About to cry ... '05 Prius battery died ...

Better...different. He's a really great guy, and the service is very personalized. Its a very small shop, just him and two techs so everybody knows you. Nothing fancy, no waiting room even just a garage bay big enough for about 4 cars and a small office.

Cheaper than the Lexus dealer by a WIDE margin, probably similar to cheaper than Toyota. $89 labor rate, etc etc. He'll shop with you for parts wholesale and try and find the best deal, etc.

I'll send you his info.

I will...

He was a master tech at Lexus of Silver Spring for 16 years, his shop is off of Montrose Rd in Rockville.

Keep on Toyota...I really think they will do something for you on this...

 

you have a 12 year old car with a hybrid battery?

 

Of course I hope that it isn't your hybrid battery that has gone bad but if it is I would like to share a very recent experience I had with my Classic '01 Prius which at about 142,000 miles began giving me that dreaded error code. After my local dealership fixed something else altogether it became apparent that it was in fact my hybrid battery that went south. This didn't surprise me as the readings I was getting with the meter device I borrowed from Bob Wilson had led me to think I was looking at a problem. What made me think I was OK was my local dealership telling me that they had never seen a Prius battery go bad. They even told me to ignore the warning light if it went on again until I came in for regular servicing.

I contacted Dave Taylor at Re-Involt Technologies in Sanford, NC who is re-manufacturing hybrid batteries and has an apparently well-deserved reputation for knowing his way around hybrid cars. If I had to replace my battery I wanted something with more thought put in it, especially since I'm driving an older model with the Gen I battery.

Dave and his staff took my information and coached me in how to get the car down to Sanford for a battery replacement. They even had a tow truck outfit standing by if I needed it. I'm not mechanical, had no interest in making this a home project and felt my long-term best interests were best served by having his staff do it. I had already driven about 300 miles with the warning light on but Dave told me that the longer I waited whether I drove the car or not the less likely the chances of my being able to drive it down would be. Up to that point I had not had any operational problem whatsoever.

I made the decision to get to Sanford and get a rebuilt battery while I was still on borrowed time. I left Pittsburgh this last Sunday (8/15) afternoon on what should be an eight hour drive. About two hours out of Pittsburgh the car started to wheeze and stall. I pulled over and let the battery cool down as I had been instructed and then took off again. For the rest of Sunday I had to drive until the engine began to sputter and then rest. Sometimes a fifteen minute rest would get me twenty miles, sometimes up to fifty. I got as far as Bluefield, VA by the time it got dark and the car literally limped into a motel parking lot. I now had seven hours on the road and was maybe half way there.

Monday morning I left at 6:30 and drove through the mountains without incident, stopped for a long breakfast to rest the battery and then made it to within about fifty miles of Sanford before I had to stop again for thirty minutes and then literally limped into Sanford pulling over every ten or fifteen minutes as the engine wheezed. As it turns out, I was ten minutes early for my noon appointment and they took me right in.

I don't have my receipt in front of me but the battery replacement including labor was about $1700. The battery replacement took less than two hours but I had them take on some other preventative maintenance matters and spent about four hours there total.

Taylor's operation is a full service shop and a fairly good sized operation. They showed me around, their mechanic spent time with me showing me what he was doing and why and they gave me some space to work on my laptop in the waiting room. They offered to drive me to a restaurant or coffee shop but the waiting room was very comfortable. Techies would probably have had more fun looking around than I had but I've always thought that if a shop is clean, organized and well lit it probably is a good place to bring a car.

On my trip home I got 47.6 mpg along the interstates which is really better than I've ever done before (heavy foot) and far better than what I have been getting over the last year or so. Frankly, I'm very grateful to those online who pointed out this option and am trying to give back to others in turn.

My point is that there is a good option to purchasing a Toyota replacement and one that's far more economical. If you have any questions that I might be able to answer please feel free to contact me directly - [email protected].

Don Friedman
Pittsburgh, PA
Classic '01, 143,500 mi.

 

I hope you will take the advice of others here and change the 12v battery before doing anything else. The whole car really depends on the 12v battery, and at about 5 years or so, which by chance is exactly how old the car having the problem is, bad things will happen. It is so bad that I have even replaced the 12v battery at about 5 years before anything happened, just as preventative maintenance.

 

Anyone know of data showing the life expectancy of rebuilt batteries vs. that of OEM batteries? Thanks!

 

Here's the thing about electing not to do a repair like this and trading the car in. You get hosed.

We've established that worst case scenario this is going to cost you $2,000 ($1,700 for the battery replacement by these people in NC, and $300 to tow the car down there). If you trade the Prius in on something new, you're going to get killed on the resale by more than $2,000, or even if you sold it privately, someone is still going to have to do the $2k repair, so they are going to lop off more than $2k to make it worthwhile.

So now, you've paid the $2k in the lost value and you no longer have a car, you've bought a new car that is depreciating at a much greater rate than the old one. All in all...you've taken it up the pooper for sure on this deal.

It is almost always cheaper to fix a car and keep driving it than trade it on something new.

I agree with the others though, replace the 12V first. Ours is original, that sounds like a good project for next weekend for me as well...

 

:welcome:
Thanks for jumping in and offering real world help. That's typical of PC and I hope you stay with us. :cheer2:

 

+1. Eliminate small things first. It is time to replace the 12v battery anyway so you've got nothing to loose.

 

Heather, are you on the original 12v battery? The original battery in my 2006 stranded me in the 3rd year. Put a charger on the 12v. Does it hold a charge? What are the voltage readings? Toyota's battery is relatively expensive but the only game in town if you want an exact fit.

It sounds like you have the original battery which now qualifies as a doorstop.

New 12v battery <$200
Help from PriusChat members--priceless

 

The e Learn Aid ( 12 Volt (12v) Toyota Prius Auxilary Battery for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 with installation kit ) is $165.00 with free shipping. The thing is of course that if you're stranded without a 12v battery you don't have the several days to wait for a battery to be shipped (although it got here very quickly). That is why it pays to do this maintenance in advance of an emergency. It seems to be a far superior battery, but I will have to wait several years and see for my final answer.

It really isn't a difficult job to do either, I removed the original battery with the negative cable still attached to the battery, so you just remove the 10mm bolt there in the back metal by the hatchback. Then just make sure you hook up the negative cable to the battery before installing it and also to reinstall all the hardware in the reverse order you removed it.

 

Yeah, at five years the 12V battery is probably near the end of its life. And yes, some dealers' testers are not accurate for a Prius 12V battery. If you're curious you can test it yourself with no tools using the very accurate built-in procedure:
http://priuschat.com/forums/newbie-forum/73400-weird-stuff-happening-mpgs-dropping-test-battery.html

If it *fails* this test then hooray! You might only have to spend $180 or so for a new 12V battery and be on your way.

 

Yes, get the codes. Also, there may be an independent Toyota/Lexus Service shop in your area. Even if they don't want to do Hybrid service, they have the diagnostic tools to pull those codes and get at any saved data. (the car does a pretty good job of keeping a diary of its illnesses).

If you do indeed need a traction battery, there are much more affordable solutions out there.

Eric
Adopt A Part

 

I wonder if we'll ever hear the final outcome???

 

Meh, Cary? Prepare for a lot of Yankee's . If you're up to it, the NC zoo isn't all that far from Cary. It might be worth visiting whilst the car is being worked on.

 

You want to do all that before trying to rule out the 12v battery throwing all kind of weird error codes? It just cost $150 and it is about time to replace your 12v battery as well. I don't see what you have to loose from it.

 

Agreed. Heather, please follow the advice given by the many knowledgeable people here before you potentially spend a couple of grand or so needlessly.

 

Yes, change the 12v battery FIRST. That may solve the problem.