HELP !! 2010 Low Miles - Completely Dead and Won't Start

It's possible it was shut enough for the sensor but not the light...we have heard of that problem on other threads with the car going crazy when a bump is hit but the system never says the trunk is open.

 

Dwight, thanks for catching my poor writing . I was trying to say that if a door is ajar, lights ought to turn off automatically. I'm thinking of folks who don't lock their doors. I don't lock my Prius doors when in my garage. I once discovererd my hatch light on after a few hours of the hatch ajar. That's when I decided to manually operate the light.

Old age is something that happens to other people, but not to me.

 

Because you haver the original battery and it's not a deep cell it's toast.
Get the optima yellow top and fit kit and sleep restfully.

 

Yes, I had this happen to me. I had put a cooler full of ice in the hatch and had not closed the door completely. When I went over a bump, the cooler slid against the hatch door and I got a warning message "Key Detected in Vehicle" (I believe this was the message). Knowing that the last thing I had done was put in the cooler, I got out and closed the hatch with more force and the warning message cleared.

My question, is it possible to partially close the hatch door enough to satisfy the door sensor but not turn off the light and still be able to lock the doors? I did not attempt to lock the doors during the time that I had the hatch partially closed.

 

No, this event will weaken the small 12v battery, but the HV battery is disconnected from the rest of the car when your Prius is off and is therefore unaffected.

JeffD

 

If you are concerned about the health of your 12v battery, buy a small jumper unit (mine has a built in air pump) and keep it in the car. I have had mine for several years and it has never been needed for my Prius, but It has allowed me to be a good samaritan for others on numerous occasions. You will need to keep the lead acid battery in the jumper unit charged as storing a lead acid battery at low charge will make it useless due to sulfation of the plates.

JeffD

 

The Prius charging system uses a DC-DC converter which applies approximately 13.8 to 14 volts across the battery, takes quite awhile to fully charge even the little 12 volt battery. Since your battery has been run dead recently you need to have your Prius in Ready mode for at least a couple of hours or more or use other means to fully charge your 12 volt battery. Assuming they just jumped the battery and didn't recharge it, short 15 minute trips won't accomplish this and if not fully recharged your problem may happen again. Usually a battery will not be totally killed by one such draining, although it may have shortened its life a bit, but repeated occurrences will surely kill it completely. If you're still worried you can buy a battery booster and take it with you on your trip. Cheap insurance. And as is always cautioned in these battery threads "DO NOT Reverse the Polarity when jumping" as this can lead to a blown inverter which costs 4 figures to replace. The instructions on using the jump point under the hood are in the owner's manual.

Jeff beat me to it! What he said!

 

You can drain a much larger 12V battery simply by leaving one of the doors locked, but slightly ajar so that it doesn't trip the sensor. I've drained a heavy duty battery is less than 2-3 days on a different vehicle with this.