i have a 2004 prius. apparently, i left the lights on for 2 weeks. i just got in to start the car today, it wont start. i noticed that the lights had been on. now it is hard to even turn off--maybe because the battery is so low. also, the gas is on empty and it had at leat 1/3 tank in it when i turned it off. or it may be that the indicator just isnt showing the level in the tank. what am i going to have to do to fix this? my first action is going to be to go and get a can of gas. will i have to take it in? any experience with this? did i totally mess up my battery? thanks, -brent
From what it sounds like gas might do it. Get at least three gallons. If it starts up and runs fine then, just pay a little extra attention for a few days to mak sure. This is assuming I'm reading it correctly. It's way past my bedtime. A few clarifications might help. How many bars does the battery show? Are any of the info lights on the dash on when you put the car into ready mode?
Sounds like you left the car in "Ready" mode, not just the lights on. I suspect it sat and ran itself out of gas. If you fill the tank it should start up fine. If it was NOT left in Ready mode then only the 12v battery should be drained...a jump should get you up and running.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brentp @ Dec 16 2006, 05:40 PM) [snapback]363215[/snapback]</div> Before you do anything else, borrow a fresh battery, charger, or set of jumper cables (with another car, of course). Pop the hood and open the cover of the fuse box on the drivers side. There will be a red cap, I believe, in the rear passenger side corner of the fuse box. Pop the cover and there is a copper terminal inside. Connect the positive (red ) side of the charging device to this terminal. Connect the Black (negative) side to any body/chassis bare metal area. Let the chargeing device run for a couple of minutes. You need to get enough of a charge into the battery to allow it to boot up all the ECU's. Once this happens, you can power up the car and the high voltage safety relay will activate and start charging the 12 volt battery from the traction battery. If you are using a charger, you will see the charge rate drop to nearly zero amps. That's it. I takes longer to describe it than to do it. You will probably have to reset all of your favorite radio stations, reset the backup buzzer, etc Good luck!
thanks to all who replied. i called the toyota dealer and they said the same thing as all of you re the battery and gave, nearly verbatim, the same instructions as syclone. i'm fairly certain that the car wasn't in ready mode and that it's just that i'm parked on a hill (or optimistic about the amount of gas in the tank) that it was showing empty. my neighbor has a charger, so once he's back i'll be driving again. will there be any permanent "damage" following the recharge? can i just charge it for ~10 minutes, then start it up and drive off and not have to worry about it restarting at the next place i stop? thanks again. -b
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brentp @ Dec 16 2006, 05:46 PM) [snapback]363233[/snapback]</div> While it's hard on a battery to drain it completely, doing so only once shouldn't have any long term impact and you should be fine.
The battery damage depends a lot on how far it dischaged and how long it sat around before you charged it back up. If it was dead for most of the two weeks it may have a noticably shortened life. As far as the gas gauge it depends on the battery, so if that is dead you will get wrong readings for a while. After I disconnected my battery for servicing once it took near 100 miles before the gauge went above empty but I knew I had nearly a full tank. Other times it did not do this.
*Always* lock the car when you leave it. If any doors are ajar or if the car is not OFF it will issue a long warning beep when you try to lock it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brentp @ Dec 16 2006, 08:46 PM) [snapback]363233[/snapback]</div> It is best if you use a "trickle charger" to recharge the auxillary battery. The manual says no more than 3 (or maybe 3.5) Amps. What I have used is a "Battery Tender Jr." which puts out 0.75A. I had to leave it for about 24 hours, but it was gently recharged. Then remove the charger before you try to start it. For any car, if you are getting a jump from another car it is also best to remove the cables after about 10 minutes of charging and then try to start it, instead of leaving the cables connected when you start the car.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brentp @ Dec 16 2006, 07:46 PM) [snapback]363233[/snapback]</div> Whether there will be damage depends on how long the battery was "dead".. Lead-acid batteries are prone to sulfation damage if left in a discharged (or even partially discharged) state, so in the very best case, there was no damage, but my guess is that you'd have at least some minor sulfation damage from this episode.. As for charging, it depends on how long/how far you have to drive.. 10 minutes of charging from a typical 6-10 Amp charger will let you start your car *now*, but it still leaves the battery in a very low state. The Prius charging system is also somewhat different than that of a conventional vehicle- on the Prius, you have a fixed voltage charging system- there are actually two voltage levels, but even the slightly higher voltage still results in a very slow charge rate (slower than the AC charger), so if you drive another 10-20 minutes, the battery will not have received much more charge, and will still be mostly dead, and if you leave the car sitting for too long, the battery may die on you again.. Ideally, what you need to do is to leave the battery connected to an AC charger until the charger shuts off automatically- whether this takes an hour or overnight will depend on how bad the battery is, but you need to let the battery get recharged fully, otherwise if you drive around with a mostly discharged battery, it will take a week of driving or more to get the battery back up to a decent level, and all during that time, you're risking more sulfation damage..
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(c4 @ Dec 18 2006, 10:56 AM) [snapback]363762[/snapback]</div> I second that. Just driving around Winnipeg for 10-20 minutes at a time, especially in winter with the electric defrost always on, the battery will be in a partially discharged state anyway. Take it out, properly charge it, then it should be ok.
Does anyone know if those new deals that jump start through the cigarette lighter will work for the Prius, or is there a special situation to be aware of?
A related question: is there a way to get a clue that the 12v battery is on its way out by the way the car behaves at startup? What I'm getting at is that, with a conventional car, I could kind of tell, if I listened closely, by the speed and tone of the starter motor...how long the engine cranked until it caught...and how much the dash lights would dim as the starter motor worked against the compression of the engine. With the Prius, I'm clueless.
If you are familiar with the Insight you know what a recalibration or recal is (the #1 reason for getting a Prius instead). My 2000 Insight was having frequent recals about 15K miles after replacing the battery pack. I was reading on the Insight forums that a 12V battery needing replacement could cause this so I stopped at a few places to have it tested and sure enough, my 12V battery was due for replacement. Afterwards my recals were dramatically reduced. Fortunately, in the world of the Prius, the word "recal" doesn't exist so that method will not work.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(John Basel @ Dec 21 2006, 01:45 PM) [snapback]365219[/snapback]</div> Only if you modify the "cigarette Lighter" outlet plug. These outlets are disconnected when the hybrid system is off. A low cost modification consisting of a single jumper wire is available from Coastal Tech. If you install this the answer becomes yes. - Tom
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tom_06 @ Dec 24 2006, 02:27 PM) [snapback]366354[/snapback]</div> are you referring to the EV Mode switch? I was looking at that -- the headlight flasher method looks to be the best, in my mind. Or, perhaps you have another mod in mind?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(John Basel @ Dec 27 2006, 11:35 AM) [snapback]367171[/snapback]</div> Nope, another mod that turns the 12 volt outlets "live" all the time. Has nothing to do with the EV mod Otherwise, if the 12 vdc battery in the hatch should go flat, you plug one of those cigarette lighter boosters in, and nothing happens. If you have an emergency 12 vdc booster with clamps, just pop the hood and use the emergency boost point in the main fuse box
