12v battery maintenance, issues, etc.

[yossarian247]

It was endless problems with a Skoda which led me to buy my first Toyota ten years ago! Ironically the main issue with the Skoda was random refusal to start, although not Battery related. Two main dealers and a VW specialist tried to fix it and could not find the fault, so I got rid.

[flash22]

i have worked on my fair share over the years, the small turbo engines can be a bit fragile (a cam belt change can run into £700 by a main stealer), dsg has its own issues, no matter the Marque all brands have issues, the Mk4 yaris has sold in big numbers so there a plenty on the roads

if you are changing cars every 2–5 years, most issue will be covered

[Mojo1010]

4 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

Well, people says for some what it is a rubbish, for other it’s a treasure.
The dealer will change the battery or fix any existing issue if presented and sell the car to somebody who will probably enjoy it as much as some other members does theirs. That’s life.
Hope you have picked a better car and most importantly trouble free.
For reference my best ever and worst ever cars were made by Toyota. 
Good luck 👍

For me it will be welcome MK4 Yaris 🙂

[Max_Headroom]

Quote

At the end of the day, Toyota Owners Club isn't a pressure or campaigning group. 

What harm would opening the thread i suggested have done if it was made plain in the OP that it was going to be sent to the press this which would have got round the problem below, owners are rightfully annoyed  they have spent £20,000+ on a car that they then find lets them down if they dont use it regularly and  need to keep charging it as they are worried they are not using it enough and it will eventually let them down.

Maybe you need to become a pressure group as it looks like sod all is going to be done and this issue will carry on.

Quote

Even if it were, for the Club to alert media of the content of any topic, we would need the permission of each contributing member to that topic.

 

[Max_Headroom]

4 hours ago, flash22 said:

i have worked on my fair share over the years, the small turbo engines can be a bit fragile

There are a lot of articles about small turbo petrol engines suffering from carbon build up which is one of the reasons i chose the MK3 when switching from my diesel.

[Cyker]

9 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

For reference my best ever and worst ever cars were made by Toyota. 

That's funny, mine too!!  

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, Max_Headroom said:

Maybe you need to become a pressure group

No we don't. 

The Club is largely managed/moderated by volunteers - currently a team of two, including myself.

As we have other parts of our lives to lead, we certainly don't have the time or inclination to change how the Club operates, or devote more resource to managing media contacts, etc.

I also don't think the vast majority of members want the Club to move away from a quite informal place, where members can seek and give advice to others. 

[Derek.w]

A lot of cars had Battery problems because of covid lockdown so replacment Battery were in short supply for a lot of cars.

Just another reason I kept charging my old Battery every week until the battery I was after was back in stock.

[RickyC]

On 6/17/2023 at 8:05 PM, Dala said:

IMO calcium car batteries will be a problem in cars :

https://power.bigbadmole.com/en/akkumulyatory/avtomobilnye/kaltsievye.html

Decoding the production date of the Turkish battery MUTLU :

https://power.bigbadmole.com/en/akkumulyatory/avtomobilnye/mutlu.html

If I well understood Calcium batteries should be charget with 16V that is avolatge that usually smart chargers don't offer and also internal DC/DC charging circuit works with a peak of maximum 14V.  There's a design flaw?  Charger designed for Lead Acid or AGM Battery but a different Battery technology choosen during car manufactoring ?

Even applying a static 16V low current charge with a normal power supply ( instead than a microprocesor controlled smart charger like CTEK ) I think you should disconnect the Battery from the car because I don't know how much is safe to apply 16V to internal circuits. 

[Dala]

Ever since I found out that I have a Ca-Ca car Battery, I charge the CTEK RECON - 15.8V max - without disconnecting the car Battery and I have no problem.

I know, it's not 16.5V, but better than 14.7V

[Eddie G]

A half hour over 60mph motorway drive every week or so seems to do the trick Battery wise on my 21 plate MK4 drives great, CVT good and 68.7 mpg with touch wood zero problems in the just over a year ownership, will be sticking with Toyota long term but enjoy your new car all same.

[Tommy X]

13 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

No we don't. 

The Club is largely managed/moderated by volunteers - currently a team of two, including myself.

As we have other parts of our lives to lead, we certainly don't have the time or inclination to change how the Club operates, or devote more resource to managing media contacts, etc.

I also don't think the vast majority of members want the Club to move away from a quite informal place, where members can seek and give advice to others. 

I would suggest that media organisations could be contacted directly by anyone wanting to highlight this problem  

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, Tommy X said:

I would suggest that media organisations could be contacted directly by anyone wanting to highlight this problem  

As said previously, the issue is already in the public domain and has been for over 2 years.

[geniot]

Hi, 

can someone help me please? I replaced the 12V Battery and all electronics seem to work normally, computer starts, radio, AC. 

But I see a lot of warnings on my dashboard and the wheel is blocked. 

Do I need to do something special to reset the self-check routine?

[Dala]

What car Battery did you use?  Again turning it on and off does not help?

[geniot]

25 minutes ago, Dala said:

What car battery did you use?  Again turning it on and off does not help?

I bought Bosch Accu S4 ACCU 12 VOLT 44 AH  

I am going to do a hard reset in the evening: disconnect this accu, wait for 2 minutes and then connect.

But turning the car on/off doesn't help. I read in the manual that the car somehow can remember the state it was in when the accu died.

[MCatPG]

I'm interested in the warranty implications if an owner changes the 12V Battery for a type different to that which was in the car when it was delivered. My inclination would be to get Toyota's agreement before doing this even if I was paying for the new Battery and having it fitted by a dealer.

By the way, I read that Ca-Ca (calcium ion) batteries have exactly the same fault mode as AGM batteries - if they are discharged below 50% capacity they must be fully re-charged immediately or they will be ruined, and even an immediate re-charge may not save them. If they are fully discharged they will lose a significant amount of their designed cycle capacity (the number of times they can be charged and discharged).

[MCatPG]

Question - how do you find out what kind of 12V auxillary Battery you have? Do you have to disconnect it and remove it from the vehicle? I cannot see any ID while it is in situ. I don't have time to pull it out and we are going away tomorrow - I need to know if the Optimate 20W solar panel I have bought will work with it - I strongly suspect if the Battery is calcium chemistry the Optimate won't work.

[Dala]

Optimate solar duo 20w is cool.  He charges the car Battery in the sun and then maintains it.   According to the photos, it looks like a Turkish Battery Ca-Ca 35Ah.  A 16.5V charger is required to fully charge a CA-CA car Battery to 100%.  The battery must be disconnected at 16.5V!  Without disconnection only CTEK mod RECON - max 15.8V.

[MCatPG]

4 hours ago, Dala said:

Optimate solar duo 20w is cool.  He charges the car battery in the sun and then maintains it.   According to the photos, it looks like a Turkish battery Ca-Ca 35Ah.  A 16.5V charger is required to fully charge a CA-CA car battery to 100%.  The battery must be disconnected at 16.5V!  Without disconnection only CTEK mod RECON - max 15.8V.

@Dala Our Optimate + MPPT controller is not  a Duo. It is the plain version. The only difference is that the Duo can charge Lithium chemistry batteries but the plain one can't. Nobody is suggesting that the Toyota 12V auxiliary Battery is Lithium so there is no point paying the extra for the Duo.

Assuming that the 12V auxiliary Battery uses Ca-Ca chemistry (conventional lead with calcium added to the plates) I have found two interpretations of the consequences.

The first is what you said - the Battery must be charged at 16.5V to achieve 100% charge.  The second is that it can be charged at up to 16.5 V.

If the first interpretation is correct then neither the car's on-board DC>DC converter/charger when the car is in "Ready" mode, nor the Optimate kit when the car is out of use and receiving solar power, will charge the battery fully and it will gradually deteriorate, probably over the course of a year or two, to the point where it will be unable to maintain a correct State of Charge for even 24 hours. If the owner attempts to overcome this problem by using a charger energised by 230V AC with a  16.5V output while the battery is connected to the vehicle we don't know whether such a high output voltage would damage expensive electronic components in the vehicle. It probably wouldn't (Toyota probably built high voltage protection into the relevant circuits) but we don't know.

If the second interpretation is correct then the Optimate kit may be able to maintain the battery during periods when the car is standing idle if the battery is in good condition from the beginning, but if the battery is compromised the Optimate kit will do little to help, and it may do nothing at all.

Our car has been used regularly for a mixture of short (2 mile), medium, and long (155 mile) journeys during the last month. It has been used almost every day. I measured our car's 12V auxiliary battery voltage this afternoon while taking the photos I posted above, using my multimeter, and I saw 12.2V. I checked twice. That indicates a Ca-Ca battery which has been discharged to somewhere between 20%-40% capacity. If it is an AGM battery then it's 50% SoC. If it's Ca-Ca it has been damaged significantly. If it's AGM it's potentially damaged but recoverable.

It is 5 months since we took delivery of the car but there were almost exactly 2 months between the car leaving the factory and us taking delivery. It would not surprise me if a lot of the damage was done then. But we will never know. Either way I am pretty sure our battery has been damaged and it's not our fault.

I am doing my best to understand this problem and as I have already posted I think owners have to rely on self help. But I am really quite p**s*d off because we have not abused our car and the 12V auxiliary battery is down to 12.2V which is inadequate voltage whether it's Ca-Ca or AGM. 

[Primus1]

Funnily enough today I was in the dealers arranging delivery of my new Yaris cross, she mentioned that people who drive 2k miles per year will get flat batteries, with no prompting from me, they obviously know there are problems, seems like I’ll still Ned to keep my charger handy, ( I do more than 2k a year btw).

[Derek.w]

Just had a quick look at the Bosh Battery its not stop/start recomended so probably not a EFB type Battery.

Your cars BMC wont like it.

Please Note its not charged at 16volts thats to high for a calcium EFB Battery (Ca-CA) battery.

Charging voltage is around 14.0 to 14.6 volts

If you charging at 16 volts on load  I suspect its a open circuit voltage as I suspect on load its only 14.8 volts.

[SouperChris]

It seems the future is not electric for some. I imagine if you have unusual driving patterns, typical ICE cars are your best option. 

[YarisHybrid2016]

My car is nearly 9 years old. Still on original 12V Battery! No issues.

These cars don't like sitting around. I put mine on a float-charger if it will sit more than 2 weeks...which is never.

No comment on "lockdown". 😇

[CruxisCore]

I suppose this has been posted here before, but funny I stumbled on to this as I was browsing this thread 😄

https://youtu.be/FhdWqdFzvGM?t=1013

Carwows original Yaris Hybrid 2021 review has the 12v Battery die on Matt Watson. He doesnt really shame the car for it or anything but left it as a blooper in the end