Battery maintainer?

I can’t see the link, but I picked up a noco from amazon for &30. and it’s great.

you won’t have any trouble in a hot garage

 

What's your parking situation? What country are you in, and what area of the country?

For 3~4 months you definitely need "something". Dead-simple is to disconnect the neg cable. It's arguably the optimum approach for long term storage, perhaps coupled with a full charge at the outset. You can also remove the battery from the car, if practical.

Our situation is we drive once or twice a week, and car's stored in a secure garage with 120 volt AC outlets. Unless the car's getting used on consecutive days I connect the battery to a smart charger, let it run it's charging regimen, and leave it connected till we next use the car. I'm using a CTEK 4.3. Equiv now is CTEK 5 I believe. It's worked well for some years now, battery was installed over 8 years ago, still load testing like new.

The CTEK chargers typically come with a quick-connect harness you can wire in, makes it more convenient, especially if you're connecting frequently. They also have aligator clips that work fine, just a little more cumbersome. If you're interested in installing a quick connect I can provide more detail, a good under-the-hood location to tap in.

BTW, Amazon links "behave" better here, if you type some text, select it, choose this button:



And paste the amazon link in the field that pops up. This will leave the selected word as a link that is tinted blue. It's a little subtle; I like to also make it bold text.

 

video #23 here shows how to access the 12 volt positive connection on the under-the-hood fuse box. You can connect positive lead there.

Negative lead you connect to car body. This can be under the head of an existing hold-down bolt, say on some bracket, or at an unused, threaded hole with a suitable bolt.

 

Yes, a 1 amp charger will work, it will be slower though, and is better for the battery.
I think you can unplug the larger white connector in the fuse box under the hood.
That's where power fromt eh 12v battery comes from. But I'm not sure if it splits
and goes some where else because I don't remember seeing a white wire on the battery.

 

1 amp is perfect for maintaining, and the noco senses the type of battery (agm) automatically, and adjusts by itself

 

If you just want to "top it off" and keep it fully charged, then the 4amp one is better.
Then when it's charged it will go into trickle or maintaining mode....

 

I’m using an older version of this, no problems, comes with quick connect cable as well. Pricier.

 

For the Genius 1 (and higher models), you do have to press the mode button a few times until it gets to 12 V AGM—it doesn't have a way to automatically detect what chemistry/construction you're working with. But it does default to the mode that was used last time, so if you only ever used it on an AGM battery, you'd never need to cycle through the modes after the first time.

I have the 5 ampere model that I used to restore a drained battery, and it's worked out pretty well for me so far. However, if I were to purchase one today I would look into the Hulkman series.

 

That's the official under-the-hood connection point for alligator clips. Video #23 is showing where the main 12 volt positive cable feeds in, with a ring connector. For a permanently wired-in quick connector, the latter is a practical place to connect. Space is limited there: I found with the CTEK quick-connect I had to trim off most of the strain-relief plastic shoulder, and bend the wire down, just past the ring connector, or it was too bulky to get the plastic cover back on.

For replacement 12 volt battery. You want a dimensionally identical AGM (abosrbent glass mesh) battery, with the correct post size/orientation, and compatible vent port. Bear in mind batteries can vent hydrogen, and spill (in a collision), and this battery is in the passenger compartment; that's why fully compatible and vented AGM is required.

Basically check online, tell them your vehicle, see what they've got that's compatible. Don't rule out dealership parts department, check with them first for sure.

 

Our Priuses do indeed have AGM batteries from the factory

 

who is deltran?

while oem battery is agm, don't assume it was replaced with one. but a proper maintainer self selects, so i would make sure it has this feature.
my .75 amp noco self selects battery typem voltage and is protected from cross pollinization. for 30 bucks, it's a no brainer

 

My situation is similar to yours and I would like to ask all posters on this thread for advice. I was transferred to Chicago from Boise, Idaho January 1, 2023. The new position included a company car so I left my 2010 Prius IV (83,000 miles and Toyota maintenance compliant) in Boise. I returned December 1 to visit relatives (and drive the car) and discovered that I needed to call AAA to jump start the vehicle. I drove the car for several days, then had it serviced (my yearly oil change and service checkup at the Toyota dealership). The service adviser said that the battery that I replaced last year was still good as new and the car was in in excellent shape. The car is parked outside, partial shade/sun, on the side of the house, but not in a covered car port. For the next five years, I'll work in Chicago January-November, then each December, travel to Boise to visit relatives and drive the car while in Boise. How best to "store the car" for 11 months, and drive it for one month. This is a great car and I planned for this to be my primary retirement "town" car (five years from now).