My car won't start this morning. It can't be the fob battery because both of them don't work. No lights on the dash display. Can't turn on headlights. Only light I see is the dome light but it is not as bright as usual. When I first try to start it, I heard some ticking sound like "da da" every second and repeats. Now I don't hear them anymore. Any suggestions?
Welcome to Prius Chat . The symptoms you report are that of a dead battery. Some questions: Have you ever drained the 12v battery in the past? Ever left a light on or a door open? Ever sit in the car while not in “ready” mode listening to music? You’ll need to charge up the 12v battery. The physical battery is in the back passenger corner of the car, but there is a jump point in the fuse box under the hood. Good luck and keep us posted .
I don't have jump cables or know how to do this. Is this something I can call auto insurance's road side assistance? Will they know how to jump a Prius?
After you get the car running have the battery tested to make sure it isn't going bad. Any parts store or Walmart will test it for you.
We have had early failures of the 12v battery in the Prius ... well .. if under 4 years is early. It is ..with qualification. We typically get more years out of our fleet batteries ... but, it's not unheard of to get an early failure especially with the OE battery. But, we have had three of ours fail ... we now just replace the Prius 12v at 4 years if it makes it. We have a portable jumper in the office soit's not the end of the world the it happens. If you can point to a particular event that may have run the battery down -- that's cause to recharge and keep .... but if you can't -- replace the battery with a quality aftermarket battery. It's not worth the trouble -- and the Prius gives no warning. It will happen again. The Prius battery is an odd small size -- unfortunate that it's more expensive vs a typical sized battery. Make sure you get the correct one -- there are other batteries the same size except the terminals are reversed. Some Honda vehicles also use this size.
