Charge Issue

The battery bars on the energy monitor screen have nothing to do with the

DUH! But the HV battery charges the 12V. When the vehicle is off it can still drain the HV battery, trying to charge a bad 12v.

I don't believe that is true. When the vehicle is off, the HV battery is effectively disconnected for safety reasons. It will not charge the 12v when the vehicle is off.

Pat

When the vehicle is off, the vehicle is OFF--just like with any other car.

The ONLY power usage would be from the accessories that draw from the

The traction battery is NOT in play when the car is off. Period. When you turn the car on, just like with any other car, the car will then charge the 12v battery--to the best of its ability. If the 12v battery is faulty in some way, it may not take the charge properly.

But none of that has anything to do with the traction battery.

It can't hurt to go somewhere and have the small 12v battery tested. It shouldn't drain the HV battery that quickly under normal circumstances if the car is on and not moving.

The HV relays are only closed and the DC-DC converter in the inverter assembly is only active when the READY light is on, hence as the other 2 said it doesn't supply the 12v with the car off (or in ACC and IG-ON modes).

Where? The Prius 12v can't be tested with a normal tester and I don't trust my Toyota dealer. The oil was a quart high (Chevy dealer I bought the car from) and when I took the car in to the Toyota dealer they claimed to have checked all the fluid levels, but failed to notice this major discrepancy.

But the traction battery charges the 12v, and therefore affects the HV, pulling a charge from it and requiring charging rather than used for traction. This is why a weak 12v can affect gas mileage. The first few miles puts a tremendous drain on the traction battery. I can start the car with 3/4 charge and be down to 2 bars in a few miles. After that it's fine.

I broke this part of the quote out because you said, unambiguously, that "when the vehicle is off it can still drain the HV battery, trying to charge a bad 12v".

Now, I don't know what form of English you learned, but what you wrote is plain and unambiguous.

You said that when the vehicle is off that it can still dra> >

Then for some reason you come back with a total non-sequitur, talking about how the traction battery charges the 12v:

That was never the point of discussion and has nothing to do with the fact that what you said was incorrect--and that when the vehicle is off it CANNOT by definition drain the HV battery.

Who told you THAT?

It most certainly can. In fact, any shop worth its salt has tools that can test how healthy the 12v battery is and how well it's being fed charge.

$95 to test the battery tested. Interstate can't do it. Only Toyota can do it. This is the second time they looked over the car and this time it also needs a fan belt. The sheet says they checked the air pressure, but I keep it higher than the manufacturer says and it's still where I set it. I don't trust my dealer to do things properly. Should have stuck with a Corolla. Anybody can work on it.