Prius (Gen 3) :: 12v Battery Discharged Very Often When Parked Outside In Cold Weather
Jan 15, 2014
I got a new Prius Plug-in 2012 and when the cold weather came this winter, which isn't that cold at 40F, the 12v battery seems to get discharged very often. This week, I must have jumpstarted the car twice already. The 12v battery seems to get drained when I park outside in the (not so) cold, or when I park underground for hours. I also notice that the traction battery gets filled up; it's as if the 12v battery drains into the traction battery.
(I leased a Prius 2010, not plug-in, for 3 years and this never happened even if I parked it for days in even colder weather.)
View 19 Replies
Advertisement
P0420 CATALYST EFF BELOW THRESHOLD
P0440 EVAP EMISSION SYSTEM
P0441 EVAP EMM SYSTEM INCORRECT PURGE FLOW
P0446 EVAP VENT CONTROL CIRCUIT
P3190
P3191
P0300 RANDOM MISFIRE
P0301 CYL 1 MISFIRE
P0304 CYL 4 MISFIRE
Was driving on highway in mild rain and car started to shudder and stalled. I ran it on the electric motor for a while to get out of traffic so it's fairly drained. Has a year old main battery and a year old 12V Optima battery. Car has 202,000 miles.
The cat code and possibly evap were on all year as check engine light has been on. I get the triangle of death with exclamation point on the right car icon on the screen as well as the check engine light. After resetting the codes the triangle hasn't come back. Haven't rechecked the other codes as it was a borrowed generic scanner.
Just checked the 12V battery at Autozone and they say it's good but discharged. Car won't start and it seems to kill the 12V battery if left to sit. I did the throttle body and MAF clean even though they both looked ok. A little oil in the intake so I mopped it up. Didn't work. I hooked up another 12V battery with jumper cables and it doesn't work. Checked the fuel pump relay and it's ok. I pulled spark plug 1 and it was fine. Check main battery and 12V connections -all fine - tight and no corrosion.
I'll try to check fuel pressure and spark.
View 19 Replies
We accidentally discharged the 12 volt battery in our 2010 Prius with an interior light. By the time we noticed the car didn't have enough power to turn on. I removed the battery last night and charged it with an intelligent charger and have since reinstalled.
Will this have any long term effect on the battery? It seems these 12 volts are sensitive compared to a standard car battery. I have discharged numerous 12 volt car batteries with no major long term consquences after a recharge.
View 19 Replies
I picked up our Prius plug in on Thursday evening, fully charged from the dealership in Oakland. We drove it home, about 4 miles, in EV mode and then plugged it in for the night. In the morning the car was fully charged. At 8:00 a.m. I drove the Prius up hill about 1.5 miles in EV mode to our car pool pick up point and left it parked on the street for the day. Car was parked on up hill slope. I believe all lights were off. When I got back at 5:30 p.m. to drive it home the battery was apparently discharged and there was no charge or EV range when I selected EV mode. I drove home on ICE in hybrid mode.
View 9 Replies
I am currently driving my dad's 2008 Prius because of other vehicle problems. When my daughter got out of the car last night, she did not get the door closed all the way. It sat that way all night in a VERY cold garage. Now it will not start and the malfunction indicator lamp, which looks like a check engine light to me, is very faintly flashing. I figured the battery was discharged and attempted to jump it per the manual's instructions. It still will not start and the lamp is still flashing. I can hear clicking under the hood, as well.
Do I just need to leave it hooked up to the jump vehicle longer? OR, is this a "dealership necessary" issue? I would have to tow it to a dealership, since it cannot be started, which creates a whole new set of problems. ( The car is parked in my garage and would be very difficult to get it towed.) What I may be doing incorrectly?
View 9 Replies
My car usually is park in the garage. I was out of town this weekend and parked outside in 30 degrees weather, then my ML system's HDD won't start up. No GPS, no HDD audio and no voice command? It work again this morning after it sat in the garage overnight. I think this happened before last year also. Can I get the dealer to replace the HDD with my platinum extended warranty?
View 8 Replies
I went away for a week and upon returning, I couldn't get my V6 to start. I couldn't get anything to work....auto lock, headlights......and then I discovered the battery has been discharged totally. I am really shocked as how could this have happened. I have checked everything but nothing seems abnormal as I remember checking every detail before locking up the car and leaving for my trip. This is the longest time which I did not use my car. Before that the longest was less than a day. Btw, the car is only 2 months old.
View 24 Replies
My car is eating up battery power: only when outside is cold, below 10 C,something very strange, in summer days there is no battery draining, my climate stays adjusted at 19 C, but now is very cold and I make it 25 C,and then it is the mystery: the battery is draining for 2-3 hours below 10V?
I made some tricks:
-when the car i turned off while climate is set to 25C(or above 24C)-the battery is draining very fast, second battery relay switches on and I can turn the ignition on only with the key in!
-when the car is turned off while the climate is set to 18C(or below 24C) the battery drain is very small???
So does something turn on while the car is locked,or something is trying to keep any temperature inside? I double checked if AUX heating is off,and it is off,I don't have parking heater or anything. Another thing I notice is when I turn on the rear seats climatronic above 24C the voltmeter goes from 14V to 13V and stays there for a 5-10 min,if I turn off the rear seats climatronic or set it below 24V the voltmeter gets back to 14V?
Whats is happening with the car?
View 24 Replies
A problem with having a 12 volt battery maintainer hooked up to your truck when not being used for a few weeks? In this cold weather the new battery keeps drawing down while not in use and is slow to turn over after 1 1/2 weeks or so? I think the maintainers charge at about 1.5 amps. I wonder if that can keep up with all the parasitic draws: PCM, radio presets & clock, remote door lock system, and factory security system and keep the battery topped off as well?
Also, is there any problem with putting a charge on a battery when the cables are still hooked up to the trucks electrical system with either a maintainer or a full size charger, Example: screwing up the PCM?
View 14 Replies
I've had my 2015 Prius Two for almost 6 weeks now, and so far am loving it. However, I noticed something strange today. I'm pretty sure that when I parked at work this morning, the hybrid battery was nearly full (two bars shy of full, I think). When I came back to leave work (~6 hours later) and started the car, the hybrid battery was down to only two bars (as in two bars above empty mark).
View 12 Replies
Battery was fully charged when left it at night that in the morning the battery level would be less. This happened to a friend of mine twice so far.
The first time it happened she accidentally left the lights 'on' which supposed to turn off on their own after 30sec. But in the morning she's only left with 2 bars from fully charged. And a week later it happened again but without leaving the lights 'on', from almost full charge to 3 bars of battery in the morning.
View 12 Replies
Second dead battery in 2 years. ??? Car never sits for longer than 12 hours and no internal lights on. I have a III with Sunroof.
View 14 Replies
My wife left her newer 2013 Prius "on" at work....by this I take to mean she did not hit the on/off button when leaving the car. to turn off the car I asked if it started ok, and she reported yes; however on return from the gym about 3 miles away, she says she noticed the Hybrid Battery bars going down very quickly now and the gas-engine on almost the whole time.
View 12 Replies
I just bought a 2010 prius (26k miles..prior collision.. so no warranty) for my wife. The battery drains in just 3 days if left unused. I had Toyota install a new battery. Again 3 days left parked and battery was dead.
I locked myself in and measured the consumption. It drains at the rate of 1.1Amps when parked. That looks very high consumption. I want to measure with SKS turned off, but that's going to be tricky. I believe SKS resets when battery is reconnected.
View 9 Replies
Went out to start my 2007 at 5:10am and it was as dead as a doornail. (Well, almost...I pushed the button for the cabin light and it barely lit). I panicked. Pulled out the manual and figured out that the 12v was dead. Woke up DH (who was not happy) and then we followed the instructions for the jump - which worked. (Hooray!) Didn't quite understand the "hold the pedal lightly for 2000 rpm before starting the car when there was no engine running " part...but I did sit there with my foot on the pedal pressing it down a bit. (Yes, I follow directions)
The car has about 60k miles. I drive 35 miles each way to work Monday through Friday. Weekends I only drive it around town a few miles. It may sit one of those days. I do keep the headlights on all of the time, in fact I have never turned them off. I thought that once I powered it off, everything was off? (Except that little security thing). The car is the basic model.
View 10 Replies
I had been running on EV then parked in the cold to wait for the wife. Turning on the heater started the ICE (of course). It charged the battery about 0.6% then stopped charging, ICE still running. So I switched to HV and it restarted charging about 0.3% and then stopped charging. So I switched back to EV for a few seconds than back to HV and the charging resumed another 0.3%. Once the coolant temperature reaches 130 degrees the ICE stops. Nice heat until the coolant gets down to 118 degrees and the ICE starts again. Back in EV and the battery is charging and the HV/EV switching continues to add more charge. Until time to leave I picked up about 5% SOC, kept warm. Not good for mpg but 5% SOC is nice.
View 19 Replies
So, I noticed after the week long heatwave (using Priidash and the Prius display) that during normal driving (under 65mph and slow accel) that my prius is NOT keeping the battery at 60% SOC....It is staying in the low 50's or as low as 39.5%....If I go above 70mph, I see the battery being drained and not recharged at all....I reset the battery (twice) the first time it made no difference but the second time the car turned on and said I had 60% SOC when in reality before the ECU reset I was at 49.5%. I know my battery is good because I have stress tested it many times. Its in great shape. The only thing I've done differently these past few weeks is I left the car in Park with the AC on 75 auto for about 5hrs on 4 different days....Its a 2004 Prius.
View 7 Replies
I was heading home last night from work and noticed something odd. It was the first pretty cold night that we have had around 20-25 deg. and I took off from the parking lot like normal.
When I got to the first stop light about a mile down the road I heard what sounded like the engine revving up right when I took my foot off the gas pedal. It did this as I coasted to the stop light. It also did it again at the next stop light just up the street. I thought maybe it was the heater blower, but It really sounded and felt like the engine revving. The car did not accelerate or anything, is this part of the warm up or normal? I also have the lower grill blocked but I don't see how that would make any difference.
View 2 Replies
"Vehicle with smart key system: The indicator light flashes after the "POWER" switch has been turned OFF to indicate that the system is operating." I have noticed that my immobilizer light will not blink when it has the no start issue. usually when the key is out the light blinks but when it won't blink.... it won't start.
View 19 Replies
I noticed that if I turn on the car and just drive with the AC on, depending on the outside temperature, the battery goes down to 2-3 bars from 6 bars within a mile a so. As it has been discussed in this forum extensively, the higher the battery charge swing, the lower the battery life. I noticed something yesterday, I warmed up the car till the engine stops with the AC on, and then the drive off. The battery stayed at 6 bars for all my commute and I believe this is healthy for the battery. Suggest/observe similar behavior or am I just burning gas for nothing. I have a scan gauge and definitely you get worse fuel economy for the first few miles if you warm up the car.
View 10 Replies
It has been cold recently (out of the past week, highs in 20's or lower). This hasn't been as much of an issue before, but in the past week I have had the red triangle of death, brake warning light, check engine light, and VSC light all come on at the same time, three separate times. Also, the display screen shows a red outline of a car with "!" through it. Each time this has happened, the lights didn't come on as soon as the car was "Ready" but only after the gas engine was running for a minute or two.
The first time the lights came on, I was driving back from class, but after I got back to my house I did some internet research and saw it may be a low oil indicator. Checked the oil, it was almost at the bottom mark on the dipstick, and it had been over 10,000 miles since the last one (oops! we don't normally do that). After reading some stories online, I took it in to get an oil change, and the lights went off for a couple days. Second time the lights came on, I checked the oil level, it was definitely over-filled, so I took it back to Walmart and had them redo the oil so that it was at the right level. I checked the oil level before leaving the parking lot that time and it was at the top mark on the dipstick. Again, all the lights were off for a couple days.
Today, I drove my car for about an hour in the morning (temperature was around upper teens, wind chill below 10) and had no problems. Then, this evening I turn the car on and start driving out of the parking lot when the car beeps at me and flashes all of the warning lights again. I drove back to my house and it is now sitting in the driveway. I am not planning on driving it until I can have a car mechanic friend take a look at it on Tuesday, but he doesn't know anything about the hybrid system/battery.
My wife and I have also noticed that since the weather has been colder, the hybrid battery (shown on the "Energy" screen when driving) seems to be charging and discharging much faster than normal. I haven't seen it at only 1 bar or full of green bars more than a couple times in the 2.5ish years we have owned the car, but in the past two weeks it has happened 5-10 times (estimated). I am not sure if this is due to the weather, or if it could indicate a problem with the (hybrid?) battery. For obvious reasons, this makes us nervous :/
As a side note, I changed the transmission fluid sometime in December, so I was wondering if possibly I didn't put enough fluid back in. I have checked the diagnostic screen and found some codes, but most of them seem to relate to the audio, which doesn't concern me as much as the code that seems to indicate the transmission, which is why I mention the change I did a while back. I just don't know why it wouldn't have shown up until now. I'll attach some pictures I took tonight of the codes and lights.
Also, the battery is a couple years old, but after sitting for a couple hours the battery was reading 12.1 V according to the diagnostic screen, so I don't think that is the issue. We haven't had any trouble getting the car to start, and once it is running it still seems to drive normally with the warning lights on. What these codes mean, and a possible cause for the warning lights?
View 16 Replies
