New 2006 Prius Owner, Battery Died on Day 7.

So how did the dealer decide to give you a 24% discount? Is that because you're charming or you bought the parts department Pizza every day for lunch for a week, or what?

 

At some point the dealer / OEM need to decide if they want to scrap the "obsolete" parts in their bins or sell them. These cars a 10 MODEL YEARS OLD and fewer and fewer owners seek dealer/OEM parts for them every day. This family is not in that group, but the vast majority are.

The first owners have a "high" price tolerance, the second a modest one and by the third, they are looking for scrap prices on parts/labor. So if you have a part for an old vehicle, it becomes LESS valuable every day. Seems like the dealer is just keeping up with market conditions or they had a pack they did not sell and wanted to move it.

Either way, supply v demand.

 

Yes, batteries aren't like old parts that sit in a warehouse for years, they're relatively perishable so you can't stockpile ten years of them... In this case I suspect supply and demand has Toyota knowing that there's hundreds of thousands of Gen2 Prius on the road in the US and after more than a dozen years these cars have very little wrong with them other than Hybrid Pack reaching end of life cycle and most owners willing to spend $1K to $3K to keep driving their beloved car on the road. That's why there's so many hybrid battery pack hacks in every city on Craigslist. So Toyota looks at all this and draws up another contract to ensure a steady supply of modules at a price that's competitive with other sellers & refurbishers and starts a price war. Wonder how much longer before we see a dealer selling them for $1300?

 

$1300 you say? How about $1330.21?
G951047031 - Toyota Battery assembly, hv supply | Larry H. Miller Toyota Albuquerque, Albuquerque NM

 

Lol... I guess I'm still having a hard time accepting how fast the prices are falling... Hope when mine finally dies I only pay $888 for it.

 

Wow that’s a good price. There will be a point where they can’t go any cheaper. When that happens the price will start rising again. I figure 1 new battery at a low price. 10-12 years from now the price will be higher, way higher.

 

Folks i too have found a Toyota dealer in the midwest who will sell an OEM pack for this $1650.00 price (theres a $1350 core chg) so it is legitimate. Fortunately my original pack still runs great. I quizzed them thorouh ghly on is th8s new or refurb, is it an off brand rebuild, has it been sitting around for 10+ years ect? They assured me it was a new oem with new cells of recent manufacutre.

 

For a while Toyota tried selling "refurbished" packs in certain markets and the test failed due to reliability issues. They had a third party do the rebuilding. Some people have found a NEW Toyota pack advertised for that price. Rebuilds, by definition, are not ORM. No car was originally sold with a rebuilkt pack.

Other than that, @2k1Toaster kit of new cells is still the best dealer for somebody replacing their own pack.