Battery dead after four days

Well, OK, I procrastinated for a couple of weeks beacuse of things going on at work and didn't get my car to the dealer. Yesterday afternoon I jumped in the car to drive home from work and it was dead again. This is after driving almost every day since the last incident. I got a quick jump, took the car home and recharged the battery so I could get it to the dealer this morning.

They've had the car all day long and just called to tell me it's fine - nothing wrong. After a heated conversation with the service writer, during which time he accused me making the problem hard to find because I recharged the battery instead of having it towed in - we have decided to leave the car overnight to see if it is dead in the morning. I asked about the current draw when the car is turned off and he said it was 300ma., in spec. He kept on telling me the car "has a lot of electronics" in it and that's what is causing the problem. He even went as far as saying the last time it died after being parked for three days was normal!

All I know is this: Toyota needs to do some major education of their service people when it comes to the Prius. The car is not that complicated, and just because you can't find a code in the computer doesn't mean there isn't something wrong. How hard can it be to find a problem like this? Is the car draining the battery too fast when it's off? Is the charger doing it's job? If both of these are OK then guess what, I bet it's a bad battery. Why do they insist on making this so hard, and more importantly, why would they even consider giving the car back to me just the way it is (broken) simply because they can't find anything wrong? It's not like it's a minor inconvenience when it happens. The car is dead.

I'm really steamed about this. Nothing I hate worse than incompetence driven by ignorance and fear, and these guys seem genuinely afraid of, and intimidated by, this car. Are there any good service techs out there any more???!!!

Geoff

 

Further update. I just got off the phone with the dealer and once again he tells me the car is fine. He claims the dealer I bought the car from didn't do the PDI properly, and that my battery wasn't fully charged when I picked up the car. I asked why my 18 hour drive home from Michigan (where I bought the car) wasn't sufficient to recharge the battery, and his answer was the car couldn't recharge the battery from the "state" it was in from the dealer. He tells me they put the battery on their "special slow charger", and that I won't have this problem any more.

[Begin Rant]

Could this whole episode be any more ridiculous? Could these people be any more clueless about how to find and fix a problem? And could the "father knows best" attitude from the service advisor be any more patronizing? I've been fed a lot of lines of BS in my life but this stuff takes the cake.

Needless to say my next stop is another Toyota dealer. And while I was reluctant to mention this dealer's name until I had given them a chance to recover from the initial silliness, well, that time is over now. So if you live on Long Island and need to take your Prius to a dealer for service, DON'T go to Westbury Toyota. Their service department is clueless about the Prius, and my service writer was patronizing, misinformed and unhelpful.

This is my first Toyota and my experience up to now with the car and the company has been nothing but positive. Amazing how one bad dealer can change your whole attitude. Westbury Toyota will never know the damaged they caused and the sales they have now lost, like the hybrid Hylander I want to buy. They're only about 3 miles from my house I really wanted to like these guys. Now, I'll never go back there for anything.

[End Rant]

Geoff

 

I picked up the car a while ago and I'm curious about something: My backup/seat belt beepers were still off and all my radio station presets and trip odo's were where I left them, so am I correct in assuming the battery was never disconnected?

If that's the case, then I'm really stumped as to how they determined whether my battery was being discharged too quickly, and what they checked this morning. My understanding is that with lead-acids, you need to check cell voltage unloaded to get an accurate indication of state-of-charge, which you obviously can't do with the battery still connected.

One other thing. When I took the car in I mentioned the loose handling at higher speeds, and asked them to check the alignment. When I called about the car this afternoon I was told the alignment was fine and that my problem was caused by overinflated tires. They claimed I had 45 psi in the tires, and they "adjusted them" so now that problem would be fixed. Oh boy, here we go again. All I can figure is they checked the pressure with hot tires, because I had just checked over the weekend and they were 40/38. When I got home I checked the pressure with warm tires and here's where they were:

LF: 30
LR: 32
RF: 32
RR: 31

Needless to say I'll be resetting them to the correct pressure when they're cold.

Evan - I'm taking your advice and filing a formal complaint with Toyota about this incident. I still can't get over how hopelessly inept this service department was with my car.

Geoff

 

I called the Toyota Customer Experience line on Thursday evening after I got the car back from the dealer. I explained what had happened and my concern that the problem was not fixed. The rep. I spoke with was very understanding, took all my information, and told me a Prius adviser would contact me within 24 hours. I left both work and home numbers.

I never got a call from anyone on Friday, as promised, and as expected, this morning the car was dead again. I just tried calling them, but the Customer Experience center is closed on the weekend.

I am not a happy Prius owner today.

Geoff

 

Just a final update on my situation. I took the car to another dealer in my area and their diagnosis was a bad 12v battery, which they replaced. Hopefully this is the end of my saga.

Geoff

 

A sad follow-up to what I thought was my last post on this subject. My new battery was dead again yesterday evening, nine days after the dealer replaced it. I charged it overnight last night and it's back to the dealer again this week. At this point, either it's not being recharged properly or the drain when the power is off is far exceeding the norm. You would think both of these would be fairly straightforward to troubleshoot, but my experience so far with Prius mechanics (and mechanics in general) doesn't inspire confidence that this will be solved easily.

A thought: Toyota shops really need to hire a different type of "mechanic", and that's a guy with a lot of electronics/computer background. Go find some guys with Associates degress from the tech schools and then train them specifically on the electronics in the Prius. Three years from now all of Toyota's fleet is going to be as "complicated" (my dealer's words, not mine) as the Prius, and if anything will kill Hybrid sales fast it will be dealers giving the car a reputation that it can't be easily fixed when it breaks.

Nothing against the guys with wrenches, but the skill set needed to diagnose problems like mine is a lot different from the skill set you need to do a brake job or replace a head gasket. Over the many years I've been dealing with car problems and car mechanics, the single weakest area of understanding and troubleshooting skill I've seen in most shops is fixing electrical/electronic problems. Most of these guys are just clueless and they "fix" problems by replacing stuff until they finally get it working again. The trend I'm seeing now is the almost total reliance on "codes" from the onboard computers to tell them what's wrong. No codes, nothing's wrong. That's exactly what the first Toyota dealer said when they tried to find my dead battery problem.

Bottom line is you need really solid, locgical troubleshooting skills to fix computers and electronic devices, and that's what our cars are becoming. I sure hope Toyota will push the dealers to add that one guy in their shop that has these skills and can diagnose and fix electronic problems the first time. As for my problem, it's trip number three back to the shop.

Geoff