Long time lurker. 1st time poster. Bought 2005 prius with 140k in 2017. Drove Uber. Love my Prius. Just put a hitch on to tow a very small camper. (after lots of reading on here) Now have 205k miles. I don't know if it's the original traction battery. Also unsure how old the 12 volt is. My mileage at best is 42 mpg. I've never seen it do much over 42 mpg in the 4 years I've owned the car. 50 & 60 mpg are the advertised mpg. Mileage hasn't noticeably changed. I bought an OBD sensor & used Dr. Prius said: Weak block detected Poor balance block 1 49.63% capacity No battery warning lights have ever come on. I plan to drive my Prius if I could for another 10 years til i can buy a 10 year old used hybrid sienna Cheapest way to get my Prius to last 10 more years? Prolong is $750. I'm comfortable with a buddy's help installing. I'm not comfortable pulling & replacing cells. I'm in Peoria Illinois if ne1 has one to rent. I guess i could rent it out to get back some of $750. I don't want to pay $3k for new battery from dealer. But maybe best long term option? Refurb seems to run $1,500. Any advice or insight other options appreciated.
Welcome to PriusChat!! You can check for dealer related maintenance by entering the VIN at : Track Your Service Records with Your Toyota Owners Account Has the transmission fluid been replaced? This thread for a DIY grid charger : DIY Grid Reconditioning Charger | PriusChat This thread for a DIY grid charger cable : DIY harness for DIY charger/discharger | PriusChat Here is another option that might get you 10 more years : Toyota hybrid battery upgrade pack– Lithium Prius
You want a new battery then. $1600 on up. And keep a repair fund for other big ticket items. IMO, it’s way too late to start grid charging a nearly 17 year old battery (if OEM). GOOD LUCK!
What SFO posted. DIY charger simple as above or more complicated linked. V2-grid-charger-discharger MOD Note this is for a Honda Insight, note changes to make for Prius OlRowdy01 V2 Grid Charger Build (Illustrated) | Honda Insight Forum Modified as noted in attached pdf for 2004-2009 Prius, HLG-80H and 4 bit 500vdc 10 amp meter As fotomoto mentioned, way too late to start grid charging a nearly 17 year old battery (if OEM), if that is something you want to try, build your own for less than $100.
Looks interesting for $1600. But self install. I can do some stupid stuff so not sure I'm safe enough to deal with the battery. Thanks for the warm welcome. Thanks to all the good info on here I did have the transmission fluid replaced when i decided to do a small amount of towing. I'll work through the other links. Thanks for great info. My chevy prizm has 320k miles. It's been my science experiment. I really want to see what effect grid charging would have on such an old battery. (probably just fail a bunch of cells!). My next science experiment. New battery is probably best way to go. & if I'm road tripping & towing..... But i really want to see that battery brought back to life. But i really don't want to break down with a trailer behind.
@alftoy Thanks for good info. After a reading some of the links, I'm not handy enough to build my own
You can't really. The best you could ideally hope for is to extend this battery for another 2 -3 years, but as this battery is already giving signs of failure that ship (preemptive maintenance) has probably already sailed. Save your money and put it towards a new battery, which given your goals, is your only option. If you have to rely on someone else to install it, it will cost more than DIY.
Post screenshots of the actual battery data so we can take a look at those. I think you can tell more from that data then the “battery life test” since that’s basically just a capacity test.
Check out the link in my signature. If you're not DIY enough to install a new battery, why would you be DIY enough to install a grid charger and play the wack-a-mole game? It takes about the same level of, umm. DIY-ability. LOL
