Battery dead yet again...

what is the capacity AH from the oem vs optima?

 

The height is identical as you can almost see from here. For all intents and purposes, they are the same dimensions.

Not sure what the original is (doesn't say on it - at least not in English!), but the new one is rated a 41 A-hr.

 

Thanks Darell, good work. Here, have a drink:

gluk gluk gluk gluk gluk gluk gluk gluk <clink>

 

Oh great. First you say Stinger SPV35 Deep Cycle Car Audio Battery, & now this. I've been lead down the garden path ... played like a fine chello ... oh the humanity

ps, the elearnaid kit jumped to $29. The lower price was fair, but this higher price must reflect many of us who went to costco to buy the battery on the cheep, instead of buying both the battery WITH the kit from elarnaid. It aint too hard to make up your own terminals for about the cost that elearnaid used to charge. The vent plug ... another story.

 

Jesus I am so MAD about this.

It's happened 5 times now to my 2006 model car.
Each time; it has sat for no more than 48 hours with NOTHING draining it (despite what the old, moronic, Ahole service advisor keeps telling me...It MUST be my fault) this is what he said to me after a 30 minute trip into a hardware store and I come out and it's dead as a doorknob.

I was so steaming.

I make them send towtruck each time now and give me a loader.
The last time it was a faulty ECU which they replaced....this time; it is now dead after beign driving just 24 hours before.

They'r getting a call first thing in the AM to come get it.

I am SO frustrated and angry about this, mostly b/c of the SA's attitude each time....as if I've done something wrong.

He had the gall to tell me the owner's manual (which i read cover to cover) even states that it can't sit more than a few days....I said "come now, really-that's not the party line you're giving clients and expecting them to believe it, is it?? And the manual says nothing of the sort....it says it should not be left for long periods of time without starting)".

Sorry for the rant....but I'm SO TIRED of this crap.

But I still love my car!

-Diane in Seattle

 

Evan - Great point. And when I did the Optima swap in the Rav4EV, I did just that. Go figure. The nice part about keeping power to the Prius is that you don't have that pesky positive lead flopping around on you to worry about shorting.

 

Yeah... you'll notice that I didn't get much love on that Stinger thing. And when I learned that the D51 was taken off the market and brought back (repaired, in theory) I was much happier with that plan.

Last month it was $10. Then $15. Now $29? I get the sneaky suspicion that I may be partly responsible for that. My Optima page has gotten lots of hits, and many have followed my e Learn Aid like. With all that extra attention, it might have seemed wise to raise the price. I thought $10 was about right. $30 is definitely getting a bit steep for what you get!

 

I'll just get these pro forma items out of the way; don't be annoyed:
- If it was ever drained once it will never be the same.
- Do you have any electronics that were not installed by the factory? Some of these have high drains. Independent of that installation errors even by a dealer can cause problems.

It may simply have been a faulty battery. They ought to replace it under warranty. But in any case it's time to get a new one, and maybe a new dealer also.

 

Do yourself and future customers a favor: Speak to the service manager about this. If he has the same attitude, keep climbing until you reach somebody who cares how the customers are being treated.

 

I'm gonna suggest that you have the dealer look at the radio in the car, especially if it is a JBL radio/amp. A number of other Toyota cars with the JBL radio/amp have had their battery drained due to a problem with the amp staying on even though the car was off. I don't know if later model Toyota's with JBL radios still have this problem, but I know it was an often discussed topic on our '04 Sienna, and I've found references on the web indicating that it was a problem also on the '04 and '05 Priuses as well as 4-runners, Matrixes and other Toyota models.

Definitely should put an ammeter on the battery to see if there is a parasitic drain on the battery. Wouldn't hurt to have it load tested, too, to see if there is any useful life left in the battery.

I've had the car sit up to 2 weeks with SKS left on and come back and had no trouble starting it up. Now, this was at home, where I can easily jump start it. I don't know if Murphy would rear his ugly head if I had done this with the car parked at an airport, though.

 

Correct, now why doesn't Toyota mention that in their literature, or, preferably, a warning sticker! No doubt, it would interfer with sales. One drawback on that battery, it doesn't give people a comparable experience with batteries in other cars. A Prius owner can't see the battery by opening the hood, s/he has to make an effort to make a visual and even then most people would be clueless to the sensitivity of that battery. Even to me it looks like another special feature of the Prius. Turns out it is nothing more than a motorcycle battery!

 

testing for a JBL power drain is a good idear
i got troubles nog the car standing stil for 2 days and can not start it
the dealer told me that the 12 volt battery was ok BUT needs to be charged