12v battery issueson Yaris cross

[Willow 1]

Was looking to buy 24/74 reg Yaris cross but concerned about the 12v Battery problems that have been reported. Anyone had issues or can recommend this car?

[Mojo1010]

It's a good car. Drive regularly and it's not problem, have a 'small' read on the above thread 12v maintenance. 

[Cyker]

My (non-Cross) Yaris Mk4 is over 3 years old, still on the original known-duff Battery, has never failed to start.

If you use it regularly enough that the insane mpg will pay off vs a normal car, you most likely won't have a problem.

If it's going to sit for weeks then do a short town trip, most of the time, I wouldn't recommend it.

If you have a secret weekend hooligan sunday driver persona, I would also recommend one  

[Willow 1]

Can’t see a thread on 12v maintenance? Only do about 4000 miles per year driving 5-6 days a week. 

[Mojo1010]

It's the sticky thread at the top. Not sure doing such a low mileage is worth getting a hybrid. There are cheaper non hybrid for that mileage unless one is after the hybrid drive. Electric car may be better if can charge at home. 

[MikeSh]

8 minutes ago, Mojo1010 said:

Not sure doing such a low mileage is worth getting a hybrid. ... Electric car may be better if can charge at home. 

Given the high cost of the cars the economics of an EV are probably even worse than hybrids for low mileages. One reason I got rid of my EV.

[Mojo1010]

Used ev have come down a lot in price.

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, Willow 1 said:

Can’t see a thread on 12v maintenance? Only do about 4000 miles per year driving 5-6 days a week. 

See: 

 

[MikeSh]

1 hour ago, Mojo1010 said:

Used ev have come down a lot in price.

Yes. Because people are 'concerned' about Battery life and the public charging infrastructure. I can't say they're wrong. If you only have a fairly short daily use and home charging they make sense ... anything more demanding gets interesting very quickly.

It's becoming more and more apparent that Toyota made the right call, at least in logical ways, about hybrids being the way forward in the medium term. BEVs for all is a decade or more away.

[Eddie G]

4 hours ago, Willow 1 said:

Can’t see a thread on 12v maintenance? Only do about 4000 miles per year driving 5-6 days a week. 

On that amount of miles you would need to either use a trickle charger and/or use Ready Mode to keep the 12v Battery topped up and healthy or go for an ICE only engine car which here in the UK Toyota wise your limited to the ICE only Toyota Aygo X with bonkers tyre sizes. I ended up going second hand ICE only with a Yaris because i didn't care for either of them options given i do around the same miles as yourself.

Edited October 17 by Eddie G
Added information

[hind]

4 hours ago, MikeSh said:

If you only have a fairly short daily use and home charging they make sense

Are the EVs so cheap in the UK or the gas prices are so high that the simpler ICE car looses the economy race on short trips? When I was doing some calculations some time ago, ie. cheapest EV which I can find vs similar size and standard ICE, assuming free electricity one had to do around 100k kilometers to cover the price difference with the fuel costs. With short milage it was never cheaper to drive the EV. There are other benefits like using bus lanes and free parking in the cities which work in favour of the EV but considering just the fuel price one had to do significant daily distances (something about 2 x 50 miles daily) to justify the extra cost for the EV

[Willow 1]

Thanks everyone, think petrol is going to be the way to go. Don’t want to be worrying about car not starting or having to charge Battery

[Mojo1010]

The price of used EVs has come down a lot, I did considered a Kona ev before current car. Ultimately without the ability to home charge, it wasn't worth it. 

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?aggregatedTrim=Premium SE&battery-range=OVER_250&fuel-type=Electric&make=Hyundai&model=KONA&postcode=Se28 8dd&sort=price-asc&year-from=2019&year-to=2020

[Eddie G]

3 hours ago, Willow 1 said:

Thanks everyone, think petrol is going to be the way to go. Don’t want to be worrying about car not starting or having to charge battery

Can't go wrong just jump in and go ICE, EV when cheaper and a home changer is the only thing that would possibly get me out of my ICE Yaris but am planning on keeping it for a very, very long time 👍

[Benzowner]

15 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

See: 

 

That is just a safety issue not to run down the 12v Battery when on Accessory mode, even my old Nissan Diesel had that same warning, the radio can consume a lot of power.

I also only cover 4-5000 mile per annum 4-5 days a week driving, had the car second hand a year now, 21 plate, and no issues at all other that the 70mpg 

[Mojo1010]

Is 70mpg an issue

[ColinB]

I've had Toyota hybrids for years now and the only time I've had problems is during Covid when the car wasn't being driven. I recently changed to a new YC and, to be honest, I'm not worried about the Battery issue despite only doing c4k miles a year and am enjoying the 60mpg I'm getting on mainly short journeys. 

[Cyker]

Might be worth looking at the AygoX if it's big enough for what you want - It's very efficient for a petrol car and has a much bigger 12v Battery than the hybrids. It's not going to win any traffic-light races, but it just won the WhatCar reliability survey with 100% of owners reporting no problems in their time of ownership! That's pretty darn impressive!

 

Used EVs are very cheap here because nobody buys them - Businesses only get their tax breaks and other benefits if they buy them new, and because they have to get new ones every few years the old ones get dumped onto a very slow used market so there is a big glut of them at the moment. Combine that with the Chinese dumping their subsidised EVs at rock bottom prices too, and it's a buyers' market if you want an EV right now!

Last time I looked you could get a 3 or 4 year old Porsche Taycan for £35-40k - They were something like over £150k new!!  

That's why if you can charge at home, have a big driveway and don't drive very far, they make a lot of sense.

My problem is I need something small, agile and long-ranged which is the antithesis of EVs right now, tending to be big and short-ranged (It makes me laugh that they consider 300 miles of range 'long range' - Try talking to my 600+mile range Mk1 Yaris my dears, and even my least efficient car could do far better than their idea of 'long range'...  )

 

[TonyHSD]

Evs are not good at all. 
Expensive and unreliable Battery tech. , range issues, charging issues, fire risks, out of warranty repairs can write off a perfectly good car that only needs a new traction Battery at a cost greater then the car itself. 
The best cars for low miles are small petrol cars like Aygo X for example. 
Toyota should really consider bringing back petrol only Yaris , Yaris cross and Corolla with manual and auto transmission variants.
 There will be interest on these for sure. 👌🛞

[Cyker]

They can't because of the % of zero emission car limits being imposed; Even Toyota will start getting fined in the next few years because hybrids are not counted as zero emission.

That's why even Ford have pulled one of their best selling cars - The Fiesta - because they need to push zero emission cars to avoid fines.

It's all ridiculous, does nothing to 'save the environment', and is just going to destroy the native auto-industry in Europe.

 

[TonyHSD]

Well they can and they have started. 
Ford, Mercedes, VW and most other big players has turned back into combustion engines development programs and the ice has brighter future than bev’s. 
The power of the consumer! 
People does not want to buy and drive evs, it is clear they aren’t fit for purpose, they aren’t as green as been demonstrated, they are way too expensive, way too unpractical and way more toxic than ice with shorter lifespan. 
The evs only needed a decade to fail again to replace ice similarly to what they did 100 years ago. Big name manufacturers followed governments bs of green brainwashing and now suffer major losses., billions of dollars, some may even go burst.
Soon Battery gate will happen and these bev we know of today will be scrapped and banned where ice will remain for a foreseeable future together with new evs, perhaps with new Battery tech or hydrogen, or bio fuelled hybrids.
The only big player who didn’t follow was Toyota and this is a number one reason that shows they knew what is gonna happen. And no surprise. They were first to pioneer electrified vehicles and last to introduce bevs, because they first realised the negatives outnumber the positives and any emissions  reduction, actually bevs created more negative affect on the environment and if they don’t stop producing these we are facing a global environmental catastrophe. 
Electric motor as form of propulsion is far superior  to ice however the Battery tech is what keeps it behind and not possible to replace ice entirely. 
Evs are only viable as small lightweight vehicles that can ferry small and light cargo or few passengers on relatively short distances like e scooters, e bikes, small city evs. Anything bigger than Corolla powered by an electric motor it’s not greener or better than ice. 
Aygo X edge is absolutely a great car for anyone that needs a cheap, small , reliable and dependable car to drive when needed to.
A car that you can only drive once every two weeks or less often and you know that this car will start, where others like hybrids will not.  Bringing back Yaris and Yaris cross petrol only will keep Toyota customer stay with Toyota and not looking into vw group cars. If vw can offer wide range petrol then Toyota should do too. 

[Yaris_Cross]

And to add to the list above 30% of the UK population do not have off street parking so would gain little benefit owning a BEV using public chargers.

[Cyker]

42 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Well they can and they have started. 
Ford, Mercedes, VW and most other big players has turned back into combustion engines development programs and the ice has brighter future than bev’s. 

Hmm I wasn't aware of that, if the other manufacturers have started going back to ICE they must be really hurting financially and trying to generate some income before the cut-off date.

I know some manufacturers like Aston Martin have said they are going to ignore the ban and just pass the fine onto the customer via the sale price, so it will be interesting to see how other manufacturers deal with it...

 

[jthspace]

When Germany delays/stops some EV production and then threatens to close factories as sales of BEV/EV/PHEV falters, you can (almost) bet your bottom dollar that the EU may suddenly change its mind on end-dates etc. Stellantis is all for keeping the date - so it looks like some real political shenanigans will be taking place as Italy, France and Germany motor industries battle it out for supremacy