It has been a while since the last update, and over the last couple of weeks the Prius hasn't been doing it's usual mega journeys. Now, I had an incling the 12v battery wasn't great on it (it only showed about 12.0v when fully charged in the summer, it's almost 8 years old and startup noises seemed to be a bit slower in the cold), so I kind of saw what was coming next.
Last proper journey the car did was last Friday. Went to run it again last night to make sure all was well, and was met with the angry red triangle, and a couple of other lights. Let it run for a while and then ran it round the block a couple of times, restarted and I was warning light free, battery showing 12v, all seemed well.
Tried to run it again this morning to check all was well, and the indicators were a bit dim on unlock. When I tried to start it, I got the READY light, and all warning lights went out. Then half way through the usual startup process came the angry triangle again, followed by the VSC, ABS and brake system warnings. Then I lost the speedo and gear indicators, and the READY light disappeared. I think the brake servo pump starting up caused a voltage drop the crap battery couldn't take. At this point, I tried to get the car to even fire the engine, but it wasn't having any of it, it was just stuck.
Here's a comparison of a healthy running dash shot, and what I got this morning.
- warning_comp.png (488.86 KiB) Viewed 2943 times
Tried to power the car again, same angry red triangle and christmas tree dashboard, complete with a warning in the monitor telling me there was a transmission issue. This was a problem, given that I needed to move the car to be able to get at the battery. Fortunately after a few seconds this time, the car sorted itself and the READY status came back, and the engine fired.
My local Toyota dealer was excellent at this point, they did not have any batteries in stock but had me one delivered to my house from their depot at no extra cost, within an hour of me calling, for £25 less than the usual Toyota price. I know a lot of people frown on using main Toyota dealers, but they have been pretty good to me on the whole, and the Prius uses a small AGM battery as it's starting battery, which was over £200 elsewhere... Toyota only wanted £95 to fit it.
The job itself looks worse than it is, you have to disassemble some of the boot area to get at the battery as it is behind the brake system ECU in the right rear wheel well.
This shows the boot floor apart, you can see the battery hiding the corner there. The big metal thing at the front is the hybrid drive battery.
- IMG_20150211_150848_small.png (841.99 KiB) Viewed 2943 times
This shows the compartment the 12v battery lives in, complete with the vents for each battery.
- IMG_20150211_153744_small.png (957.6 KiB) Viewed 2943 times
This is everything in the battery compartment back together, that bit in front there is the brake ECU.
- IMG_20150211_155009_small.png (861.44 KiB) Viewed 2943 times
After sticking the new battery in, the car took one "start" to reset itself, and then I had to do some odd things like re-calibrating the self parking, and then it was set. Hopefully this one should last me a few more years.
Tue Oct 07, 2014 4:11 am 
), so I pick up it's replacement tomorrow. Expect a thread as soon as I do.