$5,000 battery replacement quote from dealer....

Wow!! Welcome and I'm sorry your sister is having such a horrible experience with what is normally a fantastic car.

I'm a little confused by the comment that the battery that was recently installed is finished. Was it a refurbished one and the warranty has expired? Either way, another refurbished one is kind of an expensive way to buy trouble when there's already plenty of it available for free. So you're right there.

I can't see the report because the link is broken. Just upload the picture. When you're making a new post on this thread, just click the "Upload a File" link as illustrated here.

Pick your photo file and choose whether you want it full size or thumbnail. If it's very big, you'll want to scale it down first.

The dealer's price is borderline criminal. It should be a piece of cake to find a better dealer. And their advice on the busbars is bogus, too, as you already know. But I live just about as far from you as possible and still be in the same country, so I don't know where to point you. We have several active members in Washington. Maybe @TinyTim, @davecook89t, @PT Guy, or one of the others I can't think of right now knows a place.

It's not possible to drive without the battery. It's integral to the drive train and the internal combustion engine (ICE) won't start without it.

I hope she gets it sorted out soon. A bad battery is not supposed to be that traumatic no matter what some people say.

 

Close. Where the hybrid battery is concerned, time is more important than miles. If I had the choice between a one year old battery with 300k miles or a ten year old with 80,000 miles, I'd take the younger one.

 

have her call around to as many dealers as possible to get pricing, they are competitive, and we've seen as low as $2,200.

then check out 'newpriusbatteries.com' $1,600., and see if you can find a local mech to install it.

 

You can't add links or attachments until you have 5 posts or something like that. But I'll attach the picture for you.

Likely whoever did the install did a CRAP job and/or flat out lied. I will take a venture and guess that someone just did a module swap.

If you want reliability, AVOID all used/rebuilt/reconditioned HV Batteries. Cost savings just not there, given how they don't last.

Now I see why labor rate was so high, b/c they actually opened up the HV Battery case and inspected; all of this is more labor hours she was charged. Just unnecessary since a P0A80 code was likely recorded. No need to go further, unless you really want an autopsy, which cost her more expensive labor hours.

NOT safe for her. The vehicle will always try to protect itself. At an inopportune time (parked or driving), the vehicle will shut down and refuse to move, leaving her stranded. No further damage can be done as the HV Battery is burnt toast.

Sister will be wasting her time trying to find a good donor HV Battery. There are individuals and companies that do this for a living. Occasionally such a HV Battery might become available to the lay public, but far and few between. Most of these donor batteries are first made available to the auctioners, as insurance companies take possession of a vehicle that has been written off. The auction house sells the vehicle to the highest bidder, usu junkyards(salvage yards) and individuals who do this for a business. The salvage yards will disassemble the vehicle for parts OR put the entire vehicle out onto the yard after draining the fluids (gas, coolant, brake, powersteering, freeon) and removing 12V, and HV Battery. Everyone knows the HV Battery is worth money, and these get sold. As you can see, the ability to get an HV Battery from a young wreck (years or miles), is not good for the lay public.

Dealers WON'T do that and they also WON'T replace modules.

Just like tire repair due to nail/bolt. The big tire chains/service shops/dealerships, won't repair a tire if the puncture is within a certain distance to the edge of the inner/outer tread. You have to go to an independent tire shop to have this done; I speak from experience. ALL tire shops can only repair up to a certain diameter puncture too b/c patches are only so big.

Read post #9 & #11 to put NEW OEM HV Battery cost into perspective, the dangers of used/rebuilt/remanufactured, and how to search for Toyota parts. Indianapolis area battery repair? | PriusChat

I advocate NEW OEM HV Battery first (if able to get cheaply, say less than $1800) then 2k1Toaster's, if:
1) You are able to DIY.
2) Value reliability.
3) Have more than two cents to rub together.
4) The upside w/ 2k1Toaser's is you could sell all modules to a company he usu sells to, further reducing the $1600 cost by a hundred or two or three? The downside with 2k1Toaster is that you will no longer have a core that Toyota will accept, should you want to get a Toyota OEM HV Battery. However, the car will probably be well worn and no longer economic to repair when his cylindrical module needs replacing.
However, since your sister has to pay for labor, and the car is old and assumed to be high mileage, there will be other costly repairs down the road waiting for her (ABS brake actuator, AC, other unknowns). She may just want to cut her loss and get a used Civic, Corolla, Focus?

If she chooses to remain with the Prius or in a Toyota, have her get Techstream.
Techstream is the OFFICIAL diagnostic and maintenance software made for Toyota/Lexus, and used at Toyota/Lexus dealerships. Bluetooth OBD2 readers and all the various apps for smartphones/tablets are junk: LIMITED code reading ability (can't read ALL codes) and can NOT do any maintenance (bleed brakes, engine compression check, activate CHRS pump, etc). Why waste money on a toy that limits what you can read and can't do maintenance?

"But I don't DIY." Getting the codes read at a Toyota dealership will set you back $100+. The cost of the hacked Techstream from Amazon will pay for itself.

Get mini VCI w/ Techstream from Amazon ($25+). Doesn't matter who you buy from, as the cables likely come from the same one or two suppliers from panda land. May have to return/buy a few, as some cables have problems. Installation easiest on a Windows 32bit OS (XP, Vista, 7). Ask friends/family if they know someone in IT, as this person will likely have obsolete laptops laying around, and might be able to donate for free. B/C the software is hacked, recommended to install on a spare laptop; do not use this laptop for sensitive information (log in & passwords: email, bill payments, etc). This laptop is now your Toyota/Lexus diagnostic laptop. Mac install possible, you just need to search online.

Should you stop driving a Toyota/Lexus, you can easily sell your Techstream laptop set-up here. Private Sales | PriusChat

 

If she is in Seattle there are likely quite a few dealers in the area.
Call around and get several quotes.

Too bad she was not closer to Portland, Oregon. Atomic Auto is such a great shop down there.

$5000 is an outrageous price. Heck
she could fly me out there from the Midwest to do the job and I could charge her less than that! Lol.

 

The reason they want 5k is because a new Toyota battery does not come with the electronics section. They have to swap your electronics section over to the new battery. They're recommending installing a new ECU, which is about $700 by itself, plus a new #3 relay. PLUS, they're apparently planning to keep both the core charge and the core (a bit of thievery there) assuming you don't know any better, because the battery is missing the black plastic terminal covers.

The following is just my opinion on how to get out of this at only minor expense....It sounds to me like your immediate problem is you need to replace the voltage sensor harness. It's available for about $65 from Toyota. They state this in the diagnosis when they say "broken wire" between blocks 2 and 3. Most likely the tech found a sensor tab with a broken crimp. It would have taken 5 minutes to repair. A new harness would cure this and also eliminate any issues that may be present at the plug end of the harness. If this was a recently "rebuilt" battery, odds are the evidence of leakage they see may be from the battery "pre-rebuild", otherwise I would imagine a horrible, massive leak like they describe would have given you HV Isolation faults.

https://www.toyotapartsdeal.com/oem/toyota~wire~frame~no~2~82165-47040.html

If you decide to purchase a new harness and aren't able to get covers, let me know. I have a tote FULL of them.

And they are available from Toyota, they're full of baloney...here's a whole selection of HV battery parts and pieces available for purchase. Labelled as "Cover, wiring harness protector".

https://www.toyotapartsdeal.com/parts-list/2008-toyota-prius/battery-battery-cable.html?PartNumbers=82165-47040

Has your sister contacted the previous owner to get any information about this "rebuilt battery"? Maybe the PO rebuilt it and can provide some assistance/info?

The other part that stinks is that for what you paid for diagnosis, some craigslist goober could have probably fixed the battery and the car would have been back on the road. It may last only a month or six depending on the quality of their work, but you'd be no worse off.

 

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I've had good luck with Lake City Toyota. For me, at the moment, I would fly Eric/Becky out or try Lake City. Does not mean much though.. your mileage may vary....

 

Hmmm.

Well, I actually have not used Lake City for service work. I do pretty much everything myself. Not that the Prius needs that much., And Lake City has been good about parts pricing -- for me anyway. Pretty much match the best of the web.

Eric/Becky was just a joke...look back at the responses to your question. You will see what I am talking about. I hesistate to mention this, but my sister-in-law uses Kirkland Toyota and praises them. But it is a bit of a haul and honestly, she knows nothing about cars.

 

It is unusual to also need to replace the ECU.
And even if you did, I would suggest buying a used component rather than new. It is a couple hundred dollars at most. Compared to a couple thousand

It does not take that much extra labor to transfer over the electronics section,. Go slow and pay attention to the bolts/nuts you remove so you remember to put them back on.

A new battery from Toyota does not come with the electronics section. The expectation is that you will transfer that over from the original pack. Along with some other minor little reusable parts.

A used battery generally has the electronics already attached.

 

Contact @2k1Toaster to see if he knows of anyone in the area near you that installs his battery pack. I think he keeps a list.

My guess about the car is either the previous owner just had a super cheap battery rebuild to unload the car or they just bought it, repaired the battery and flipped it. Seems to be happening a lot like that lately. An old Prius is a bad Craigslist bet.

 

People that swap in one module and then sell the car suck.
Seriously.
Talk about bad karma.

 

From some of the first timers posts it seems to be happening more and more.

 

If closer I would tackle the job, but won't be in the Mountlake Terrace area for at least another month.

Maybe @PriusCamper has some time to fix the existing pack, install a new OEM pack, or install a toaster pack for you.

 

Just got voicemail and text from this person after reaching out... I always appreciate your instincts @TMR-JWAP I suspect this is wiring harness corrosion issue too. Is this you on Ebay or do you have comparable price? NEW TOYOTA PRIUS BATTERY WIRE SENSING HARNESS 82165-47040 OEM 04 05 06 07 08 09 | eBay

Thinking I'll suggest this part to have on hand, as well as some clean bus bars from my rock tumblr when we talk tomorrow. May just throw a loaner pack in the car to get her back on the road. But I've never done this for someone who wasn't already a friend... Any advice? Do I get a cashiers check as deposit on loaner pack? Or credit card? How do you handle these situations when they're local to you?