What problem is the Prius killer? What is the most common thing to take a Prius off the road?

Most eBay sellers have a warranty.

 

Most ebay sellers have a BS warranty about guaranteeing a voltage. Maintaining voltage doesn't necessarily mean good. I have a 2700mAh eBay module that keeps voltage for months, but that doesn't mean it's suitable for installation.

It is strictly buyer beware on eBay. Warranties don't mean crap because most people are just putting a voltmeter on it and calling it good.

 

Most people that do a rebuilt themselves buy a RC charger so they could test the capacity for min of say 4000mah before installing it.

eBay alternatives anyone?

 

Mmm, yup ... that's what does it.

... sigh ... I liked that little car. I guess 16 years and 232k miles ain't bad.

-Chap

 

A wreck took ours out too. A 2016 Honda HHV hit us broadside and totaled the car in March. All the safety equipment worked perfectly and no one was hurt. I wish we had put 16 years and 200k miles on it. The goal now is to do that with our newly purchased red 2008 with 101k on it.

 

Very high odds of failure

 

In forums, some posts present information from attributed sources, and some make bold claims out of thin air. Each style has a certain kind of reader it appeals to.

Here's an example of the kind with attributed sources: twelve years of the annual Consumer Reports survey on auto reliability and repair expense, as summarized in the table here including the 2013 data.

As of 2013, only 12-year-old Prii (the oldest sold in the US) had a battery failure rate up to 5 percent; at 11 years it was 4 percent. (There was a strange lump in the data around '05 and '06, but no higher than 3%).

They had not reported Prius battery rates in earlier years because until 2013 they had not seen enough to compute statistically meaningful numbers. (That part might not be in the article I linked above, but the earlier survey report article or release, which I remember seeing and could probably also be dug up with a little more work.)

-Chap

 

Looking back at my older survey here, we had 9 responders over 200,000 miles and only 1 had a failed battery.*

Hybrid Battery Survey-Gen2 Prius 2004-2009 | Page 6 | PriusChat

This tends to support my feeling from posts here (not fact) that there could be batch of batteries that don't make it and some "energizer" batteries keep on going.

* and that failed batt had to be Jeff's @ about 175000 miles, I guess.

 

There's a selection effect that goes part of the way to explaining it. If you go by, say, the Toyota newsroom figures from Summer 2015, and only for North America, there have been just shy of 1.6 million cumulative Prius sales, more like 1.9 million including the c and the v. If you only wanted a figure for North American sales since 2005, you could subtract the 2000-2005 North American yearly numbers from the upper table, totaling 272900. The upper table is all Toyota hybrids, but for North America in those years that only meant Prius anyway, except for maybe a few RX400h and HiHy in 2005. So we're back down to roughly 1.6 million sold in NA since 2005.

Why is "since 2005" interesting? Because there's another nifty tidbit, from a Polk study of registrations, 95% of the units sold since 2005 are still on the road. This is all sort of back-of-the-envelope rough, as the Polk numbers are US-specific but the sales numbers are entire NA, but possibly the percentage roughly holds for all of NA anyway, and we do have non-US Norteamericanos participating on PriusChat.

So there are at least 95% of 1.6 mil, slightly over 1.5 million, people who could be members of PriusChat. I don't know how to get a current count of actual PriusChat members (if the "About" link did anything besides refetch the main page, maybe it would be there.) I can find "more than 42,000" as of 2008. Really back-of-enveloping now, we could assume it's gone up 175% since then, roughly as sales have. That would be around 74,000.

So about 1 in every 20 owners of a Prius actually find and join PriusChat. (Hey, looked at that way, that's really not bad!) Nitpick the back of my envelope all you want, that's somewhere in the ballpark.

Now there wouldn't be a selection effect if that were a perfectly random 1 in 20, but it isn't. There may be a base rate of PriusChat joining among all Prius owners that's somewhere around 1 in 20 or rather lower, but by contrast, people who have bought a Prius and are having trouble with it - especially the exotic expensive trouble they've all been hearing about - are highly likely to look up a Prius-specific forum and join it, hoping for help with their situation.

So it turns out the 1 in 20 Prius owners you meet here are heavily skewed to those having trouble of some kind with the car, especially the ones having troubles that are hybrid-specific.

Even that doesn't fully explain the intensity of battery talk on PriusChat, because around here even people who aren't having any battery trouble at all are still very likely to be putting up posts about it, at least asking for information, trying to figure out how to delay issues as long as possible, and so on. I think it just goes with the territory, it's the one thing everybody's had drummed into them to worry about in a Prius. We all worry ourselves sick about it the whole time the caliper pins are sticking and wheel bearings wearing and the ignitor boots getting brittle and hinges wearing out and all the other things happening that happen to cars.

I'll even admit I was sort of curious just to see how long it would be before I had any codes from my battery, but after getting wrecked in the 16th year at over 232k miles, it looks like I'm not going to find out.

-Chap

 

On my phone, I get forum statistics I do not get on my PC, 153,342 discussions, 2,297,187 messages and 123,212 members.

No idea how many are active.

 

...any survey here would have the issues of too small sample and bias towards those participating. Nonetheless it is interesting...I conclude battery topics tends to be a topic of high importance to those here.

 

What failed? All HV batteries?

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Yes all HV Batteries. I have a 2008 that failed recently at 149000

 

UPDATE*** The 2005 Prius now has over 331,000 miles and still going strong on the original HV battery. Our '08 is at 189,000 and although is not performing as well as the '05 as far as the SOC, I haven't had any problems with it yet.

 

I have an 2007 with 100k miles.
Original HV, just changed 12v to Optima.
Average 45mpg driving 60 miles/day.

I usually leave the vehicle with full bars on the battery to return some 10+ hours later, drive off and within a min it's down to 1 to 3 bars. (Town driving with AC on) Then it's to the freeway where I charge back to full.

Should I be concerned w the rate of discharge?

 

Big swings like that in the SOC (State of Charge) and hearing the HV Battery fan in the back are very big tell tale signs.

Remember, the HV Battery warranty is 8/10 years from Toyota by design! They know they will have very few warranty claims to be liable for.
2007 + 10years = 2017. It is now 2018. Expect the HV Battery to fail.

Many factors seem to effect HV Battery longevity. Frequent or infrequently driven. Terrain (mountain vs flat vs both). Temperature (hot, humid, cold).

Priusyipee is the envy of everyone. He/She has won the lotto in terms of HV Battery longevity!

Figure out now, what you plan to do when the HV Battery needs to be replaced, so you won't be panicing. Replace the car. Replace the HV Battery w/ new OEM HV Battery. Avoid module swapping and used/rebuilt/remanufactured/reconditioned HV Battery; unreliable repair and costly due to additional labor expense (if you don't DIY); remember warranty covers the part, NOT labor for a redo.

 

It's probably trying to keep up with that optima battery... They are junk!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I have the same problem with my '08 that was purchased used in March of 2013. At one point, the SOC dropped down to one purple bar and I freaked out. I was just waiting for that battery fan to kick on and the dashboard to light up. Luckily, as I drove, the SOC increased and all was well. What I do to compensate is to let the car "warm up" a bit in the morning before leaving. The ICE must be running. I just turn on the heat.

 

Too bad hearing the Optima is junk.

I guess I should look for an OEM HV.

And I just did a fresh oil change at 100k.
Still 45-47mpg

I actually got a check engine light the other day but thankfully I have a scanguage 2.
Code was only a 0000

 

DTC 0000 is NOT a valid DTC.
Your scangauge 2/universal OBD2 readers will miss many codes or report incorrect codes b/c they it is not running Techstream.
Techstream is the official diagnostic software written for Toyota/Lexus, and is used at all Toyota/Lexus dealerships.
Why not get Techstream, instead of hoping your toy OBD2 reader will correctly report codes (which it can not).

There is a code. Your OBD2 reader CAN NOT read it.