Dead 12v Battery

[Brentbba]

2024 Trailhunter with 10,800 miles in 22 months. Starter battery dead this evening. Anyone else have their OEM 12v battery crap out so soon? I don't drive every day. AAA jumped it and I drove around for a half hour. We'll see if it starts tomorrow.

 

[george_tlc]

Put a real battery charger on it and fully charge it. Measure parasitic current.

How often/far do you drive it? You may want to leave it on a maintenance charger...

This would not have happened with your old 80 series

cheers,
george.

 

[Brentbba]

Not far very often. Truck will be 2 years old in April and I doubt I'll have 12000 miles on it. Sits outside and battery is under rear seat, so using a battery tender isn't very practical but a good suggestion. Yeah, I miss the 80!

Taking it in tomorrow and perhaps under warranty. We'll see....

Run anyone off Lippincott grade lately?

 

[george_tlc]

Possible that you never get the battery charged up fully vs quiescent draw and having it sit... So, its state of charge continues to drop.

Battery under a rear seat - sounds like some new fangled vehicle design

Yeah, itching for a trip to DV soon - just need the slackers there to open up the westside road - bunch of places I want to check out and Warm Spring/Goler is not a thru road right now. Not sure how long it takes them to run a grader along a dirt road and clear it.

cheers,
george.

 

[Brentbba]

Could be. Most of my driving is shorter trips. Still, a 2 1/5 year old battery shouldn't die like it did.

With a turbo 4 and hybrid engines, not much room left under the hood! Two large fuse boxes with all the electronics! Both regular and hybrid batteries are under the rear seat.

 

[Brentbba]

Surprise, surprise...Toyota says there's nothing wrong with the truck or the battery. Noted aftermarket wiring to a (ham) radio...LOL! Told them it's wired just as it had been in my Landcruiser for 15 years without battery problems. They said with today's electronics and app notifications, the truck is constantly monitoring and that does hurt battery life...DUH!!! I've turned off all app notifications from the truck. Actually liked the doors unlocked warning.

 

[george_tlc]

Looks like it's time to figure out how to connect a battery tender to it. Even if just a cable coming from the battery with powerpole connections (or similar) that you can plug the tender into. Or take it for a drive every couple of so days for 20 - 30 minutes....

The silly thing is that you have a main hybrid traction battery that is useless for general power and it all relies on ye olde 12V battery tech to fire everything up

cheers,
george.

 

[Brentbba]

Yep, battery tender isn't a new suggestion. 12V battery is under the rear DS seat! I'd need to run wiring from there to the front grille thru the rubber grommet in the DS firewall. Truck sits outside, so tender would need to be in the garage with plug wire under the door to the truck. PITA.

 

[george_tlc]

Small 5W - 10W solar panel maybe...

cheers,
george.

 

[Brentbba]

Small 5W - 10W solar panel maybe...

cheers,
george.

Have that and a small Jackery back up battery for the fridge in camp. Wouldn't be useful for the ham radio. Found a video pointing out the aux switch harness. That'll power the ham radio when the truck is on. Will just have to use my handheld when the truck is off.

 

[Brentbba]

In cab aux wiring give me the option of a 5, 10 or 15 amp setup. Yaesu says radio is at 8.9 amps and recommends a 15 amp circuit. No problem, on it tomorrow! It'll eliminate any excuse from Toyota about aftermarket wiring from the list of excuses for the premature (IMHO) battery failure!

 

[pappy]

You don't need to run a battery tender to under the hood. Just tap into one of the fuse blocks. On mine I have a few threaded posts that are hot to battery. You can run a cable from one of those to someplace convenient to plug in the tender.

 

[Specialeyes]

Interesting thread as I’m strongly considering a new Tacoma with the hybrid setup and it would only be driven every 2-3 months so battery tender was already going to be a consideration. The other idea I had was to just subscribe to the connected services app and possibly remote start the truck every 3-4 weeks and let it run for 10-15 minutes. (If that’s even possible)

I thought there was a hot post or something along those lines under the hood? For jumper cables, seems like that would be the spot for a tender as well?

 

[Brentbba]

Don't know if the place designed for jumping the truck would work. That's inside the PS fuse box.

 

[Brentbba]

Well, found the auxiliary button harness in the DS kick panel, plugged in the pigtail plugs to the Aux switch on the dash and ham radio is now wired to factory wiring designed for things like this. No excuses for Toyota when the battery dies again!

 

[pappy]

I thought there was a hot post or something along those lines under the hood? For jumper cables, seems like that would be the spot for a tender as well?

For the hybrids there is. I believe it's under the passenger side fuse box lid. It's just a flat post.

 

[Brentbba]

For the hybrids there is. I believe it's under the passenger side fuse box lid. It's just a flat post.

Yep, see post #14.

 

[Brentbba]

According to Google AI, a battery tender can be attached to the jumper blade most new cars have.

 

[FJROSS]

There is also a rubber grommet in the floor pan under the 12v battery under the back seat. I was looking at some videos for powered side steps and they showed that location for grabbing battery power. This would also be A PITA to connect depending on how often you use the tender.

 

[coldtaco]

read in the manual how to jump start a hybrid, then you can connect your battery tender to the hot post, ground to a good ground. on other forums this subject has also been discussed, and one thing that keeps coming up is that the hybrid battery doesn't like to be off for more than 2 to 3 months or more. so try the remote start every other week or find someone trustworthy to drive it every couple of weeks.