2007 prius with dead 12v and battery pack?

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

I fear that we left the power button on and walked away from the car for approximately 20 hours. Otherwise, how could the car be doing the following?: 1. push the power button and it lights up only a few lights on the dash, none in the video display box (what’s it called?). 2. When I tried to push the power button and leave the car it would not stop displaying the indicator that it was in park. It beeped when I opened the door, it simply would not give me a blank dash when I was ready to leave the vehicle. 3. Also, one of the times that I tried to do the above it QUICKLY flashed an image of an empty battery pack 4. Locked up the car and had to leave it like that till morning. When I returned, there was absolutely nothing that lit up on the displays and of course no power doors, etc. Try jumping it and still no sounds, lights, readouts, etc. ( yes, I connected it properly and ran the other vehicle at 2000 rpms for 5 minutes ).

TROUBLE IS; I am flat broke, out of work and want to find an alternative to paying for a tow and dealer trouble shooting. Since we are at fault here, won’t we wind up paying for all of this? Any ideas out there?

2

I know nothing about Priuses (or whatever the term is for more than one Prius), and neither will most of the other folks here – which is probably why you aren’t getting answers. May I suggest, while waiting for someone who actually knows something to come along, you.

  1. Read the owner’s manual. There’s a fair chance it addresses this situation if the problem is caused by something you did rather than a component failure.

  2. Call the dealer. They’d probably help you out over the phone if the problem is one you can fix easily.

  3. Use Google/Bing/Alta Vista et al to track down advice on the Internet.

You can start with this article – http://www.elearnaid.com/12vo1topraub.html These guys are trying to sell you something, but a lot of the stuff in the article sounds to me like you might have a problem other than batteries dead due to user error.

3

thanks for the quick response! Yes, I have also submitted this question/dilemma to a prius chat forum. The owners manual tells me to tow it to a dealer! I’m about to call the dealership, thanks for the suggestion. They will no doubt want me to bring it in for a diagnostics check, but I will try to pry out some free advice. Have a great day!

4

Isnt this a waranty issue ?
How many miles on it ?
Just call the dealer and tell them to come and get it under waranty.

5

If you already haven’t submit, your question to www.priuschat.com/forums
Someone there will help you.

6

thank you for your help. Okay, good news! I pulled the battery out and put it on a trickle charger over night. When I called the dealer they told me that the warranty has expired, about a thousand miles ago. I didn’t give them a chance to talk me into a new battery and asked them how often they see prius’ with similar circumstances…they asked if the ‘door open’ light was on lately and then the lightbulb went off! Yes, and I have been meaning to figure out why the trunk sometimes engages all the way and sometimes not. I dug out the culprit; a small stone wedged deep in the mechanism.
ANYWAY- the car starts right up and I shouldn’t have any more problems with it for a good long while. And best part- it was a CHEAP FIX! thank you so much for your help! have a great day.