Quote:
Originally Posted by Magician
That seems hard to believe since many new and used Prius sit on car lots for long periods of time without being run daily. We drove my Prius to Florida and returned a week later to find my wife's Prius battery practically at a full charge. I call B.S. on requiring it being driven every other day or so...
|
Funny thing is "full charge" is actually a sign of deterioration. A truly healthy battery will barely budge off 6 blue bars. When you start seeing 7 and 8 green bars that's not associated with long downhill or a high speed freeway exit, it's a bad thing. Weak batteries not only deplete faster, but they charge faster...
You can call B.S., but I'm conveying my experience with a large portion of approximately 200 hybrid battery failures.
I also qualified it with 10yr old/100K mile. New batteries have almost no issues with charge loss, nor do ~60-80K mile batteries based on my testing, but once a battery has begun to experience significant deterioration, self-discharge can increase dramatically.
All it takes is for a single ONE of the 168 cells to begin to lose charge significantly faster than the others, and you have a ticking time bomb.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vskid3
Here's my anecdote: My Prius was 12 years old with 136k miles when the battery died. This was a few months after buying my Volt and the Prius sat quite a bit. It was also the day after taking it on a ~150 mile trip to get snow tires put on, but that's probably just bad luck.  I did notice (in hindsight) that the battery seemed to drain especially quick going uphill on that trip. The car lived most of its life in El Paso, TX, so all that heat probably didn't help. I don't think driving it more would have kept the battery from dying, but it probably would have helped it last a few more months (at least allowing me to make use of the snow tires...).
I would say a 15-20 minute drive every week or two would be better than just having it idle for 30 minutes. Driving would help keep everything else in shape, too. |
FWIW, for all hybrid vehicles, Toyota recommends 30 minutes READY mode in P every two months for NEW vehicles to ensure the 12V and HV batteries are maintained per TSB PD091-06. If Toyota requires maintenance for NEW batteries to prevent discharge, it's kinda hard to deny that it might be needed more frequently for 10 year old high mileage hybrids, but I'm probably just being paranoid.