discharging the 12v is never good, but not necessarily cause for replacement. it's never a bad idea on a 5 year old car. it has nothing to do with your mileage which we don't know yet. ( you can't tell by the pips.) just that it was discharged on the lot. if it goes dead, you can be stranded. and you're going to need one sooner than later. so, for a couple hundred bucks, many here advise replacement now. i think you got a great car at a great price, all the best!
hmm, sounds good. I was thinking that maybe the car's display may show the current voltage... now, if I can just figure out where the 12v is located ( just kidding )...
Yeah but that would mean that the car is on. That wouldn't necessarily give you an idea that the battery needs replacement. I suspected ours needed replacement about 3 years ago (we did kill it twice.. or maybe 3 times) but when I took it to the dealer, they said it was fine and even showed me the printout that said OK on it. The issue wasn't that the battery wasn't charging. It was that it wasn't holding a charge after the car turns off. They were testing it while the car was on so of course the battery was fine (and it was fine if the car is on. The headlights are at full power and the radio works) but turn it off and 2-4 seconds later, you'll see the headlights start to dim and the headlight indicator light on the dash start to fade. Occasionally, I would get a warning message to put the car in Park.
Maybe this sat and sun I will use a volt meter to see if it is holding its charge. So far so good with the everything in the car.
2006 is a Gen II if I'm not mistaken. Check out the Gen II Technical discussion forum. I seem to recall something on there about a method to display battery voltage in some sort of "maintenance mode" that you could get into by pressing various buttons in the correct sequence. Sorry not to be more specific, but the info. didn't apply to Gen III (which is what I have) so I was just skimming. I have a new 2011 which was just purchased a month ago. It's my first Prius so I've been pouring over the forums alot trying to learn about this great new car!
I used: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...y-check-without-switching-headlights-off.html to enter the maintenance mode - works wonderfully. my 12v battery says 12.3v - that is good news. Any idea on how to check the hybrid battery?
Exactly! A 5 year old OEM 12 volt is likely on its last legs. My 12 volt on my 06 bought as new in 1/06 was starting to get marginal around 1/2011 or 2/2011 (reading ~11.8 volts after sitting overnight). I replaced it w/the Optima D51 w/kit from elearnaid. I'd never killed my 12 volt even once. Check the above again after the car has sat for many hours. Overnight is even better.
