Toyota Prius Mk2

Part six: We check and clean the battery system and its fan.

Over the last few months, our one and only keyfob has worried us – especially the prospect of losing it, not to mention if its batteries had gone flat. As we discovered at Five Star Autocentre, there is a small key attached to the side which can be used to manually lock and unlock the doors.

We now have a spare key-fob, although we thought at first it wouldn’t be possible to get one. Our local Toyota dealership explained they would need to see the log book for the Prius and identification from the owner before they would be willing to sell us a key-fob. This makes sense, because otherwise anyone could borrow the car and have a spare key made, which could then be used to steal it. In our case, the only trouble was that the car is registered to editor Martyn Knowles, who lives nearly 300 miles away!

Fortunately, there was another solution. Asif at Five Star Autocentre could order and programme a spare key for us. He works closely with his local Toyota dealership in Huddersfield and, as he’d seen evidence that our Prius was a project car (and we’d been visiting him for several months), he trusted us with a spare key-fob.

While having the spare key-fob programmed, we asked Asif to check the status of the batteries for the electric motor and conduct any other maintenance issues concerning the electrics. He admitted that there was very little to be done (we’d already changed the engine coolant, which also cools the electric motor), but suggested dismantling the ducting and removing the electric fan that blows air over the batteries. We’re glad we followed his advice, because the fan was choked with dust.