery died after I left the right passenger door ajar after washing the car. Went to go to work and ..... Of course, if there’s insufficient power, you can’t unlatch the rear hatch to get to the battery. After buying a replacement, I had to crawl into the back, pull stuff out the passenger door, then hook jumper cables to a spare 12 volt motorcycle battery so there was power to release the back hatch. No warnings that the 12 volt battery was weak or failing, but we’re talking from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday morning with the dome light on. I put the OEM battery on a trickle charger, but the lights said, “He’s dead, Jim.”
Please take this with a sense of humor....There's always the option of opening the driver door, popping the hood, removing the fuse box cover and installing the jump cable on the under hood jump point to power up the 12v system (or even charge the 12v battery for a few hours if desired). Then just walk around to the back of the car and open the trunk. Of course, this assumes the gen 3 has an underhood jump point like the Gen 2.
"this assumes the gen 3 has an underhood jump point like the Gen 2" Which it does, indeed. In addition, were you to go to YouTube and put this in the search window there: 2010-2015 Toyota Prius How to manually open the rear hatch You'd get a dandy video from NutzAboutBolts on how to open the hatch from inside the car (not fun, but very doable). Finally: Over 7.5 years is a typical service life for OEM (or any, in that class) 12V batteries. It was probably on its way out when you happened to kill it with that coup de grace, altho it'd probably've given you a few months more service. Be happy that you were at home when it failed, 'stead of out in the wild. 12V battery life depends on how often and how much you drive the car, as the Prius charging current is pretty low, so it takes a goodly amount of driving to fully charge the thing.
mine lasted 87 months, no warning. never drained it by leaving a door open or light on. started fine, drove 4 miles and parked. came back 345 minutes later and no start. crawled in the back while waiting for aaa and unlatched from inside. he got there and it tested 4.7 volts. jumpedand drove to the dealer, picked up a new one for 200 bucks.
"Only" 92 months? That's over 7,5 years. That is not a life time for a car battery! Now maybe if it died after 7,5 months you have something to complain about.
What a hunk of junk battery. Only lasted twice as long as average. And yes, it's stupid easy to unlock the front door with the metal key, pop the hood, and put 12V on the terminals with the new battery and then go pop the hatch. How come people don't know this easy method but they do know about the semi-secret hard way to get in the back?
Unfortunately, I was one of the ones that learned the hard way also. . Only took me 2 times before I realized there was an under hood jump point.
Weird, ain't it. I once did it the hard way and I already knew better. Guess I was target fixated. Laid down my lithium jump pack and crawled in the back of my friend's mom's Prius to jump the battery. LOL!
we’re Americans. We do things the hard way, then love to complain. It would make too much sense to read and know how to do it the right way.
I wish I knew that the morning it happened. Yeah...I should have used more emojis to show I was being snarky.
Yep, manuals ARE a pretty good sleep aide . Pick one up in the evening and before you know it- zzzz. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
That's what I did. And if you have the PDF, you can read it on your iPad and not lose your place when you fall asleep.
And THAT'S why dealerships, and independent shops can easily con people into getting service done! People are uninformed....
