New to me 2017 Prius Prime

Just purchased a new (to me) 2017 Prius Prime and loving it so far! Even with a 1 hour commute to work and 1 hour back, with no charging, I’m averaging 80.5 MPG!

This car is fun to drive (and I’ve had some fun cars and trucks) and perfect for a long distance road trip for 4.

Since I’m new to Toyota’s design philosophy - Previous PHEV was a 2012 Volt Premium - does the Prime charge the 12V battery from the HV battery when parked and ignition on?

Reason being, my old Volt was great for live sound, power for your booth at an art fair, or DJing for up to 5-6 hours with an inverter. Just hook it up to the 12V, leave the car in “Ready” with all accessories (radio, fan, and headlights) off, and it would power a decent sized booth or DJ set for hours.

Would doing the same on the Prius Prime leave me with a dead 12V battery? Or do I have to have the wheels moving for the HV battery to charge the 12V battery?

Below is a pic of my Prius charging, what a great car!

Alex

 

Awesome bisco, and thanks for the quick reply!

That is great to hear and I'm so glad I can drive around in HV mode, keeping the hybrid battery at a full SoC, and run a movie night or art fair booth without any issues.

Attached is a picture of the biggest PA I've run off my Volt - driven off a 2,000W DeWalt inverter. Didn't have a single issue, although I had to keep levels down to avoid drawing more than the Volt's DC to DC converter could supply.

I do concert promotion on the side, and it's kind of funny seeing a big stage & music thumping for hours and it's being powered by a hybrid battery... definitely gets a lot of people going "I couldn't believe THAT sound came from THAT little car!"

 

I paid approx. $16,000 but after taxes, title, paperwork, etc. it was closer to $17,500. A lot more than my 2012 Volt with similar mileage; however, that Volt required a $10k battery pack right after the 8/100 warranty expired (literally shortly after I bought it) so this time, I was willing to pay a little more for a Prius with a HV battery in good condition.

I too think the prices of these things are going up - prior to the gas shortage, these were a few grand cheaper in my area (Illinois).

 

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome! I plan to keep this car a very long time since it's my daily driver and commuter. Since I don't really know the maintenance history of this car, would the general consensus be to flush & replace all fluids? Or just replace as needed?

Doing my research, it looks like the eCVT doesn't have a torque converter so the A/T fluid isn't being used to transmit power, but just lube and cool the internal components. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as every other used car I changed the A/T fluid and by doing so, some ate the transmission shortly after (oftentimes, in the worst place, like a drive-thru or in the middle of nowhere) so I'm hesitant to do A/T fluid flushes and coolant flushes on used cars anymore.

For oil, since I do a lot of highway miles, I plan to do a Blackstone analysis and see what's a good OCI as I have no idea what oil was used by the used car dealer nor if they replaced the filter.

Any other suggestions or tips for a trouble-free ownership experience I am all ears - I've already cleaned the HV battery air intake and top off or check the oil regularly!

 

Thanks! I'll definitely keep an eye on the exhaust gas heat exchanger and coolant loss, looking at my Carfax it looks like this hasn't been replaced on my 2017 Prime yet.

Appreciate the heads up on the DC-DC converter too, my 2000W DeWalt interver really pulls under 1,000W RMS, so I should be good, but will look into a nice inline fuse for safety. So far I've had zero issues on the original (2017!) 12V battery, so things are looking good with this used car.

 

I have only 100,000 miles, and say "only" because this was a highway car. Aside from the front hood and bumper being full of rock chips, there are no other (detectable) issues with the car.