Battery Dead problems of the 2004 Toyota Prius

Auxiliary battery on Toyota Prius 2001 and Toyota Prius 2004 fail if the car is not driven at least every 7-10 days. This prevents the car from starting. We purchased a 2001 Prius used in March 2004, and a new 2004 Prius in June 2004. The auxiliary battery failed on the 2001 Prius twice, and we replaced it once. Recently the dealer service representative told me the battery held a charge unless driven every 7-10 days, and should be disconnected"if parked for prolonged time. " this was potential safety problem for car not starting, such as if returning on plane after 2-3 week vacation and not being able to start the car, risk for vulnerability awaiting jump start. Toyota's only response was well, it was a hybrid. They claimed the hundreds of computers in the car drained the battery when parked. They could have designed in some automatic or simple switch to address this. Also, they could notify the potential customer of this design flaw. They did not inform us, or any of the other Prius owners. We have recently discussed the issue with. The owner's manual for 2001 model made no mention of it. In the 2004 manual there was a brief mention of need to disconnect the battery if parked for"prolonged time, but did not define that. Although we have been happy with other features of the Prius and other Toyotas we owned in the past we considered this to be a serious and risky design flaw. Furthermore, we considered Toyota's sales people and sales brochures failure to notify us of this problem to be a significant breach of goodwill and respect for customer safety and satisfaction.

Consumers 2004 Toyota Prius had two battery failures. The first battery failure occurred when the vehicle was started for 5 weeks. The second failure occurred after the vehicle was not started for 14 days. The dealer suggested that the consumer disconnect the battery if the vehicle was not going to be started for 10 days or more. The consumer stated a technical service bulletin had been issued, however the information was never relayed to the consumer.

The car stalled while coming to a stop at a traffic lite. Warnings lights on included: vsc,engine warning lite. Car restarted and went about 500 ft. Going about 35 mph and stalled again. Coasted to berm, called dealer, who said it was driveable to dealership. Started out on i295, went up to 48 mph and engine stopped. Coasted to side of road and was towed to dealer. Dealer kept car over a wk, said since battery was dead, chip had no info. They found nothing wrong with the car and returned it to me.

Engine shuts down and will not start, also battery dies. Check engine light comes on, and then the engine dies. Caller had to push car off the road. Dealer said they could not find anything wrong the first time, and the other times they replaced a floor harness that went to battery, an amplifier, the original battery. Caller read article on his vehicle about same problem. Manufacturer said the amplifier fixed the problem.

While driving the vehicle at 60 mph. The vehicle completely shut down. The consumer pressed on the accelerator pedal for speed, however the vehicle continued to lose power. The consumer had the vehicle towed. The vehicle is still at the dealership. The problem was due to a computer glitch per TSB. The battery had gone dead.