Hello just wanted to introduce myself, have been reading all kinds of threads for a few days. Just got a 2005 prius 2, low miles battery seems in good shape for now, but at the price I paid seems worth the gamble to me! I knew the only previous owner so I know it's always been taken care of. Hopefully I'm not here trying to resolve problems too soon but this seems like a very friendly and informative board so I'm glad to have found it.
Welcome to PriusChat!! How many miles on the vehicle? Do you have the service and recall history from the prior owner? There are a number of maintenance items that can be performed to potentially extend the life of the vehicle.
Sitting at 85000, yes I have the records...not much to say outside of new 12v about a year ago and regular maintenece. Open to any tips to avoid future issues.
Get something to cycle the battery. People say good things about this system, however I don’t own it myself (yet) Prolong Battery Systems. Extending the life of your hybrid. — Hybrid Automotive
Had thought about that but seems like a big investment for such an old battery. Isn't it around $700 for the equipment to do that?
I have the original version of this: Prolong® Value Reconditioning Package - Hybrid Automotive It's $469. The nicer one that doesn't need babysitting is $678. It is cheaper to buy the deluxe one than to get the regular one and then add the automatic discharger. It's always a mental struggle to decide which is the better gamble -- relatively expensive preventative maintenance that adds an unknown number of years to the battery or just taking your lumps when it gives out without the maintenance investment. I got one because we had two older Gen 2's when we moved into the Prius universe.
Yes but remember, when you don’t need it anymore you can pull the cable off the battery and sell the whole setup here for at least 1/2 of what you paid for it. And it would sell within a week.
Now is the optimum time to get a prolong Hybrid battery charger /discharger system The hybrid battery has not thrown any death codes yet so its is recoverable. You may be able to get another year or 2 out of it if you can wake it up with a prolong. I have one and it works pretty good. use search button on top of this page and search: prolong
Sounds like something worth thinking about. It will be a month or two before I sell my current car and start driving the prius daily, so far just have driven it around town a few times and in cold weather have averaged about 41 mpg, battery seems slow to discharge....actually think I've maybe only seen it go below half on the gauge just once in roughly 100 miles.
That's a good sign. Going below half should be somewhat rare. Getting down to two purple bars should be very rare. If that happens regularly, the battery is showing signs that it will fail soon if you don't balance the cells. Battery failures can happen for several reasons. One is that the cells just get too far out of balance, which is the main thing the Prolong helps with. Another is the chemical changes. I've read that it can help there as well by breaking up the crystals. But then there is corrosion or leakage that sometimes happens. That takes you down a different maintenance path. There are lots of threads here that already deal with them. I think the vast majority of Prius drivers simply drive till the battery throws a code (or some other disaster befalls them) and then replace the battery or the car. We never see them here and they never think about making their amazing machine last as long as it can. Product of a disposable society.
At a bare minimum you should change the transmission fluid. Easy to do, and costs about $40. Guessing someone already had the inverter pump recall performed at some point. What about the water pump coolant, was it ever changed? There should be a maintenance schedule hiding in the glove box, if not you can find it at https://www.toyota.com/owners
Don't have it in front of me at the moment but some type of circulation pump had been replaced. Will most likely do the trans fluid before too long.
Don't see any recalls on the toyota owners website, assume that means they've already been addressed?
If your going to do the trans might as well dump the inverter fluid too as both dump bolts are right next to each other under the car. Physically the hard part is jacking the front end of the car up and securing it high enough to work on it once that is accomplished I do the trans fluid the invert fluid and do an under dash e-coil cleaning with Kool It from Amazon.com. I also dump the ice rad only. Do not dump the entire engine coolant loop its a bitch to get the air out. I you just dump the rad only it really helps and its no fuss. there's a plastic petcock on the drivers side bottom of rad. Prevents mold from building up in ac drip hose if its gets clogged it dumps the ac condensate out on the passenger side floor. G2 prius is hard on the Inverter coolant not so hard on the trans fluid and not hard at all on the engine coolant imho having changed them all multiple times. Take advantage of the rare time the care is high up in the air.
No that means they have never been done thats not good as there was an very important repair of a bad steering link that you could possibly lose steering. Also the pump was replaced and they shaved the bottom of the gas pedal off so not to get stuck with after market floor mats.
Yeah I just mean it says there are no recalls that need serviced in the recall check section. Would it say that if there were outstanding safety recalls? As for the actual service invoices there are several that say code not available or something along those lines. I know it was regularly serviced at the dealer, have the paper copies of most.
