Dead battery after 2 weeks of inactivity

Is it really worth your time to deal with all the trouble? Personally, I'd just buy a good AGM and be done with it.

 

The time time to what - send an email bitching about the horrible treatment after spending 56k on a truck with a supposed warranty and an extra grand on an extension of that warranty and their failure to even cover a simple part failure or willingness to look at the vehicle without trying to charge $159 - or pay the $370 it cost me to replace the failed battery ?!?

Yes - 15 minutes of my time is still worth in excess of $300.

As I said - I’m done with both dealer and Toyota going forward - no more purchases from either.

 

Haven't you been dealing with it for a couple weeks?
Buying a good battery is definitely an upgrade for these trucks, if it's a common known that they fail. Which it is. I'd rather never be left stranded for something like a battery. But, that's just my opinion.

 

It’s not the minutes of making calls or sending emails - it’s the burden of not having it properly taken care of and moving on.

 

So YOU will NOT purchase another Toyota because of a bad battery? ...Hmmm, OK sometimes we make bad decisions- Got It!!

 

Sadly - Some people spend more time bitchin about a problem instead of focusing on a solution

 

What is causing the drain on the battery?

 

No - I will not purchase another Toyota because of the level of service displayed in this - my first/last purchase and the handling of what should have been a relatively simple matter. Their warranty means nothing and the level of service is poor.

I realize some blindly loyal people on here think Toyota is “vastly” superior than any other brand - and it’s not my issue to show them how wrong they are.

I bought a Tundra as the 2021 was the best new half ton on the market presently in my opinion. Never felt it was light years ahead of anything- just better bang for the buck. No more of this generation will be made. If I had to buy a 2022 tomorrow - it wouldn’t be Toyota.

Future purchases - who knows what will be best - but I absolutely will not consider Toyota. It’s simple - if your customer care sucks, that’s just another compensating factor to overcome in the purchase. The gap wasn’t that wide to start with - and giving the competition an edge for me will push me towards them.

As I’ve said many times - no manufacturer is perfect and things happen. How you respond to those things tells me where my $$ is best spent. Ford/Ram have been good to me on past vehicles purchased by my employer. Chevy/GM has as well with less experience. Toyota has sucked ass as a company in m their handling.

It does not change the quality or reliability of my current vehicle one bit - but it does change my willingness to support them going forward. They make zero additional if I keep my Tundra 2 days or 2 decades - on the other hand they stand to lose a sale every 4-7 years at minimum by treating their customers like they are not valued. That’s fine if they have more buyers than product - but won’t take long till that equation changes.

 

ok wise guy - what’s your solution that resolves this at no expense to me for an issue that SHOULD be covered by warranty on a 2021??

Are you offering to pay yourself ? Got a source for free parts ? Or are you just commenting with nothing really constructive to add to the conversation?

 

Simply a defective battery that is not holding charge.

Not sure why - likely just something defective inside. Not an electrical engineer - but it happens - usually over years..in this case it took weeks.

New battery fixed my issue - it just became a matter of asking Toyota to pay the cost under warranty on a new vehicle.

 

Weird. I leave my tundra for a couple weeks at a time without running periodically, and I have not had a single issue with it starting. Then again, I do not have any aftermarket add-ons that would create any sort of an amperage draw.

 

I would not expect anything more from the others. I had a known paint problem on the roof of a Ford Supercrew. The problem was the way they designed the channels. First the dealer and rep claimed something scraped the paint off then they blamed a couple of small hail dings that could only be seen in perfect lighting. There were no scratches on the roof and there is a big difference between peeling paint and scratches. An 18 wheeler had side swiped the truck. When I took it in to get that damage fixed I had him look at the roof. They said "oh yeah this is a known design flaw on these trucks we see it all the time". There was a time when Ford was real good about warranty claims. I had a 1987 that was stripped to bare metal and repainted when they had the paint problems. It was not even one of the covered colors. They even covered my dealer installed pin striping and did it twice because they put white on the first time instead of silver. I did not even ask them to repaint it. I bought a new truck and it had a little ding in the tailgate. When I picked it up the service manager asked me if I had my 1987 repainted. I said no I do have some stuff on the front fender but I think it is from some fertilizer I sprayed. I mentioned the color and he said no problem. He said bring it in. Next thing I know they were repainting it.

 

We'll know in 2 weeks if your diagnosis was correct

 

I’m still running the OE battery in my 2013 with 111k miles. I do not run any accessories on the truck. I do live in the most moderate climate.

 

THIS^^

 

Do you use anything that is plugging into the ODB port full time? Pretty much all of those scanners/readers induce a parasitic draw that will drop your battery down within 1-2 weeks. It’s been discussed and shown by many threads on here.

Any new vehicle with telematics, connected services, etc. has sensors and ECUs that are running on battery full time as well. While it’s not normal for those to discharge the battery in 1-2 weeks, it is also documented that when storing “long term” (more than a month) that either the vehicle should be plugged into a battery conditioner or have the “short pin” pulled.

As for aftermarket batteries, make sure that the one you get doesn’t require higher voltage to charge. off top of my head I can’t remember if it is AGM or other brands need 14.5 or 14.7 continuous voltage to adequately charge and that requires a “trick” fuse to be used for your alternator.

Finally, running at an idle for 20-30 minutes isn’t enough to really do much for charging a battery that just required jumping. The electrical and chemical processes of charging require more voltage and more time to restore a compromised battery. Couple that with what appears to be a parasitic draw from something you’ve added to the truck and got a recipe for repeat problems.

Best of luck sorting it out. It might be a bad cell/battery. Yes, Toyota “stock” batteries don’t have a great reputation. But there are a lot of possibilities to eliminate here…

 

If you have something attached to your OBD2 plug, remove it as it's draining your battery while the truck sits for extended amounts of time.
Charge the battery till it shows 100% charged.
You will be surprised how much that little pug attachment runs down the battery with all the electronic gizmos in the trucks now.

 

My 17 has 50,000 and has had 2 Toyota batteries. The original lasted less than two years the second was installed under warranty and noticed it was a year old when installed but went just over two years. No I did not buy or fool with another Toyota battery. I looked at the AGM's but ended up buying a Interstate because I don't have the time for Dealership BS. It might be three strikes in baseball but after two strikes Toyota Batteries are out

 

I have pulled the old battery - put it on charge overnight and then ran through a repair mode. It will take full charge - it simply won’t hold it for long losing voltage as it sits a couple of days - that to me says bad cell.

The battery is sitting with no load - if there is another explanation- I’m listening. As I said, I’m no expert on these things - but we can eliminate issues in the truck when the battery loses power outside of the truck.

Good point on the change in fuses - anyone know if the Odyssey battery needs this ? I bought the Batteries Plus which is just a rebrand.

The stock OE is a AGM I believe for 21s - but some are funny and yes AGMs are touchy about charging - once you run them below a certain voltage - the alternator is not going to bring them back to life - you have to have a stronger power source.

Finally - as to other brands and their service. It is a subjective thing - but my experience with dealing with them is simple, Toyota does not do service well. A lot of that is left to the local/dealer level with any maker - and they absolutely suck here. I knew that going in - and sadly this was the BEST local dealer to talk with - they were at least willing to take a refundable deposit to secure an allocation early this year - 3 others couldn’t be bothered.

My issue is more on Toyota USA - clearly when the local level is failing, someone needs to step in. Toyota USA doesn’t do that - they instead blame the local and say they will send another email to the dealer. That is why I will no longer buy one of their products - if it’s this bad now, imagine what it would be like with a bigger issue on something like an engine or transmission.

Look at the frame rust issue for past examples of how Toyota USA responds - everyone remembers the huge buyouts they extended - which was great making people forget how they spent a half decade denying ANY issues on basically new trucks before. It wasn’t until things started getting attention of government agencies that they moved quickly.

 

My 21 had / has battery issues that are well documented on this site. I too did not drive it much having only 5500 miles on it since December of 2020.
It wouldn't last more than two week if not driven and that's when I found out about the OBD2 plug I was using for increased mileage.
I pulled it out and the problem stopped.
Now this is just my opinion, If these trucks, didn't have all the electronic stuff they have today, having your OBD2 plug occupied with a performance chip wouldn't bother it at all in terms of battery longevity.
Today, not so. The Toyota tech told me when I brought it in for a battery check that they are having serious issues with the new Prius's and battery life; the 2021s we are talking about here.
He actually said some are failing after 4 days of inactivity.

 

4 days ?!?

Sure fills me with confidence to go out and pay 65k for a ‘22 Pro with the hybrid tech standard.

Again - EXTREME periods of inactivity is one thing, a long weekend is another. 3 or 4 months - yea, batteries are gonna lose their charge. A week is not unreasonable long though - and they can’t blame the manufacturer of the battery. It’s not like there are that many producers of these cells - Toyota sources from the same makers as everyone - just tweaking for THEIR design/spec.

Similar to the tires they use - amazes me how some OE use certain types of Michelin’s for example that are actually not bad - but others use the cheapest crap produced that barely last 2 years.

 

My thought too. If mine sat two weeks at a time between uses I'd put a Battery Tender or something similar on it.

My wife ran my battery down a couple of weeks ago while camping with her friends by just leaving the doors open too long. With my 2003 Tundra she left the passenger door ajar once and over about ten days, while I was on a motorcycle trip, the "door ajar" light ran the battery down so much I lost the radio presets. That's dead!

 

Glad to see this in writing. Ford tried to convince me I was the only one complaining about paint on a new 1987 F150. That was the last Ford I ever bought.

Meanwhile...back to the thread.

 

Not right because they had a major recall but only on certain colors. It was actually the primer. My color was not covered but thanks to a good relationship with the service manager and GM at the dealership they took care of it. It helped that their body shop was looking for work. 6 year old truck looked new when done.

 

Mine was medium silver and you could see splotches which appeared to be under the paint. (They showed up a couple of months after I bought it in 1987). Ford tried to blame it on "Industrial Fallout".

I took Ford to arbitration and finally "won" after about a year. Then they wanted me to pay 50 cents a mile for every mile I had put on the truck...not much of a deal @ 9,000 miles on a truck that cost $11,000 at the time (no A/C, big 6, stick). I traded it off and never considered Ford as a serious option ever again.

 

So just an update:

Selling dealer service refused to service - claiming aftermarket amp was the issue causing everything.

Multi calls to Toyota Customer Care - end result - an email saying “we stand behind the dealer diagnoses and will be voiding the warranty and service contract with no refund”

Took to another Toyota dealer to review - advised I suspected amp and would pay out of pocket for diagnostic. Conclusion battery is shot and a few minor electronics needing replaced - amp not an issue at all and all wiring is fine. Everything should be paid by warranty and they are submitting to Toyota.

Their warranty contact also seemed perplexed by the “revocation of warranty” - saying no reason it should have been. They are “investigating” - but said not to worry about it.

Bottom line - cause diagnosed, issues fixed and Toyota comes out of this looking VERY bad. If they would have done anything to fact check first dealer - they would have seen how full of shit they were - but they didn’t and when a higher level got involved the first dealer started to lie to cover their asses and Toyota stood behind them.

I plan on selling of I can find a replacement I like without losing my ass. Never will I buy a Toyota again. If they can’t find anything or if the price is too high - gonna be another $380 for a decent battery as well as I’ll never trust the crap Toyota uses as OE again. A bad battery can happen new - but the service experience here just showed how worthless the brand really is to me.

I’d sooner own a Ram product and have a dealer/corporate who don’t try to blame the consumer and deny any product failures than a Toyota what when it fails tries to refuse any warranty hoping you will go away. Sad way of doing business and I can no longer support it.

 

Sorry they screwed this up. Not sure if this will make you feel any better - but 7 years ago I had a Chevy Suburban that had a “rollover sensor” malfunction causing all side curtain airbags to deploy while in line to drop my son off at school. I didn’t want to vehicle back given the severity of the damage and the fact I’d never trust the vehicle moving forward but GM’s solution was to have it band-aided back together and send me on my way. Once I told them I didn’t want it back they cancelled the rental vehicle they had provided and told me I could take them to court - they won’t take it back. Thankfully I worked out an acceptable resolution with the dealer but my experience dealing with GM was awful.

 

Don’t blame you there -would have zero confidence in vehicle or the sensors going forward with a malfunctioning airbag switch.

In this case - it’s simple, it was a small issue - that the selling dealer made 100x worse in how they treat customers.

Now Toyota was brought in to the loop to document the issues and simply had to say - “selling dealer is not cooperating - stating one thing, your saying another - let’s get this to another local dealer for a 2nd opinion” and that likely would have been the end of it.

But they didn’t. They first played the blame game - saying “it’s a dealer issue” - then when reminded it’s a warranty issue - which is issued by Toyota and not the dealer - they doubled down saying the dealer did diagnostics (they didn’t - I have written invoice on same) and related issue to an aftermarket amp.

When I persisted and said - “ok - you did diag, what were the readings measured and what did you observe” they went back to the dealer asking for this - dealer said they “failed to write them down - but they were high” whatever the hell that means. Toyota again had a clear sign someone at the dealer was feeding them a line - but backed them again.

Finally when I said I tested myself and found zero issue - so either admit first dealer lied and step up and handle it - or perform a 2nd diag and prove your case with some real details not just “high readings” they replied that they reviewed what the dealer observed and that because I added an aftermarket amp - it caused electronic issues that voided m warranty.

So I simply had it taken to a different dealer on my dime - told them of the prior diagnoses and that they felt it was the amp - so I’d be paying for a diag and the repairs out of pocket. They took a half day - but once issues isolated and confirmed called their rep and got Toyota to agree to pay all cost/reinstate warranty and agreed the amp was in no way the cause.

Again - I’m thankful there are some honest shops out there - but Toyota completely screwed me on this one and it won’t be forgotten. Further - there are a few small quality issues I eyeballed the past few months - nothing by itself that would make me not buy a vehicle or make me return a vehicle - but just speaks to the overall brand quality/QC at the plant.

There was a day where Toyota was far and away better - even then there were occasional issues. But I’d rather support a brand that hasn’t screwed me over. I buy with expectations of owning 10-15 years. In that time it’s almost a guarantee that ANY brand has an issue or 2. Problem is next time I have an issue - it’s unlikely Toyota will be MORE receptive and willing to help - it’s only after you catch them in a lie and prove them wrong they want to help (to avoid bigger issues with consumer agencies).

 

It sounds to me like you were screwed by a specific dealer, I wouldn't be blaming Toyota itself for what occurred.

 

I hate the “take me to court attitude” or more appropriately- take me to arbitration (court is actually semi consumer friendly - arb is not at all and favors big companies by saving them thousands in legal cost/discovery.

I’m not a fan of courts - but they are there for a reason. Part of that reason is to encourage responsible behavior in business - if you don’t and word gets out one losing suit opens the floodgates to complaints. It’s why class actions are so damn good prevalent these days.

So many companies will take a “sue me attitude” right up to the court house steps and then they are the first to push a settlement once they know your just not going away and actually put a little effort into your case. If I had more free time on my hands and an interest - I’m sure there’s something here - I just don’t and these type of cases are real bears to make.

On the other hand - I still have a few things in selling dealer - I initially was planning on just dropping it - but may spend the $85 in small claims and just give it a stab. Hey - it’s $85 and worst case I spend a half hour telling my side and a couple gathering and compiling records for nada. Best case it’s a couple thousand for my trouble which pays for the time I wasted on this debacle and the cost of a new battery. Either way it’s a low risk to me and it creates a record of a consumer complaint on the dealer.