CHECKING THE BATTERIES

Asif at Five Star Autocentre has the diagnostic equipment to be able to identify fault codes on our Prius and also check the status of all of the batteries that power the electric motor. These batteries are located in the boot area, just behind the rear seats. We discovered that all 14 of them were reading between 15 and 16 volts, which is the correct voltage. As we discussed in Part One of this series, Toyota offer an 11-year guarantee on the batteries, providing the car is serviced at the recommended intervals, which means our guarantee has now expired. A battery pack costs around £1100 from Toyota, although we have heard of some independent specialists offering to change individual batteries for much less.