How long is too long for a plug-in to sit not being used?

seems insane. can't you get a new one for the same price?

 

Perhaps not in that state.

 

hold on, you have a 2013 base with 83,000 now, and they are asking 26k for a 2012 advanced?

 

he never mentioned a 2013, he owns a base model (2004) with 83k miles.....
and 26 thousand for the sleeper advance model?, I would pass the opportunity, you are not in a CARB State.

 

"the attraction for me was upgrading to an advanced from the base plug-in, plus going from 83,000 miles to 4. it would also be one model year older, which would help with insurance."

 

tell them you'll buy it if they'll swap your batteries.

 

Good luck with that one.

 

Great timing for the question. I just purchased a 2012 pip (low mileage), which appears to have been sitting on the lot for nearly a year. Didn't raise a red flag, but now has me thinking.

Noticed on the way home something odd. Could not get anything from the EV mode, even after about 2 hours of solid driving. The battery indicator on the dash shows full.

Not familiar with the pip, so figure I just need to learn more about the car. On my 2010 PriusV, I can drive short distances in EV mode if the car has been running for a while (and battery power regenerates)...so was expecting the same on this vehicle at a minimum. Then plug it in for x number of hours for the longer distance.

Any red flags here to those reading? Is this normal? Learned to use the EV mode a lot in the V (keep it generating) and would hate the thought of this function no longer being available.)

 

Toyota UK is now offering "Hybrid Health Check":

Hybrid Cars Health Check | Toyota UK

Not sure what it is they do, but they do have the Techstream software, the knowledge base: would think they're looking at the state of the individual cells within the battery.

It's a bit of a head-shaker why it's taking so long for this service to be available, and so far just in the UK. Anyway, it's a small world: if you check out that site, maybe print out that page, and take it along talk to your dealership's service manager, I wonder if they could cobble up something comparable?

Again, it seems strange as heck that North America dealerships aren't offering similar.

 

Unless the car has been put into hybrid only/charge sustain mode, there should be some use of the grid charge, and I thought the plug in defaults to EV mode on start up.

 

That must be what they did to my car on the last service but i live in Sweden, they connected the car to the computer and ran some test did get a paper with me of a hybrid health check. My technican had to do several things that was stated on the screen and the car had to be running like reving the engine while holding the brake etc to see that the "gear box" dont skip. Fullblast on ac and beams on and stuff to see if the charging current for 12v battery was enough and so on took about 30 min or so for the whole thing and it also checked the cells in the battery. Was interesting to see, he said they were one of a choosen few to test this new system in Sweden.

 

This is what it actually look like, so really they check fault codes, internal battery resistance internal voltage variation between cells and temp of the battery plus isolation.

And also pump, fans and the cooling liquid.

And for the knowledge this wasnt a program on the computer it was like a java thing on a toyota page so it was sent directly to toyota as well i guess.

Godkänd = Passed

 

Didn't Grumpycabbie mention this health check and something about a better battery warranty?

 

Yes.

 

you were probably out of juice. the pip shows a full battery after you're done charging. then, when you run out of wall juice, it reverts to a full regular prius battery. once you're out of wall juice, you can't ev mode anymore, unless you go down a long enough hill to regen enough to get back into ev.

 

I can see how that might be a little confusing.

 

yes, it takes awhile to figure it out. first, it starts out as a solid battery when fully charged. when it gets down to one mile, it converts to a barred battery looking full again. then, when it runs out of wall charge, it converts to a regular prius icon. it's all in the o/m.