It had to go

[anchorman]

On the subject of owning two cars, I think that’s up to the owner and if it sits in the garage getting nothing more than cleaning and polishing, I totally get that.  If it’s a toy or a very seldom used transport to the shops, that’s no more eccentric than having a Harley Davidson for the summer or a boat on the canal.  Now this Battery thing, every time it comes up which tends to be weekly, it all goes like it’s something new.  We know there are countermeasures but the problem is a Battery that reaches a threshold of uselessness very quickly where it won’t hold sufficient charge.  We also know how to deal with it for a lot less than changing the car.  
 

The breast feeding story is funny, I treat it as a joke because I’ve got a sense oh humour but did you know, you are not allowed to be offended or nor to be supportive (no pun intended). You are not allowed to offer a breast feeding mother a private place in case makes them feel unwanted.   It’s only going to get worse!

[Primus1]

6 minutes ago, anchorman said:

On the subject of owning two cars, I think that’s up to the owner and if it sits in the garage getting nothing more than cleaning and polishing, I totally get that.  If it’s a toy or a very seldom used transport to the shops, that’s no more eccentric than having a Harley Davidson for the summer or a boat on the canal.  Now this battery thing, every time it comes up which tends to be weekly, it all goes like it’s something new.  We know there are countermeasures but the problem is a battery that reaches a threshold of uselessness very quickly where it won’t hold sufficient charge.  We also know how to deal with it for a lot less than changing the car.  
 

The breast feeding story is funny, I treat it as a joke because I’ve got a sense oh humour but did you know, you are not allowed to be offended or nor to be supportive (no pun intended). You are not allowed to offer a breast feeding mother a private place in case makes them feel unwanted.   It’s only going to get worse!

Wait, what?

[Cyker]

1 hour ago, dash said:

It should be possible, as with some EV cars, for the HV battery to automatically charge the 12V battery via the inverter at anytime it is needed (i.e. when the car is parked up and not in use). My previous FIAT 500 electric used to do this if the car was unused for a few days.

That could potentially make the problem a lot worse!

The hybrid's traction batteries are very low capacity and it'd be very easy to drain them too charging up the 12v Battery, at which point you'd be up the proverbial creek, as without charge in the traction Battery the car won't start, and unlike the 12v you can't jump-start it and the whole car has to get trailer'd to a Toyota garage where it'll sit for months waiting for the Legendary Toyota Traction Battery Of Legend to be delivered from its secret resting place to said dealer so they can charge the traction battery back up.

Personally I'd be happy if they just nicked Hyundai and Kia's fix, i.e. the car just shuts off if the 12v gets below a certain point, and you have to hold down a button to re-engage it, which gives you 2 minutes or something to start the car or it cuts off again.

That'd all but the most egregious problem cases with the 12v battery.

Or just put in a bigger battery as standard. Or both!

 

Also, I'd recommend in a 2-car house, the Yaris should not be the 2nd car, the Yaris should be the daily - The 2nd car should be a GR86 or something  

[Roy124]

My jumper Battery holds sufficient charge for months at a time.

[dash]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

That could potentially make the problem a lot worse!

The hybrid's traction batteries are very low capacity and it'd be very easy to drain them too charging up the 12v battery, at which point you'd be up the proverbial creek, as without charge in the traction battery the car won't start, and unlike the 12v you can't jump-start it

There would be a threshold below which the HV Battery is no longer allowed to support the 12V Battery. The impact on the HV Battery would be negligible for 2 hours charging every 4/5 days of non car use.

[MikeSh]

2 hours ago, anchorman said:

If it’s a toy or a very seldom used transport to the shops

But that's the nub of it. If it's a toy/hobby like a Harley then it's providing a different service from a motorised shopping cart.

I do agree with that it's the owners' choice ... but I also choose to consider some of them barking 🙂

 

2 hours ago, anchorman said:

We also know how to deal with it for a lot less than changing the car.

That.

Given that the original was obviously toast the cost of chucking in a new/better Battery to see if it fixed things, before nuking the car at great expense, seems like a no-brainer to me. (But I consider batteries consumables - many people spend a lot of time and money eking out just a few months more life. Refer again to my barking point above 🙂 )

[anchorman]

2 hours ago, MikeSh said:

But that's the nub of it. If it's a toy/hobby like a Harley then it's providing a different service from a motorised shopping cart.

I do agree with that it's the owners' choice ... but I also choose to consider some of them barking 🙂

 

That.

Given that the original was obviously toast the cost of chucking in a new/better battery to see if it fixed things, before nuking the car at great expense, seems like a no-brainer to me. (But I consider batteries consumables - many people spend a lot of time and money eking out just a few months more life. Refer again to my barking point above 🙂 )

Not everybody knows it’s as easy as that though Mike.  We do because our investigations and experiments are complete 👍

[andyfr]

To answer some of the above. Yes we could have put a larger Battery in, yes we could sit in the car in "Ready" mode for an hour every few days, yes we could have used the Yaris more and left the XC40 at home, but we didn't like the Yaris enough to do any of that. Yes there was a financial hit but it was worth it to us to get rid of it. We all have different priorities in life, I may think others have ideas and or actions that are "barking" but I keep those opinions to myself.

[Primus1]

I get it too,my previous ford puma had a brand new, factory fresh engine from ford, fitted by a Ford dealership, some might think, great, it’s like having a brand new car, even though it had about 25,000, miles on the odometer, the new engine had done 0 miles, but it’s just that something that makes you lose confidence in the car so it had to go, yes my cross has had a flat Battery ( the pumas had Battery issues too, although it never went flat) but now I know what I need to do, either by using the ready mode, charging it or using the jump starter in the boot, and, if necessary, changing the Battery.

[Roy124]

1 hour ago, andyfr said:

....we didn't like the Yaris enough to do any of that.....

Fair enough, as I think @Primus1 implies above, once you lose faith in something and can't or don't want to fix it, logic says bin it.

[RickyC]

19 hours ago, Roy124 said:

Ideally the dealer should not have sold you the car.  In this case the car was 'not fit for purpose'.  You chose a car that on the face of it was what you needed as the description made no mention of any difference from any other car of its class and you already had expectations as you were familiar with the brand. 

They were lucky that you took the hit rather than demand a refund.

I think that the problem is not that an hybrid car is not fit for purpose but that the 12V Battery used by new Yaris ( and other modern cars ) is too small for the standby consumption of always on components of the car.

A not fit for purpose point for an hybrid car IMHO could be the higher initial cost respect to an ICE only car but not the 12V Battery.

[Tommy X]

The Mazda 2 (non hybrid) is a great little car, you may find the engine a bit noisy for about one minute when first started but they all do it for a fast warm up. Never any issues with the one I owned, if you don't want i stop kicking in set the airflow to screen and use the aircon     

[TonyHSD]

I can tell that all new cars, big or small, ice or hybrid or electric, all of them suffer from 12v Battery issues way more than anything from the past, 2016 and below and I mentioned the reason, the connected services, info screens, and all that additional electronics. 

For the Toyota hybrids, generally speaking there is no official classification for who exactly these cars are made. They are simply for everyone and you don’t need to drive like taxi to have a hybrid over a non hybrid car, it’s just what is offered currently on the market as automatic transmission cars.

Yaris and Yaris cross for example are best in class just because of that. 
With this in mind many owners just went Toyota hybrid because of that and not because they need an ultra efficient car, they need small automatic, petrol, with good reliability. And when you have a good previous experience from the brand why look for another car.  

I don’t blame owners for making their choice on Toyota hybrids if they don’t use the cars often, and I don’t blame dealers for selling them these cars, the only failure here is Toyota manufacturer as they need to take into account how different people use cars differently and fit the correct size and type of Battery that can maintain charge if the car is not used up to 4 weeks. , or twice their software to be able to go full sleep and stop drawing 12v power when car is not used. 
Older generations Toyota hybrids also have flat 12v batteries, but this was really only if you leave the car seat for over 4 weeks and then after drive only for 15-20 min and leave it again for another long time unused.  

Toyota hybrids has very small hybrid batteries and this idea of hybrid Battery to recharge the 12v battery when the car is off its mission impossible. 

Also when the 12v battery is dead it will keep your hybrid battery drained while driving and engine almost constantly running. 

 

[hdkagawa]

If not for forums like this and the odd youtube video I would not have been aware of such issues, and I would have ended up getting a Yaris hybrid and probably suffering a similar financial hit, thankfully I did see this sort of thing and decided the Aygo X was a better fit for me - It's been great (I've made a post and comments about it)

I still think the OP has a point and that it's frankly absurd that cars with these issues are even allowed to be sold as they are... 

You should *NOT* need to upgrade the Battery yourself, or sit in it in 'ready' mode a few times a week in case you don't drive the car for 3 or 4 days,  or trickle charge it, or be paranoid about it not starting when you go on holiday for a week or 2, etc etc 

People saying "great car but not the right one for you" I get that argument with electric vehicles, but for a hybrid I don't think that reasoning washes, we're not talking about a preference thing here, I don't think asking the car not to kill its own Battery if you go 4 days without driving it is an unfair basic expectation of any new (or fairly new) vehicle? 

All power to those where these issues aren't a problem or if they seem happy living with these potential workarounds - great, enjoy it, the car looks lovely but I still don't think that excuses it on Toyota's part personally

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

At the end of the day the OP has made their own decision on a course of action. No one is going to change that after the event. So it is time for people to move on.

[MikeSh]

3 minutes ago, hdkagawa said:

You should *NOT* need to upgrade the battery yourself

I agree. But fitting a better, not necessarily larger, Battery seems to have been shown to fix the problem which people on this forum Will know. So if the dealer/Toyota won't do it then the pragmatic course is to do it yourself.

Though even if it fixes it and you get several years of trouble free motoring, it's still going to colour your view of Toyota at next purchase.

4 minutes ago, hdkagawa said:

don't think that excuses it on Toyota's part personally

Again, I agree. Where people have batteries in new cars dying after a few days idle they should be fixing them, not just giving them a charge and saying use it more.

The early Kona EVs, which I had one of a few years back, had similar problems, so this is something that predates COVID - that just shone a spotlight on the issue. That cars being built now are still suffering suggests lessons are not being learnt.