Prius (2004-09) Fuel :: 2005 - Bad MPG - Need A New Battery?
Nov 27, 2012
I have a 2005 Prius that I purchased in 2010 as the second owner. When I first got it, I would average 50-65 MPG depending on city vs. interstate (per trip computer). After about a year, I was usually in the 40's. However, in the past 6 months or so, the MPG has dipped drastically. Based on the trip computer, I average about 30 MPG on the interstate and 15-20 MPG in the city. I have read that often times, a dip in MPG signals a need to change the 12V. I tested the 12V, and it's usually around 12.4V after sitting unused for 12+ hours.
More info: -The poor MPG is consistent whether it's 95, 65, or 35 degrees outside.
-Flat terrain (Washington, DC)
-Usually shorter trips of about 20-25 minutes.
-75% city, 25% highway. Highway driving is pretty smooth, little traffic, average of 55 MPH. City driving is incredibly stop and go due to traffic, constant stop signs and red lights, etc., with probably an average of 15 MPH when I'm actually driving.
-No overfilled oil.
-Had an alignment maybe 8 months ago - nothing unusual about the drive or tire wear.
-Goodyear Viva 2 Tire P185/65R15, maybe 15k miles put on them. Tire pressure unknown at the moment.
-I drive like a grandma in D mode.
-I don't warm up the ICE.
-HVAC is off.
-In terms of whether any significant changes occurred around time I noticed the drop: none. I was living in Florida at the time, doing a highway commute of about 2 hours roundtrip every day with a small bit of city driving when the mileage drop occurred. I have since relocated to DC, and the problem is the same.
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A friend of mine has a 2005 Prius, and was asking what his mileage would be when the hybrid battery dies. He has about 131k miles on it, and the battery dies out very quick right now. I told him that with a 1.5L engine, he should get at least 40mpg with the hybrid battery being dead.
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I have rough idle problem after changing spark plugs, fuel filter and battery. There was no rough idle problem before this work was done. What could be wrong. Once the speed is above 20 mph it seem to run fine but at stops it vibrates and seem like it may stall!
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So my wife's MPG has gone down from mid- to high-40s to barely 40. We've taken it to the dealer and they run a check and said there was nothing wrong, adding that if there was something wrong with the battery I'd get a warning light, anyway.
So, took her car to get some gas for it and coffee for me, Battery meters was about 75% full when I took off. About a half mile later I noticed it had dropped to 40 percent. At that point I filled it up.
When I started it up, I noticed it was now in the purple range. It stayed that way until I got home (after stopping for coffee, too).
Total trip is only about 1.5 miles.
This has been a fairly typical scenario lately, but this was certainly more extreme.
So I think there is something wrong with the way the batteries are charged or the batteries themselves. Toyota disagrees .
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I have a 2005 Prius recently replaced the hybrid battery. Not so happy with it, my mpg b4 was 49-51 mpg, now I only get 40-45 mpg. I notice the car is a little weaker and the ICE rev higher everytime I accelerate.
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I got my car about 2 month ago, and i started to understand how she is working ( how the hybrid cars works in general ), in my daily trip, there is about 5 mile flat road, sometimes when I reach this road SOC shows 3 bars only and its not enough for EV that 5 miles road, but if the battery have more than 6 bars i think it will do the job, and if you will ask me why you don't charge it through the car movement, the answer is very simple, because I am gilding the car before getting that flat road, so, is there any why to force the ICE charging the HV battery?
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Today I went to the national car test (passed. but), when the car has been returned to me by the employee of national car test center I noticed one bar on the SOC. This happened for the first time.
Additional notes:
1) recently (about 4 weeks ago) I had to temporarily replace for second hand (20 bucks) 12v small auxiliary battery.
2) recently (withing last four weeks) I noticed high temperature in the boot compartment, I tried to investigate and the ducting leading from the HV battery was really hot, which means that my battery was really hot too.
I tried to explain this to myself that this might be due to HV operating at higher levels due to unknown state of the replaced 12v small aux battery (second hand product).
3) Today I noticed that technician at the test center used some spring assisted bar to press the brake on the car while he tested the car, I recon that maybe he have had powered off the car while doing so, is it possible that this might have contributed to the dropped SOC ?- it's just my guess.
I'm thinking to replace 12v aux battery to brand new battery and then test the operation of the fan and whether the temperature still rise. - is it good idea? Or should I just seek for the testing tool to determine the status of each of the modules?
If so, which testing device can handle this task? I heard from this forum about ELM obd bluetooth adapter. I use android device, would this be okay or should I look for another device perhaps scangauge?
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My mechanic installed a new Hybrid battery in my 2005 Pruis using the repair manual and a video that showed him how to do it. He also replaced the harness and the ECU battery. When he tries to start the car all of the lights light up on the dash but no ready light on the start button and the car will not start. The instructions did not say anything about this issue so he is lost! He thinks the smart key and the ECU have to be synced in some way but doesn't know how to do it.
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195k miles.... I have charged the battery, I have bought a new battery, I have Charged the new battery... All with no avail.. Slowly but surely one at a time the abs trac control and stability control lights come on and eventually the triangle of death... Meaning when I shut it off its not going to restart.. If i drive it sparingly it might take a week if i drive it all day then it takes one day... when fully charged there is no warning or sign that there is a battery issue or draining untill the voltage is starting to get low. I have an ultra gauge hooked up and shows 14.14 while driving, I am lost as to whats the issue. also no codes or pending codes... I have taken the new battery to auto zone and had a functional test done.. said checked good... signed befuddled
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The MFD on my 2005 prius shows that every time the gas engine kicks in, it trys to charge the batt. even when it doesn't need to be charged. This has been happening for about 2 weeks, and not one time has the gas engine kicked in without showing the arrow going to the electric motor, even when the batt is completely full. I know it's not just a problem with the MFD because my MPG average has clearly gone down since this started.
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I just got a 2005 Prius, it is getting about 40-43MPG in 50F weather. This is my first time with a hybrid, much less a Prius. Is this normal for this car in this weather, or does something seem wrong.
The 12V seems to be getting about 11.7-11.8 under load.
Tire pressure is about 33PSI, going to increase it most likely from the sounds of other people having it higher.
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I bought a 2005 Prius with 128k miles on it a month back. I have driven around 900 miles on it and the average shows as 49 mpg. Is it okay or am i getting less? I normally drive 40 miles a day(20 miles either way) to office and back home, total of 50 minutes with 25 minutes either way, including both Uphill and Downhill both ways. Driving includes 10 minutes on city with frequent stops and 15 minutes on highway either way.
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A year and a half ago, I had the hybrid battery warning lights come on and had it towed to the dealer. After given the option of replacing the battery for $4300, I took it home and did a single cell replacement (all cells ~8V, one at 6.6V which I replaced), which seemed to be all good until yesterday. Back with the warning lights and blower fan, I jumped to the conclusion that I have a similar situation, removed the battery and all cells are 8.04V +/- .05V except for 1 cell at 7.92. I am not convinced that this cell is really the culprit.
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My Prius has 150k miles on it. We didn't drive it for a few days and when we went to turn it on,it wouldn't work. We were able to jump start it a couple of times, however after that we ended up having to replace the battery. We purchased it brand new from toyota. Then, the car wouldn't do a thing (No sounds, no lights, other than the red amber power button and the flashing check engine light, which was not on before.) We ended up having two blown fuses and we replaced them today, one was for the battery.Now the lights are on, but the car still won't start. It will cost over $200 to have the car towed and I am really trying to avoid that right now. I don't know much at ALL about cars. but I'm trying.
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My 2005 prius will not start. We had some body work done to it after a deer ran into me. They did a small amount of welding and had disconnected both batteries. Now the car will not start. It can be put in auxiliary mode but if you try to start it with your foot on the brake, it flashes some lights for a few seconds and then goes dead. Is the hybrid battery too low to start the car? It was pretty low. before the batteries were disconnected. Or did they possibly do something wrong when they disconnected the hybrid battery? Final question would be do they have to do some reprogramming after disconnecting the hybrid battery?
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Well all the lights are on for mine as well as of 2 days ago... checked the 12v, was at 11.8v, tested under accessories load (without engine on) and went to 11.4v then tested with the car on and we're at 14.2v
So just to be safe I went ahead and got a NEW 12v and installed it yesterday. All the lights went away immediately. Drove 30 minutes to the town over after the install... fine.... it sat off for about 1 hour.... drove it back home another 30... perfectly fine.
This morning the wife takes it to work, starts the car, all the lights on again... turns it off completely, then turns it back on and all the lights are off and then drove it to work just fine.
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If this has been posted before feel free to remove. I searched everywhere and didn't see exactly what I experienced with our Prius when the 12v battery was in it's final stages of death so I wanted to share.
Below issues all occurred within a one week time period 3-7-16 to 3-14-16. 2005 Prius with 145k miles, replaced traction battery on 7-30-15 / 127k miles.
First occurrence - happened a few seconds after starting and driving the vehicle. The ABS light came on and the power steering faded out and then came back, just briefly, and the car did not die. Turned the car off and back on again and all was well.
I performed the 12v battery test by entering maintenance mode. (hold the display button and turn the lights on/off three times, vehicle signal check, battery check) the battery was reading 11.9volts with the car off, I drove the car and it was charging at around 14.7volts and then was reading 12.2 with the car off after driving it. Which at the time seemed a little weak but nothing that was a red flag. I've read that you're supposed to replace the 12 volt battery every 4 years but I swear the one I removed looked stock.
Second time - again happened just a few seconds after starting the car and driving. ABS light came on, red triangle of death light, brake light, power steering was gone, and the power steering light came on, the car did not die. Restart fixed the issues again.
Third time - Happened about 30 minutes in to the trip while the wife was driving on the interstate around 75mph, wipers were on due to rain but visibly lost power, radio came on and off, all the lights on the dash (warning lights included) flickered on and off, power steering was gone, car died completely and would not restart. Tow driver had to boost the battery long enough to put the car in neutral so we could load it on to the tow truck. When we got the car home the battery was completely dead again.
I ordered an Optima Battery 8171-767 (DS46B24R) YellowTop Prius Battery from Amazon which appears to be a direct replacement, and simple to install. I drove the car for a few miles, returned to the house, performed battery test again via maintenance mode and the battery was charging at 14.0 and reading 12.5 when off. I can't be certain but I think the battery check feature may be displaying false information if the battery has dead cells and the car is trying to charge the battery? I took the old battery to Advanced Auto Parts and had them run a diagnostic check and the tester stated that the battery had dead cells and needed to be replaced. I gave them the old battery even though I didn't buy the new one from them and got a 10.00 store credit, unexpected and nice.
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I replaced the hybrid battery in my 2005 Prius today & when I disconnected the 12v battery the wrench arced & I assume that I blew a fuse. I have looked, but have not found anything. I hope I am missing something obvious.
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My car is an 05 and currently has 219,000 miles. Runs great. Only things I've replaced are the 12 volt battery and the rack and pinion. Replaced the rack because I was trying to drift in the snow and tried to beat the traction control. Needless to say, I lost and hit the curb. Jammed the gear in the left side of the rack. Replaced the rack with a $75 used one and no problems since.
My issue is this, even if my battery is at 6 bars when I first take off, my hybrid battery drains down to even as low as 1 bar. It only got down to 1 once but is hitting 2 regularly. After about 3-10 miles it is back to the regular charge rate. I also noticed the other day with the window down, there was a slight whirring sound, almost like a gear or wheel that is a gummed up and is being slowed down. It also felt like there was resistance, almost like the brake was dragging. After a few miles, as in less than 5, the noise was gone and the car was going along just fine. I've checked the emergency brake to see if it's dragging by applying it and releasing it several times. Does not appear to be the issue. Today I put it in neutral to see if that changed anything but it did like it always does and just coasted along fine with no resistance. My thought is the transmission. I'm wondering if the fluid it so old and broken down that maybe things are gumming up. Either way, I purchased the tranny fluid and will change that out. I know people will probably gasp but I have never changed it. Actually thought because it's a cvt and there is no dipstick to check it, that it doesn't need changed. After reading up yesterday I discovered I was mistaken.
I think that's about it. I'll edit it if I think of something more. Once the battery is back up to charge it accelerates and drives like normal. I do want the car to last so my daughter can use it when I buy the new Prius Prime.
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My 2005 Prius started showing all the symptoms of a dead/dying hv battery this morning. The dashboard lit up, the battery fan kicked on and my mpg dropped to 35mph. I was half way to work, so I just continued. I have been checking around and I can get it replaced for about $1000.00 reconditioned, but they have a 7-10 day waiting list. The dealership wants $3500.00 minimum, and says that I should not drive it at all and have it towed. Is this true? Can I drive on gas alone until I find a solution?
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Trying to figure out whether to fix or scrap our 2005 Prius with 193,000 miles and a mysterious 12V battery problem. What would you do in my situation?
We've had a recurring problem with the 12V accessory battery: I have replaced it myself three times. The last failure was the most mysterious, because after replacing the 12V battery for the third time, I conducted nearly daily voltage tests using the Prius' "secret" vehicle signal check. Voltage coming off of the 12V was normal, if not high the entire time in all of the Prius's various starting and ready modes. I wired up a solar panel to trickle-charge the 12V battery when we weren't around, and we plugged the 12V in at night to a trickle charger to keep the battery topped up.
Nonetheless the day came a few months after the latest replacement when we had our usual 12V failure symptoms: the time on the clock started resetting, the car didn't turn on on the first press, the Prius computer rebooted, and eventually the car wouldn't start without a jump start. This has been super-frustrating, and googling around, I haven't been impressed by people's reported experiences trying to have the dealer try to resolve such problems. My worry is that a dealer repair person will change the accessory 12V battery without fixing the underlying problem. I would suspect a parasitic draw somewhere, but voltage tests when the car was overnighted without any kind of charging did not suggest a serious voltage draw on the 12V battery.
Other details about the car: our keyless entry hasn't worked for several years (dead batteries in the key fob?) and we open the car manually using the key each time. We stick the fob in the slot each time we want to start it. MPG is comparatively low vs. other Priuses, perhaps 44-45 MPG, and lower when the 12V battery starts to die (37-40). I have had the car serviced (oil, etc.) like clockwork every three months; recently, I've noticed the engine is starting to burn oil a bit (level is reported low on each change).
Most of the driving has been done in the flats and the heat of California's Central Valley, and we've put something like 120,000 miles on it just in the last five years. Besides the fact that the 12V battery keeps dying, the car has been very reliable.
We just inherited a free Prius with just 60,000 miles on it, and I have a 1993 Camry with 150k miles on the chassis and maybe 60k miles on the replacement engine I had dropped into it a few years ago. The Camry just passed California's smog test and seems to be running well. We don't want or need three cars.
Our choice is to try to fix the Prius with 193k miles on it and donate the Camry (which gets about 20 miles to the gallon, the horror...), or keep the Camry and donate the Prius. My instinct is to not drop thousands of dollars into the high-mileage Prius, especially if these issues might be pointing to a dying main battery.
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