I'm thinking we all got suckered in by OP's self-diagnosis, that that problem was an ailing 12 volt. Could be, but a lot of things he's noting in first post are hybrid battery related. Also, could just be low temperature adaption by the car: it's cold, so it's running the engine more/longer.
It got down to 11.9°F here last night. The Prius C2 worked great today. But the RAV4 has a low tire pressure Icon showing.. All four tires showed the same pressure, so I'm not sure what the deal is.. Maybe they'll warm up tomorrow when during my road trip.. I looked at the plug-in battery meters on both cars. They were just above 12v and would drop down to 11.8ish with the headlights running. Of course both jumped up to 14v-plus in Run mode.. The Prius battery is going to be 6 years old next summer.. Definitely need to replace it..
Although all tires are the same pressure on the RAV4, they are likely low ans need more air.Low tore pressure causes additional tire wear & loss of mileage.
I was under the impression the system looked for an imbalance in tire pressure. Like when one tire is lower than the others.. I just googled cold-tires and got: Cold Weather Might Be Causing Your Tire Pressure Light to Come On | San Ramon, CA Patch
The tires were filled to around 35 PSI back in early November, before the cold weather hit. (1st week of Nov average was 53.3 °F) I think it was about 20F degrees in the garage when I checked the tires today, they averaged around 28-29 PSI. (using digital gauge). While filling them all up to 33 ~34 PSI, using the compressor's gauge, I noticed that my handheld digital gauge was displaying 30 PSI...?. I think the cold has effected one of the gauges. Not sure which one. During warm weather, maybe the gauges will match again.. In any event, since 4 tires have close to the same pressure, the Icon might turn off, on my airport trip tomorrow. (It will be up to 32°F by noon!) I'll check the spare tire pressure in the morning. Which I have not done since summer..
Yeah. Post 19 should have been a new thread. Please comment on a proposed solution. Feature Request Auto Lock Old Threads | PriusChat
post 19 has been repeated in several old threads. tried working with the poster, but response is vague.