Hello! I'm in the market for my first Prius. I have my eye on a 2012 Prius C One with 28,000 miles on it. How can I check the battery to make sure its still good? While test driving the battery charge indicator stayed around 2-4 bars and this seemed worrisome to me?
IIRC, the Gen2 (2004-2009) Hv Battery meter is ranged for 40-80% SOC (State of Charge). Your C will likely have the same scaling. So, don't be worry about the number of bars. The car will take care of itself. That 2012 will have a warranty for 8yrs/100K miles for the Hv Battery.
Nice thing with that choice, you don't really have to worry too much about it as you warranted for 8-yrs 100k-miles. Worst case scenario the batt stinks and fails, you get a new batt free soon.
While any component can fail at any time.... At 4 YO and 28k, you should have at LEAST another 4 years and 100k of worry-free driving. The WORST thing for a HV battery is sitting unused. I base that off of well documented OEM testing and a wealth of 'net reports of "premature" HV pack failures on very low mileage, yet middle aged packs. That contrasts many PC users experiences such as ours, where you have a 11 YO vehicle with 150k+ miles and perfectly functioning HV battery packs. Let me put it differently. I would NOT be surprised to find a failed HV battery on EITHER a: 6 YO car with 30k that sat in a garage for weeks at a time OR a 10YO car with 200k on it that had provided good service up to now.
