I have been told it's not good to have a hybrid prius sit without running for longer than a couple days. My wife is going out of town and will be taking the prius. She plans on leaving it at a family members hours for about 2 weeks while she is gone. Is this OK to do?
This is only a problem with older Prius because NiMH battery chemistry discharges when sitting and older packs will have cells that discharge at different rates. The best preventive for this challenge is before turning the car off for two weeks: put the emergency brake on and left foot on brake, then put car in drive and floor the accelerator with left foot still on the brake. This is called forced charging! It will give your battery a full charge so any self-discharge issues are less likely to turn into a problem. That being said... There was once a long haul truck driver on here who bought an old Prius and didn't get back to it for more than a year and it started up just fine.
