Doug and others,
Well it finally happened. I didn't drive the car from Friday night, and of course this morning (Monday) it wouldn't start. Had it towed to the dealer. So I guess I can rule out the cold weather theory. I've called Toyota, and am on the "DEAD BATTERY MERRY-GO-ROUND" again. Guess we'll see what happens this time.

Lisa,

Sorry to hear about the latest "dead battery". We've gone over two months without having to jump our Highlander. I wonder if Shelley or WCWIII have experienced any more problems.

What did the "rocket scientists" from your Toyota service center determined? I have determined that you really need to check the water level in the battery often. I have added distilled water twice to the battery within the past 6 months. One time - I had to add a rather large amount. Ask them if they had to add some more water to your battery. That kind of drain on a battery is telling us something.

Doug

Doug,
I'll ask them. They said it actually still had 5 volts left on the battery, not enough to start it, but enough to keep the radio and time correct. Didn't need to charge it either - as soon as they hooked the charger up it went to 12 volts. National Toyota told them a few new diagnostics to run, unfortunately, by the time they heard back they had already connected the charger.
Next week I'm going to let it go on purpose and see what happens.

Hi All, Considering purchasing a 2009 hihy. Does everyone have the remote start option?
If it was not for this problem would you recomend this vehicle?
Hope everyones problems get solved

thanks , tim

I do not have the remote starter. If it were not for this problem I would definitely recommend the car. Having said that, this is a big inconvenience when the car doesn't start after sitting for a few days.
Lisa

Thanks for the reply Lisa. Are they having this issue with the new 2008 models? Haven't seen
anyone complain about the battery on the 2008 models yet.

Tim,
I haven't seen any posts on this or the toyotanation forum from an 08 owner concerrning the battery. There did seem to be a lot of design changes in the 08, maybe something fixed the problem.
Lisa

Lisa, thanks again. Although the dealer isn't taking orders for 2009 models yet I
placed mine today. I am hoping the 09 will have the split third row. Don't expect to see it until october.
Your posts and others helped make my decision on a new vehicle alot easier. Everyone
seems to really enjoy their hihy just hope that my wife will enjoy hers as well.
I did talk to my dealer about your problem with the battery. He had the service manager come over and talk
to me. The service manager has not had one hybrid vehicle come back for service (other than basic) yet.knock on wood.
Hope the problem in your vehicle will be solved. If I hear anything I will post you the info.
thanks
tim

My 2008 HH battery ran down while parked for 3hrs ~33 deg. c. heat. Had difficulty jumping it. Not cool with toddlers and a pregnant friend along for the ride. Will give toyota the link to this forum and see what they say tomorrow. There must be a drain on the battery somewhere - all doors closed and interior lights off. Just in case, we're going to carry an extra battery and self-jump kit for this summers road trip.

Per, thanks although not the news I wanted to hear.

Per,
Sorry to hear you have joined the "Dead Battery Club". Hopefully yours is just a bad 12 volt. If they say the battery is fine please call: Toyota 800-331-4331 this is their national hotline number. We are trying to get all incidences documented so they might fix the problem.

Greetings Everyone,

Our 06 HyHi has gone over 3 1/2 months without the 12Volt battery requiring a jump.

Lisa, in one of your May 25th - you mentioned that the National Toyota had a few diagnostics to run. Have they run those tests on your Hy Hi?

Doug

Doug,
Meant to post about that and forgot. Toyota said they couldn't run the diagnostics, because a tech had "inadvertantly" charged the battery. Don't know how that happened, but what can I say.

Toyota dealer said battery was fine and we must have left a light on or a door ajar. I really don't think that either of those possibilities were likely. Does anyone know of any other potential drains on the battery that might exist aside from interior lights being left on?

Per,
You are now an official member of the "dead battery" club. Those of us who have been long time members have been repeatedly told that we have left a door ajar, or the lights on. I even got mine back once with the dome lights completely turned off by the service department.
Please call the 800 number in my previous post and have them open a ticket on it - that way the next time it happens they have a log of the previous problems.
Lisa

Hello - my name is Tom and I have a HiHy lemon.

I'll keep my story brief, since it boils my blood when I go into details about it - short version: my local dealership & service manager have been disappointing throughout this quite un-fun and utterly unsatisfactory experience.

Our starter battery also dies after inanely short periods - overnight, usually, but does so *very* intermittently. If it happened regularly I'd have shoved the thing down the dealership's throat a while ago and insisted he figure it out, since it ought to be reproducable. Ours, however, works for months on end perfectly, then turns up stone dead one morning, after having been driven and parked the afternoon before. Of course, the first couple of occurrances were blamed on bad batteries, and even when it was obvious that that wasn't the problem, that was all our dealer would do. No real answer. The service manager now admits freely that there is something wrong with the car, and that he cannot find it. The biggest issue is the intermittency - we can't *make* it happen; it simply does from time to time.

I am going the arbitration route at this point. We opened two cases with Toyota, which was the biggest waste of time I can remember in my adult life. They did nothing more than communicate with the service mgr at the same dealer, which added a link in the communication chain. when the dealer said they tested it and found nothing wrong, they simply closed the case. They refused to send out a regional service tech, saying "What would a regional service tech do? what would he fix? The dealer said there's nothing wrong. Why would we send a tech if there's nothing wrong?"

This car evidently cannot be fixed, and we recently had to back out of a completely locked-in sale of the car, because the problem recurred while we were transacting, and I just couldn't sell the car to someone else knowing it had a major flaw like this. I mean, I had the chance to, but I coulond't bring myself to do it. So....I've got my docs all together as best I can (of course there's some stuff that's not as well doc'd as I'd like because the first couple of times I didn't think it would ever come to this) and I'm waiting for my arbitration hearing late next week. I'll post the result, which should be known within a couple of weeks thereafter.

I can't see how this could possibly fail - we're on our fifth or maybe sixth battery, the dealer has already paid to have it towed in twice so they could try to see wheat happened while in its dead state, and they've told me they can't find anything they can fix. In my mind that's a lemon. Of course, from what I hear they'll do everything they can to discredit me and pretend it's my fault, but clearly I would not have walked away from the fair market value sale of the car if I didn't have to. They stuck me with this thing.

OK, I got a little more venomous than I meant to, because Toyota as a company has greatly disappointed me thus far. A person taking on a corporation that has the best rep. for quality and reliability in the free world; I don't think they're actually too concerned about my individual experience too much. That's what lemon laws are for....hopefully there's some justice.

- Tom

Hello Tom,
I'd say welcome to the club - but don't think you really want to be here. When you go to arbitration, you could print and bring a copy of this forum with you. You ARE NOT alone. There are many of us in the same boat. Unfortunately for me, the Lemon Law in Arizona stops at 24,000 miles. My first time with the dead battery was shortly after that. Well I take that back I supposedly had a bad battery at about the 4 month point. New battery, daily driving, nothing happened again until after 24k.
Toyota has a problem here that they refuse to acknowledge!
Hope all goes well with arbitration, please let us know how it turns out.
Lisa