12v battery maintenance, issues, etc.

[Jasper.]

I recently left my 2021 Yaris Excel standing for a fortnight during the cold snap and was pleasantly surprised to find that it started without an issue. However I have previously needed to use my Noco boost on two occasions when it had stood unused for a similar length of time. 

[Hibird]

18 hours ago, philip42h said:

The work round for that problem is to carry a charged Li-ion jump start pack in the car. If you are leaving the car for 'days' you shouldn't need one but if leaving the car for 'weeks' it may save calling out the breakdown folk. Something like the NOCO Boost Sport GB20 is more than enough to get our hybrids into Ready mode ...

The Bad news is that if the Battery is Flat it is damaged and a boost device will NOT reverse that damage. Of course the boost will get you up and running but it is another nail in the coffin for the Battery. Root cause is your path to a solution

[vm1]

I have only done 450 miles in my new hybrid car and the Battery is dead. The dealership says i will have to pay for a new Battery. Car Battery is supposed to be covered by the warranty. Has anyone else had this problem please. If i had known that there were battery problems with this car i would never have bought it. Any help would be appreciated.

[Mojo1010]

Hello, when did you get the car? What have you told the dealer about your usage.

It has a 5 years warranty on the Battery so if you have used the car regularly it should not go flat, therefore the dealer have to replace under warranty. 

[vm1]

I bought the car in May 2022. Unfortunately due to health problems now I am unable to drive far. I was never told the car should be driven a lot. I had AA out to start it. The local dealership have had it since before Christmas. They said the Battery wasn't covered by warranty. I contacted the dealership where I bought it, have moved to another area. They say they regularly have to put new batteries on these cars and it is covered by warranty. My local dealership say it isn't covered and want me to pay £150. If I had known there was a problem with these cars I would never have bought it.

[flash22]

19 minutes ago, Mojo1010 said:

Hello, when did you get the car? What have you told the dealer about your usage.

It has a 5 years warranty on the battery so if you have used the car regularly it should not go flat, therefore the dealer have to replace under warranty. 

Covered for the first year only, new cars as of mid 2021 come with a 3 year warranty not 5

 

op admitted to the dealer that the car hasnt been used, so it's not a defect, just a lack of use so technically not covered

[vm1]

I can't lie about car usage it is recorded on car. I was never told that car had to be driven a lot, if i had known i wouldn't have bought it. I had a Ford fiesta for many years with no problem. My son has a hyundai hybrid car which isn't driven a lot and my sister in law has a Honda hybrid and never had this problem. I have seen posts on here recently from people having the same problem with the Yaris. It seems even if you drive it a lot the Battery doesn't get charged properly.

[anchorman]

You don’t have to drive it but you do have to connect it.  The 12v Battery powers up the lights and door locks etc but it isn’t charged like a normal Battery by a generator (alternator) on a conventional car.  Think of it like using a Battery pack to charge a phone.  If you connect them, the higher powered pack will transfer power to the lower powered phone and it’s exactly the same on your car.  While driving you have to give sufficient time and not use more than you’re putting in with lights etc.  Not always easy or practical in your situation. But what you can do is leave it powered up for an hour or so each week.   You need to think about security and in the drive at least.   Keep in mind to turn the heater off and don’t go into a closed garage in case the engine runs.  If you weren’t so far away I’d come and show you.  

[RobertR]

I think during the transportation of the new cars, the transport time from the factory to the dealer(or customer) may be sometimes too long and the Battery just discharges too much and that's permanently damaged the Battery, yes, dealer put the car on a charger overnight and cars look fine when the customer arrived to take over the car and it will hold the charge if you are driving the car every day or few time per week but it will not last a 2-week standby, not because the car is draining too much current (which it does but not that much) and damaged Battery is undercharged again, what's promotes the damage even further. That's why someone has this discharging problem and someone can pass three weeks without a problem.

Other hybrid brands have the same issue and they also recommend driving regularly or putting the car on standby for an hour once a week but permanently they have managed this better than Toyota.(Hyundai has a hard cutoff for 12V battery for cer

If you have a new car (or a few months) and your 12V car won't last a week, the battery is damaged. Ask Dealer for the new battery, it will be covered under warranty.

[Roy124]

13 hours ago, flash22 said:

Covered for the first year only, new cars as of mid 2021 come with a 3 year warranty not 5

 

op admitted to the dealer that the car hasnt been used, so it's not a defect, just a lack of use so technically not covered

As your new local dealership has no financial interest, and given what flash says, you might try the original selling dealer.  I think your best bet is contacting Toyota UK for a goodwill repair. 

Simply state the facts:

You do not drive the car often.  You were not told to put it in Ready mode. Your local dealer won't help.  Can they authorise a replacement Battery for goodwill. 

Whatever the outcome you have two options. One is to fit a solar charger if your car is in the open, the other if you have mains power available is to use a smart trickle charger.  In the latter case get the garage fitting the new Battery to hard wire the charger lead so you only have to plug in the charger. 

Plenty of advice here about chargers. 

Good luck. 

[vm1]

I had been either taking car a run every other day or leaving it on drive with engine running as advised by AA. ( locked doors) with key. It still failed to start. I am not in good health and trying to do all this is not easy. If i had known there was a problem with Battery i wouldn’t have bought a hybrid. The garage i bought the car from would have changed Battery under warranty for me but i live too far away now. I also feel that when it was shipped to UK it may have caused the Battery problem. I believe it is a major fault with these cars as others have this fault. I was never told that you have to drive the car regularly to keep the battery charged. I would never have bought a hybrid if i had known. Other makes of hybrid cars do not seem to suffer this problem.

[Hibird]

16 hours ago, vm1 said:

I can't lie about car usage it is recorded on car. I was never told that car had to be driven a lot, if i had known i wouldn't have bought it. I had a Ford fiesta for many years with no problem. My son has a hyundai hybrid car which isn't driven a lot and my sister in law has a Honda hybrid and never had this problem. I have seen posts on here recently from people having the same problem with the Yaris. It seems even if you drive it a lot the battery doesn't get charged properly.

Veronica I can the feel yor dissapointment and despair of the situation you find yourself in. You will find all the usual advice here, use it more/solar charger/ trickle charger/ready mode advice and all these can and will work.

Your lack of usage clearly is the cause of the Battery failure but the dealers who sell these vehicles need to do more to inform non technical people of the issues around 12v Battery. You say no one told you and I have no reason to doubt you. There are some here that do not see the 12v Battery being an issue and accept battery care as a kind of hobby which i have no issue with.

My advice is get stuck in with the dealer for a free replacement under warranty which I think one dealer is offering you. As should all owners with this problem or nothing will change and Toyota will sell more batteries and save on warranty costs.

The Battery IS and issue and don't believe anyone that tells you different they will direct you to small print somewhere or a COVID use posting.

You will not see it mentioned in sales brochures and TV adds or when handing over your hard earned cash.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

 

[TonyHSD]

+1 for pushing the dealer you bought from to replace the Battery under warranty and they are obligated to do so because Battery can’t go bad in such a short time unless it was already in bad state prior to the sale. All modern cars suffer same faith if left unused for long or only used for a short town trips. Your car is less than year old, you have all rights to request warranty repair on pretty much everything except accident damage and the dealer you bought from should take care. There is a consumer law that protects people in situations exactly like that. The car should be able to start and drive even if only used once every 3 weeks. The car should not failed to start unless been left for months. You very likely had new car with dead Battery and your driving pattern only added to the problem. Your example is what some asked “ - what happens with new cars while in transit to the dealer “ , well now you see what happens., and she is not alone. Many more had the same problem and now putting blame on the car, which actually is really good with only one exception 12v battery requires extra care, something that she was not warned about 👍 

[RobertR]

You can buy some lithium jump starter, like OSRAM OBSL300, to start the car Battery within minutes when the Battery will be dead. It's pretty annoying to discover this. I didn't know about this either when I place the order, but I drive daily.

 

 

[vm1]

I have heard you can get these jump starters. The problem is i would find it hard to do this due to health problems which have recently got worse. The car has been in the dealership since before Christmas and they haven't let me know what is happening yet. Not sure if using these jump starters too often would cause problems with the Battery long term.

[Mojo1010]

I agree with the others about pushing this dealer to replace under warranty, the Battery probably had an issue to start with - time from manufacturers to your pick up, or faulty/bad from the start. If this dealer continued to declined your request then phone Toyota uk and be firm about getting it replaced. Good luck. 

 

[TonyHSD]

Indeed, pushing the dealer for warranty replacement is the only option and make sense. After that you will need to buy an external charger and charge the Battery on regular basis like once every month or so when the car is not in use daily.  If no power source available near the car then a solar charger might be of help and when you don’t drive for any reason you can plug in and leave it plugged in for as long as you wish, weeks, months etc and this device will maintain Battery charge level. When cloudy it may not help a lot but still better than nothing. 

[Roy124]

Veronica, the jump starters do work and frequent use will not damage your car.  While I would advocate many to have such a jump starter as a backup I suspect it would not be easy for you. 

If you have a competent neighbour then yes, otherwise having to open the bonnet, access the terminals, powering it up, going and starting the car, removing the jumper pack, closing the bonnet, then driving or leaving in Ready mode, and remembering to recharge the jumper, returning it to the car.... See what I mean. 

I was never told about Ready mode either 

[fourbanks]

You have a bad dealer. Your Battery on a new car has a warranty irrespective of how you use the car and that would be for a minimum of one year by law 

[Wetherfell]

19 hours ago, vm1 said:

I had a Ford fiesta for many years with no problem. 

You very probably would with a current version, unfortunately.

The various Ford forums are full of threads on this topic and it basically comes back to modern charging systems which only charge up to, typically, 80% state of charge and then expect the rest to be made up during braking, overrun, etc. This is supposedly to reduce load on the engine and reduce emissions.

Similar issues arise in other makes also, as Tony mentions above.

The usual answer is to regularly give the car a full charge cycle with a modern "smart" charger such as C-tek, Noco or Maypole.

I currently have a 2018 Fiesta myself, with intermittent use for various reasons, and regular charging does the trick.

[Roy124]

As Wetherfell says Ford's amongst others all have a similar problem though I understand Kia has a solution. 

I provided a Battery tail for my CTEK 5 charger and just told the dealer to fit it before delivery. No cost and no argument. 

[Dala]

bad weather or without electricity
I use this solution

 

[Mary Ellen]

On 8/26/2022 at 6:56 PM, TruBlu said:

Why do you want to connect straight to the battery?... it makes no difference. Anyway, none of us should be doing this or worrying if our cars will or will not start. The batteries in Toyota hybrids are to small and this issue needs to be rectified by the manufacturer. I've mentioned this to many people and they are now put off buying a hybrid. Also, it's quite embarrassing to have paid £22,000 plus for a brand new car that requires a jump starter in the boot or a solar panel on the dash. Give me my non-hybrid Auris back please with no battery issues in 13 years.

Exactly my feelings,Toyota used to be reliable,fed up of dealer giving numerous reasons, all my fault, for Yaris cross 12v Battery going flat

[Hibird]

Great post Dala do you have a product link for that Battery pack and I guess inverter you are using ? This looks the ultimate solution ... love it

[Dala]

the video is old
now i have an extra Battery
total capacity is 1440 Wh
maximum charging time with Ctek Time To Go is 2-4 hours
total maximum 79 hours from 100% to 0% from portable powerhouse
("float mode" consumes 4W + converter 15W - total 19W per hour)

the device can be turned on and off using an app on a mobile phone
in this way it is possible to charge a 12V Battery every week

It is NOT NECESSARY to put the hybrid car into "READY MODE" every week

https://www.ecoflow.com/us/river-pro-portable-power-station