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New aux. battery

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by rlaird, Oct 21, 2014.

  1. rlaird

    rlaird Junior Member

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    Ref: Prius 2008 (bought new in 2007), now with about 186,000 miles on it...

    Just replaced my aux. battery with the Optima DS46B24R Yellow Top battery (ordered from Amazon for $146.00 and free shipping with Prime membership). It was a drop in replacement, and took about 25 minutes (it would have been 15 minutes, but I didn't have all my tools with me, so had to suffer through using less-than-ideal tools).

    What prompted this was, the old battery started giving me a few hints that something was likely wrong with it, but I do wonder... About two months ago, my driving routine changed completely, and wondered if anyone has any comments about it.

    The old routine: I lived 46 miles from town, and worked from home. When I did get in the car, it was for a 30-mile round-trip drive to the store, or a 105-mile round-trip into town, so the car got a lot of highway miles at speeds averaging over 45 mph most of the time. Most of the 186k miles were in this manner, and the car has been flawless throughout. I've only changed oil, oil filter and tires. No aux battery issues whatsoever.

    The new routine: I bought a house in town, and now work in a downtown office building. The office is 3 miles away, and it take me 7 minutes to get there, on city streets, averaging 20 mph. So, once a day, to the office, and then home again, 5 days/week. So, very little engine-on time for it to charge up the aux. battery.

    Now, granted, the original aux battery was 7 years old, which (in my experience) is about 3 times longer than car batteries last on average, especially in the very hot Houston weather. Well, at least, the Suburban I had prior to Prius rarely got more than 3 years out of a battery.

    So, do you guys/gals think that even the Optima is going to need to be topped off occasionally, or was it just an old battery, ready to be replaced?

    -- Robert
     
    #1 rlaird, Oct 21, 2014
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    the optima should be fine, provided it was fully charged prior to installation. there have been optima quality issues since they were purchased by a larger conglomerate, so you may want to monitor the voltage for a few weeks.
     
    #2 bisco, Oct 21, 2014
  3. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

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    With the Prius it does not matter if the engine is running or not or how fast as far as the battery being charged is concerned as it does not have a conventional engine driven alternator. All that is required is that the car is made ready. Having said all that 14 minutes use per day is not ideal. Do you generally run longer trips at week ends perhaps? If not a monthly top up charge would be a good idea.

    John (Britprius)
     
    #3 Britprius, Oct 21, 2014
  4. rlaird

    rlaird Junior Member

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    Thanks for the comments. Yes, the weekends I usually put 100-200 miles on it, just doing errands, or a trip down to the Bay, etc.
     
    #4 rlaird, Oct 21, 2014
  5. rlaird

    rlaird Junior Member

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    Hmmmm, that doesn't give me the warm-n-fuzzies! :-( I'll keep an eye on it... thanks!
     
    #5 rlaird, Oct 21, 2014
  6. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

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    In that case you do not have a problem. The Prius does not use the 12 volt battery to turn the engine so no big current drain. It is only used to boot the computers and operate some pumps at being made ready.

    John (Britprius)
     
    #6 Britprius, Oct 21, 2014
  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    if you look around here, you'll see that more recently, people have been receiving batteries without a full charge, and some have had to return due to defect. hopefully just a bad batch, but definitely a drop from original quality. all the best!(y)
     
    #7 bisco, Oct 21, 2014
  8. Easy Rider 2

    Easy Rider 2 Senior Member

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    Maybe that should read: "you probably won't have a problem". ;)

    I suggest that he get a small tender type charger, give it a good charge, and then see how long it takes it to bring it back up to "full" on a Friday evening or two.

    Then he will have a small charger available when he needs it again.
     
    #8 Easy Rider 2, Oct 21, 2014
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