That 12v battery (again!)

[MikeSh]

9 minutes ago, anchorman said:

There’s a contractual thing that goes on so they may only be able to change either supplier with a model change.

Exactly. They can't just dump a supplier every time an issue arises. Word gets around and next time they are looking for sources all the suppliers are reluctant to get stung and quote high or just hide.

It also takes time to understand what the problem really is. I know all the experts here know for sure, but actually we have no idea how widespread this is - it may be a tiny fraction of production. So before even attempting to change the OEM equipment they need to investigate it thoroughly, design a fix, check it's not going to have unforeseen consequences (as far as possible), look at costs, then implement it. The timescales are nearer years than months.

[Mojo1010]

At the end of the day Toyota are the boss, they should be able to tweak the contract, change to a higher Ah Battery battery from the same supplier even. 

At the end of the day most of us and car buyer in general don't mind an extra £20-£30 for a Battery on a £20k+ car. They don't have years to uphold a reputation as a top manufacturer. We all can agree an extra 10Ah will give a few more days buffer. 

[Primus1]

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I had a ford puma MHEV, this suffered from Battery issues, the forum members said it was the poor quality rombat batteries fitted, some changed to varta batteries and this was supposed to cure the problems, others took it to ford and had software updates done and this was supposedly the answer, some had success, others found they didn’t, so maybe it’s all the modern gadgets fitted to newer cars nowadays, I’m sure there are other manufacturers of hybrid and mild hybrid cars with similar issues, I wonder though, if full electric cars have the same problems?

[Roy124]

It would be a foolish manufacturer that relied on a single source supply chain.  We have seen the effects of strikes or catastrophic factory fires. 

[Mojo1010]

That's a very good point Roy. Would very doubt Mutlu have the firepower to say to Toyota if you don't put X amount of Battery in your car as in purchase agreement, we will take you to court. 

Was looking to see if they do a 45Ah Battery......

[anchorman]

28 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

It would be a foolish manufacturer that relied on a single source supply chain.  We have seen the effects of strikes or catastrophic factory fires. 

They’ll have a second supplier but there’s more to it than that.  I’ve worked for somebody that supplies Toyota and they’re very demanding.  They want a lot of testing but screw you down to tenths of a penny.   The second supplier might not be as cheap IF they can supply and what we don’t know is that Mutley might be supplying Toyota for other products.  If you pull part of the supply it screws the pricing elsewhere.  The supplier has to have some guarantees.  It would be better to put Mutley under pressure to resolve the issue and fund warranty claims to date.  We would rather have Yuasa or Varta etc but it might not be so simple.  

[Chas G]

Ex wife (2 yaris's)

Daughter (Avensis and Corolla)

Both looking to change to hybrid or electric. Can't understand why but both have decided not to bother and will continue with petrol cars. I did explain all the benefits of a hybrid to them but to no avail.

Ps just remembered I have to  meet a friend for breakfast in the morning. 1 mile to pub/restaurant and afterwards 3 miles via his place home. Better get the charger warmed up.

[Cyker]

TBH that's the best thing to do - We as a society need to get out of this mindset that we need to buy new things when the thing we have is working and does the job.

It's one of the more hypocritical arguments EV people make that everyone should scrap their car and buy an EV to save the environment, apparently thinking EVs are magicked out of thin air by pixies and don't have a massive emissions cost associated with them any more than all new cars made.

I only got mine because I got KHAAAAN'd, may his genitals be infested with debilitating parasites.

 

re. suppliers, one of the conditions of manufacturing in the EU is a certain percentage of parts must be sourced from EU suppliers, and I suspect Varta wouldn't back down over cost so they went with Mutley. But TBH, it is a relatively minor annoyance and it is something we can solve ourselves. It is certainly not something to throw the whole car out over.

Me and many other Mk4 owners have had zero problems with ours (so far touch wood spin round twice throw salt over shoulder etc.). The fundamental problem seems to just be the OE Battery is not very good quality and degrades far worse at partial charge than better quality batteries. Since I drive mine so much, it's almost always at full charge, but for people that don't I can see that accelerated degradation dropping the capacity quite quickly. That said, I don't think it's so much the higher capacity of the Yuasa Battery that helps, but that it has been designed to minimise degradation at partial charge far better than the Mutley.

Because of that, you're better off replacing it yourself with the Yuasa (Or even Varta) equivalent once it goes. There's little point in getting Toyota to replace it, unless you get a dealer who's willing to put in the other Battery a few have had done, as they HAVE to use official parts and would get in trouble for fitting a third-party part, and most will just blindly do what the computer specifies because it's not worth sticking their neck out and trying to improvise - The rewards are minimal but if it made it worse they'd likely not get any credit for trying.

 

[CPN]

5 hours ago, anchorman said:

 I hope the new model comes with something better.  

So do I and I will certainly find out once I get my new one...

[Chas G]

24 minutes ago, CPN said:

So do I and I will certainly find out once I get my new one...

I hope you do plenty of long journeys.

[CPN]

Well, I really meant that I would have a look and see if it's the same type of Battery but yes, at the moment we are doing a 200 mile round trip roughly every fortnight apart from the local stuff...

[CPN]

One of the useful things about having a built-on garage at the side of the house is that anytime I am in the kitchen making a cup of tea or coffee, I can use Hybrid Assistant on my phone to connect to the car's bluetooth and my OBDII adaptor (yes, it does work from the car through a brick wall!) to do a quick check of how the Battery is today...

(that's been standing since Christmas Eve and is the original 3+ year old Mutlu Battery...)

Edited December 30, 2023 by CPN
edit: copy of a post in the other related thread...

[Dala]

4 minutes ago, CPN said:

One of the useful things about having a built-on garage at the side of the house is that anytime I am in the kitchen making a cup of tea or coffee, I can use Hybrid Assistant on my phone to connect to the car's Bluetooth and my OBDII adaptor (yes, it does work from the car through a brick wall!) to do a quick check of how the battery is today...

(that's been standing since Christmas Eve and is the original 3+ year old Mutli battery...)

after six days 12.3V - great value at this time of year 👍

[MikeSh]

6 hours ago, Primus1 said:

if full electric cars have the same problems?

Yes.

Not all, but on the EV forum a few years ago it looked rather like this one today. I actually bought my booster for my EV !

[Cyker]

3 hours ago, Chas G said:

I hope you do plenty of long journeys.

To be fair, being stuck in London traffic for an hour is also enough!  

[MikeSh]

I remember the days of DC generators that couldn't even run the headlights + rear screen heater at idle without draining the Battery.

[Cowgirl]

4 hours ago, CPN said:

One of the useful things about having a built-on garage at the side of the house is that anytime I am in the kitchen making a cup of tea or coffee, I can use Hybrid Assistant on my phone to connect to the car's Bluetooth and my OBDII adaptor (yes, it does work from the car through a brick wall!) to do a quick check of how the battery is today...

(that's been standing since Christmas Eve and is the original 3+ year old Mutlu battery...)

Is that on the Toyota app? Or downloaded from somewhere else?

[CPN]

27 minutes ago, Cowgirl said:

Is that on the Toyota app? Or downloaded from somewhere else?

Hybrid Assistant is an App on the Google Play Store and it is Android only I'm afraid.

(but probably worth buying a cheap android second phone for - you'll also need a good OBDII adaptor to go with it)

It even has a HUD mode which works very well.

[George O]

I have a 2021 Yaris and this has been happening since the 2nd year when we stopped doing daily 3mile nursery runs.

First time I took it to Toyota when this happened their suggestion was "do more miles or charge it weekly". He continued "hybrid systems are complicated and need a lot of battery". My response was "I'll sell it and get a petrol car so I don't have to worry about the miles". The whole attitude of Toyota is a joke. If the car requires a minimum amount of miles per week they should have a big warning when buying the car. After 25 years of hybrids, you'd expect they'd be polished by now but it seems that they need more looking after than a pet.

I "charge" the car in Ready mode every few days, for 60-90mins, and it's still out of Battery when I try to drive it 3 days later. I'm using the same Battery the OP mentioned to jump start the car every time. I wonder if this is the issue with all hybrids or it is just Toyota or maybe just small cars.

[Andrew Harrison]

Exactly 

[Stopeter44]

23 minutes ago, George O said:

I "charge" the car in Ready mode every few days, for 60-90mins, and it's still out of battery when I try to drive it 3 days later. I'm using the same battery the OP mentioned to jump start the car every time. I wonder if this is the issue with all hybrids or it is just Toyota or maybe just small cars.

By the sound of it, you need a new Battery, if yours won't hold enough charge for the 12v system. Any car if left long enough will have a problem with the 12v Battery. So far with my Yaris it has only happened once, but that was after 3 weeks. That said, I could leave previous cars a bit longer (< 4 weeks).

[hind]

1 hour ago, George O said:

I "charge" the car in Ready mode every few days, for 60-90mins,

I bet it's fully charged after 30 minutes already 🙂 they loose capacity quickly, mine dropped from 35Ah to mere 5 but if I drive it no less than every 3 days then it's fine. And the car is 8 month old. I will raise it on the yearly checkup. 

[Andrew Harrison]

1 hour ago, Stopeter44 said:

By the sound of it, you need a new battery, if yours won't hold enough charge for the 12v system. Any car if left long enough will have a problem with the 12v battery. So far with my Yaris it has only happened once, but that was after 3 weeks. That said, I could leave previous cars a bit longer (< 4 weeks).

I have a low mileage 21 Yaris and had this problem, I bought a £6.49 voltmeter from Amazon that plugs into the cigar lighter socket and it showed that the Battery would not take a full charge so when pointed out to the Toyota dealer who charged it overnight they had no choice but to replace the Battery under warranty N.B. when testing, leave the car for 15 to thirty mins and just turn to accessory mode then if it is below a reading of 12 it is nearly fully discharged and if that is the case after 60 mins in ready mode the Battery is duff

[anchorman]

🥱 I think Toyota might already know there’s a problem.  I’m told that there will be a better Battery on MkIV/2.  We’ll see.  

[Andrew Harrison]

20 minutes ago, anchorman said:

🥱 I think Toyota might already know there’s a problem.  I’m told that there will be a better battery on MkIV/2.  We’ll see.  

They should have a recall if that is the case because they will lose repeat customers forever but they won't