Storing a 2004 Prius

[mrzapman]

Has anyone stored or not started their Prius for longer then 2 weeks? We want to take a 4-6 week extended vacation. Our dealer was no help before we purchased it we called the service department they said no problem, but the owners manual says start it every two weeks.

[john1701a]

Any vehicle with an alarm system will naturally drain the 12-volt battery. Prius is worse, it has that and also SE/SS. That means if you forget to disable it the SE/SS, you chances of a dead 12-volt increase. The auto-on headlight sensors causes a minor constant drain too.

So the recommendation is to simply disconnect the 12-volt before you leave for longer than a month.

That 2-week recommendation is a bit of CYB left over from the Classic model which had a smaller battery and (like all batteries) could not hold a decent charge in the extreme cold for too long. So Toyota just kept it. After all, 12-volt lead-acid batteries are never the same after a deep-discharge. Just ask anyone that has ever left their lights on overnight.

Anywho, the nice perk about Prius is that the 12-volt is pretty much only used for powering the computer. Everything is else (including engine start-up) draws from the 206-volt battery-pack instead, which is automatically disconnected from the system every time you power-off the car. So the demand is much, much, much less then when a traditional vehicle tries to start its engine, relying on just a 12-volt battery to do it.

JOHN
http://john1701a.com

[jsinton]

Hi All,

My Dad's 2005 Prius has been left in the cold in New Jersey for about a month now. He's now a snow bird in Florida.

I guess I was mainly concerned about the 206 volt battery. Will not a battery of this kind start to go bad if you don't take it out and charge it regularly? I'm kinda worried because he wants to leave it like that for 6 months.

I guess the 12 volt is not a big deal, as I'll just go down and replace it with a Walmart battery.

Any info appreciated.

[Boeing Nut]

mrzapman,

Check in the owners manual if you haven't already. I think there is a section that addresses this issue. And I believe it is one of the rare times you will use the actual physical key within the transponder key to accomplish this. Good luck!