12v battery maintenance, issues, etc.

[dash]

@PeteChat
Under the passenger (or driver’s seat) both fine
What update are you referring to?

[r44flyer]

1 hour ago, moggio53 said:

I use one of these - is it any good? I just leave it connected when the car is in the drive - your opinion v welcome.

It's a trickle charger, reviews are OK, like anything you get what you pay for - but it's really all you need.
My only concern with any of these gadgets is that they are left alone for very long periods, in variable conditions and you hope if they fail, they fail safe.

[Heidfirst]

6 hours ago, Cyker said:

Do they really??!  

I was about to reply very few manufacturers use them as they cost 4-5x as much as a normal lead acid battery, and with cars that have a cost target they'd never do it.

Usually it only gets used by manufacturers who are desperate to save weight, so higher end performance cars and EVs mostly.

You can buy lithium 12v batteries that are drop in replacements but you'd be looking at £300-400 rather than the £70-80 for our one...!

 

oops, in my haste whilst skimming the forum I think that I missed the 12V bit ... 😳 Apols.

Unfortunately, timed out from being able to edit the original post.

[PeteChat]

10 hours ago, dash said:

@PeteChat
Under the passenger (or driver’s seat) both fine
What update are you referring to?

DCM module update (whatever that is - I assume a charging control module)

[hind]

DCM is for communication between the car and toyota servers. Also used for emergency calling IIRC

[HarryW2024]

17 hours ago, Cyker said:

Do they really??!  

I was about to reply very few manufacturers use them as they cost 4-5x as much as a normal lead acid battery, and with cars that have a cost target they'd never do it.

Usually it only gets used by manufacturers who are desperate to save weight, so higher end performance cars and EVs mostly.

You can buy lithium 12v batteries that are drop in replacements but you'd be looking at £300-400 rather than the £70-80 for our one...!

 

I suspect the real cost difference is a lot closer than that, you can get 100ah lifepo4 from around £200 retail today, ergo I’d suspect it’ll be nearer £100 vs £20 for a major like Toyota. (Shirley they’ve already saved enough money on the lack of noise suppression in the YC 😂).

also you can’t just drop one in, assuming you can find one small enough to fit, the DC/DC algorithm would need to be changed too.
Worth noting the BYD has sleep protection modes and only requires 15m of ‘ready’ mode to fully charge it too. ..

[PeteChat]

Using the BYD for comparison doesn’t work with me I’m afraid, as all the things I buy that are made in China (nearly everything nowadays 🙄) are very variable in quality. They either work first time and last well or are absolute crap - even the same item from the same supplier 😡

The same reason I would never buy an MG since the name was sold to the Chinese.

[HarryW2024]

Ok fair enough, the point I was making was that 12v Auxiliary LFP batteries are out there and if adopted then Toyota would clear 90% of its current gripes.

worth noting that Toyota have technical agreements and collaborations directly with BYD, so I wouldn’t necessarily and readily put them in the box marked Chinese junk. Even Tesla use their LFP blade batteries….

[PeteChat]

I, too, am not knocking ALL Chinese products, but until they respect international patents and stop flooding markets with cheap knock offs I will be cautious in what I buy.

There is a long held belief that China plays the long game. They will undercut all a county’s domestic products to cripple the local companies, then step in to buy them cheap. That means they now control that country’s market and the prices can go up. Sound familiar?

[hind]

1 hour ago, HarryW2024 said:

if adopted then Toyota would clear 90% of its current gripes.

And see some angry reviews about the price of the 12v Battery replacement, questions about their safety etc 😛 you can never please everybody. I'm certain that tuning the charging algorithm and sticking to Yuasa would be more than enough to solve the issue. 

[Mushu84]

Hi all

 

I had a volt meter (plug in the lighter kind), that I used a long time ago on an older car (works ok)

Wednesday morning put the key on on before the ready mode it was showing 11.8V, it started without issues

Thursday (today) - key on auxiliary 12.1V, Key on before ready mode 11.7V, car started ok 

Both times after start car shows 14.4V going down after drive to 14.1-14.3 depending on accessories that are on

 

Not sure if this values are ok, do I need to change the Battery? I would like to know what is normal as I am confused, I don't want to change it if there is no real issue or is normal, car works fine, no errors or issues 

[r44flyer]

3 minutes ago, Mushu84 said:

I had a volt meter (plug in the lighter kind), that I used a long time ago on an older car (works ok)

Wednesday morning put the key on on before the ready mode it was showing 11.8V, it started without issues

Thursday (today) - key on auxiliary 12.1V, Key on before ready mode 11.7V, car started ok 

Both times after start car shows 14.4V going down after drive to 14.1-14.3 depending on accessories that are on

Not sure if this values are ok, do I need to change the battery? I would like to know what is normal as I am confused, I don't want to change it if there is no real issue or is normal, car works fine, no errors or issues 

If you are not experiencing poor or non starting then leave it alone for now.

[Cyker]

16 hours ago, Heidfirst said:

oops, in my haste whilst skimming the forum I think that I missed the 12V bit ... 😳 Apols.

Unfortunately, timed out from being able to edit the original post.

Ahh phew, that makes sense, although that would have been cool if they had started doing that  

Apparently in some other manufacturers hybrids the 12v Battery is 'virtual' and is actually a fenced off portion of the traction battery; I'm interested to see what problems that potentially causes but it might be a possible way forward.

That said, the cars I've seen that have that have normal starter motors or are PHEVs, so might not work for the Toyota HSD as that requires high voltage power to start the ICE whereas those other cars can be jump started the traditional way.

5 hours ago, HarryW2024 said:

I suspect the real cost difference is a lot closer than that, you can get 100ah lifepo4 from around £200 retail today, ergo I’d suspect it’ll be nearer £100 vs £20 for a major like Toyota. (Shirley they’ve already saved enough money on the lack of noise suppression in the YC 😂).

also you can’t just drop one in, assuming you can find one small enough to fit, the DC/DC algorithm would need to be changed too.
Worth noting the BYD has sleep protection modes and only requires 15m of ‘ready’ mode to fully charge it too. ..

Straight LFP cells definitely would, but I'm talking about drop-in replacement 12v lithium car batteries - They are made to be drop-in replacement so they have more circuitry to emulate a 12v Battery so it can be charged like one, and the big high-end ones even have a supercapacitor bank to start trucks, but all this extra management circuitry plus the higher component costs and niche market is partly why they cost so much.