traction battery replacement options for Gen 2 with 210K miles

Everyone here will pretty much tell you to never use a rebuilt battery, and that is the correct answer, unless perhaps said battery was free.

You essentially have three options:

1. Play whack-a-mole replacing one bad cell after another. This is not sustainable unless you have a lot of time on your hands.
2. Get a Toyota OEM battery, typically $1650-$1900. Obviously, a good option for reliability with a known track record of 10+ years.
3. Get a new battery from 2K1Toaster, who is a user here. These are found at http://newpriusbatteries.com. They have expected good reliability, but no long-term data. They are $1600 with free shipping and a 2 year warranty.

My choice would likely be 2K1Toaster or maybe a Toyota battery.

 

I would go NEW Toyota OEM if you can get it for $1600-$1900. Proven reliability and longevity: 8-10+ years! However, not all dealers will sell this part to the public, and/or price match a cheaper dealership. If this turns out to be your case, then 2k1Toaster's NEW cylindrical module replacement is the only choice, IF you want a reliable repair.

• This person in Ohio, got a dealer to sell for $1600 + $240 tax.
• This dad purchased a NEW OEM HV Battery for $1699 + NO Tax (due to out of State billing address) for his adult child; today is father's day too (6/16)!
• Post #11 shows pricing range for the OEM HV Battery; it is all over the place. Deals can be found, you just have to search and make phone calls.

Module swaps and "rebuilt/remanufactured/reconditioned" are a waste of time and money. Too many horror stories of people looking to save a few dollars, on a Prius that is worth very little, only to later regret it and spending more money after the fact. You will not get 3-5 years if you go this route. If you were going to get rid of the car in the next few days/weeks/months, maybe go this route or just discount the car $800 (half the cost of a 2k1Toaster's NEW modules) to have some good Karma come your way.

I would AVOID GreenTec Auto (AKA: FraudTech) and GreenBean (AKA: GreenCRAPPYBean); that's just me.

The only source of NEW is Toyota and 2k1Toaster's company!
If the person or company offering these "new cells" is not a Toyota dealership or 2k1Toaster's company, RUN!!!!!
FYI, a NEW OEM HV Battery purchased from a Toyota dealership carries a one year part/unlimited mileage warranty (fleet vehicles are excluded: taxis, delivery vehicles, etc). If the NEW OEM HV Battery is installed by a Toyota dealership, the part warranty is extended to three years total. IMO, the labor costs do not justify the extra two years for this on the OEM HV Battery.

Remember, the BEST WARRANTY is one you never use! Yours lasted THIRTEEN YEARS!

Unfortunately no one can predict what will fail next. Any vehicle driven long enough (years and/or miles), parts will fail. When? Anybody's guess. Ability to DIY, allows one to keep a worthless vehicle operating; just your time and cost of part.

The only upside w/ going NEW, is longevity and it gives you options. If a cost prohibitive repair occurs, you could:
1) Sell the HV Battery, and probalby get 1/2 back. Then sell the car to a salvage yard for a few hundred.
2) Transfer the HV Battery into another Gen2 w/ a failed HV Battery. You now have a Gen2 w/ a good HV Battery.
3) Buy a Gen3 (2010-2015) w/ a bad HV Battery. Transfer your good modules into the Gen3 HV Battery case. You now have a Gen3 w/ a reliable battery. Then put the bad Gen3 modules into the Gen2 case and sell this bad Gen2 battery to a rebuilder.

Since you have some DIY skills, consider challenging yourself to swap out the HV Battery yourself. Just watch enough videos, read the many threads here on PriusChat, get the factory service manual, and some proper tools (lineman gloves 0 or 00 electrical rating and the leather outer protector for the lineman gloves).

 

TMR-JWAP says it best (from another post w/ a similar predicament as you):

The fact that you change the oil as required (6months/5,000miles) and MONITOR it regularly is HUGE!!!!! It seems very few people now a days check the engine oil level until it is too late.

Ultimately, this is a cost-benefit analysis you will have to make for yourself.

 

If you have friend or family member who likes learning repair work, then you can find &replace bad modules, as well as those that are about to go bad too... The friends who's packs I maintain are content with spending $400 or less every year or two to swap out modules and recondition. You could do this several times over a 1/2 dozen years and spend less money than brand new. But these day mechanics & dealerships overcharge so much that it's not an option for those without mechanical minded friends. And the criminal pricing of care repair work these days is why everyone buys new 'because having upside down car loans and no need for repairs may be more expensive, but then you never have to deal with non-warranty work, at least until it's time for another upside down loan to pile on top of the previous ones.

 

It's not wack a mole if you know what you're doing... It's called diagnostics and with the right equipment, knowledge and skills there's a dozen different ways to find a bad module before it goes bad. Of course when you live in a society that glorifies being as wasteful and over-consumptive as possible, is it any wonder that maximizing the lifespan of your battery pack is seen as a sin rather than a virtue?

 

You are correct in saying it’s not wack a mole if you know what to look for however you still need to find suitable replacements, take apart the back of the car and lug around the 100 pound battery case. Possibly more than once a year. Then there is the down time, At least one day and probably longer. What if it’s the only car you own? What if you want to take a trip? I wouldn’t want to be a thousand miles from home and have the car code on me. I’m sure replacing modules would work for some people, I just don’t think it works for everyone.

 

Never say never is my motto. Although I agreed with everything else you said, folks without the necessary funds and only need the car for a short while longer are good candidates for an el cheapo' rebuilt pack. The OP wanting another 5 years isn't one of them though.

 

Actually wack a mole would be even cheaper at that point.

 

Yes it is, BTDT, but that advice is only for those who can and will do a major DIY project.

 

All those concerns to 2/3rds of people in the US who have less than $2K in emergency savings are more manageable than the cost of buying a new pack.

I actually installed a new pack for an aerospace engineer on Saturday... He could afford the price of new pack and he loves his Gen2 and is excited to have the option to put the pack in a Gen3 in the future once his current car is no longer wise to keep. He's also frugal and wise to reduce costs wherever possible by buying older cars instead of new, as well as getting the the best price on an install. He said all the people who would do it for him wanted a small fortune... I did the whole job at $40 per hour in 2.25 hours and at that price he was feeling generous about tipping me.

Compare that to the women in the afternoon who spent almost everything she had and enjoyed her 05 Prius for 2 weeks before battery went bad and dealer charged her $400 at a rate of $135 per hour just to pull the pack and look at it and tell her everything that was broken and say it's the amount she paid for the car $5K to repair. Once I installed a loaner pack in her car and took her pack home, it turns out the battery is a newer pack with awesome diagnostic numbers and nothing wrong with any modules, just multiple botched DIY work by installer(s) , that led to lots of missing parts, seized nut on a module terminal and not replacing voltage sensor harness, which led to corrosion traveling all the way up into the ECU and frying out inside the plug outlet. So in her case, replacing the battery pack wouldn't of been very smart... But $50 for a used ECU instead of $800 dealer charges for new and wire frame $50) and clean bus bars and replace some missing odds and ends and I'd like to think I can keep total cost under $400.

Love getting a really good price on stuff so much, that I like to share the love and give other people great prices too. Meanwhile, even at these prices I'm making more money than I'm used to...

As in, each situation with each vehicle and what the owner can afford is different and PriusChat users would be a way more valuable resource if all ya'll helped people in that context rather than thinking everyone is wealthy enough to waste money as quickly as they do.

 

And yes, I've installed a bad module from ebay that died after 3 miles, but that led to me finding my buddy Joe in Bend, OR at Hybrid Battery Conditioning | Reconditioned Hybrid Car Batteries Service and he has $30K in diagnostic equipment, teach hybrid car repair at the local community college and his $30 modules are almost always better than all the other modules in the packs I work on. What's more these Ebay modules are B-grade to him and he resells them, but keeps the A-grade ones for his packs he rebuilds. And he does great on his one and two year warranty, but the 3 year warranty is more problematic for him.

 

So what your saying is these battery rebuilding places that have a 5 year warranty are probably going to have a 100% failure rate?

 

I understand what you are saying about the money thing but if that lady bought another car and the transmission went out

i know the lady you are talking about and I give you props for helping her out. Again I have no problem rebuilding a battery, I would like to try myself, it facilitates me. I have another car to drive myself though. Some people do not. If that same lady bought another car and the transmission broke she would have to come up with big bucks to have it repaired. You can’t throw out a red herring like “the majority of people have less than 2000 in savings” as your reasoning for why people should repair the battery rather than get a new one. Sometimes cars have expensive repairs and people find a way.

I would like to say some people that are in scientific jobs can be odd. I worked at a job where one of the engineers drove a Pinto for at least 10 years. One day he rolls up in a brand new Porsche 944 (was the 80’s). We were all like Dr Chuck you been driving that Pinto forever. He said “saving my money for my dream car”. It could be that simple.

 

Nah, I'm saying my buddy Joe in Bend who is in a Wheelchair had a little bit more than normal level of 3-year warranty issues come up at same time in past couple weeks and he literally gets his mechanic in the car and drives long distances to get a pack fixed. And worst of all if it's a wacky uncommon hybrid like SUV's with Toyota packs and he doesn't have a spare ready to go he has to make two trips, one to pick pack up, one to return it after its repaired. I'm sure if I asked him he'd say there's plenty of packs he rebuilt more than five years ago that are still going strong. But that's because he has $30K in diagnostic equipment and has been doing this work ever since Gen 1 packs first came out. The more I work on these packs the more I realize that the biggest limitation is the quality of your diagnostic and reconditioning gear.

 

Yeah, cars are strange investments and the owner's relationship to their cars is even stranger... I mean making an expensive long-term investment in something that can be destroyed at any moment through no fault of the person driving it is crazy! And insurance doesn't work as well as people would like to think.

At same time it can work... My dad saved up for a really long time and paid cash for his dream car, a brand new 1971 Mercedes Convertible... In the late 1980's he sold that car for same amount of money he paid for it. But that's so ridiculously rare and all that time he had it he was a nut case about taking care of it. I used to resent what a perfectionist he was about taking care of it, but now that I'm older it's one of the qualities I most value that was handed down from him to me.

And it was never my intent to throw out a "red herring" I'm simply trying to help people understand that PriusChat regulars can do much better at helping people if they better understand what the person posting can afford and how much they can technically even understand. It's incredibly oppressive to tell people the only solution is something that's impossible for them because they can't afford it, or worse, if they can't understand the car repair language you're using. I mean how many first time posters vanished because of that?

 

From my point of view, there is no reason to install a rebuilt when you could play whack-a-mole. But that's because I have the ability to play whack-a-mole. Admittedly, there are some cases where they can't play whack-a-mole and can't afford a new pack. However, in most cases I've seen, rebuilt batteries are being sold for very nearly the price of new. At that price, there's usually some way to round up just a little bit more money.

 

Yes, it's true that the need for a less expensive option is far less prevalent now that the price of brand new is down to $1600 range... At the same time I've pulled out and put in so many Gen2 packs that the time it takes to swap a rebuilt pack takes less time than deep cleaning the car inside and out and I like the idea of swapping someone's rebuilt pack every year or so for a few hundred bucks and having a fleet of loaner packs that I get really good at maintaining. Of course that business plan is loaded with risks and I'm perpetually disappointed in the quality of my cheap diagnostic equipment... And those text messages and phone calls when their warning lights come on. It makes me think I'm better off sticking to my 30 years of tree pruning skills instead.

 

Has anyone posted this?

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