Looking for repair shop in Eastern North Carolina that can help with 2007 Prius. Here's backstory if anyone here can help. Trying to help a friend get a 2007 Prius back on the road. Car was wrecked, sat for a year at body shop, was driven with no oil in transmission (transmission busted). We replaced transmission, got triangle of death warning light and code about bad cells in traction battery. (traction battery was OK before being driven as I swapped it from my Prius with his to charge his pack up after sitting) MFD would show battery draining really quickly, checked individual cells in battery and found 2 bad. Replaced 2 bad cells and now battery seems to be fine. We started driving the car, and would get a red triangle of death, VSC, and a circle with exclamation point (brakes?) light after 3~5 miles driving. After shutoff, car would not make itself ready on restart. All dash lights would now be on. Since 12V was old (+ sat up for a year), I put a new 12v battery in the car. Now we get the same symptoms, but now after driving 23~26 miles. My generic OBDII scanner reads that there are no current DTC's present. Auto parts store says same, but that there are alot of stored codes. I purchased a mini-vci off amazon to try to read any toyota specific codes, and have had no luck getting it to connect to vehicle. At this point, my friend really needs to get this car on the road if possible. I would like to find a shop that can read any Toyota specific codes and that may help in repairs. My friend doesn't want to take it to the dealer (I also am apprehensive about that), especially considering the sorry state of our DIY repairs.
In the past, I've had a dealer pretty much refuse to work on a salvage vehicle. That, and a dealer's refusal to use salvage parts to effect a repair leave me wanting an independent repair shop. This Prius isn't worth spending alot of money on. I've seriously considered the local Toyota dealer as a last resort.
Re-Involt is in Sanford, NC and refurbishes Prius HV batteries. I do not know how much they get involved with troubleshooting but it would at least be worth a try to call and ask. They could at least take a look at the HV battery and give their opinion on the health of the battery. I would think they would be able to read the Prius specific DTC's for you and probably at least give you some advice.
There are several used car dealers in the Raleigh area that specialize in Prii. They are getting them worked on somewhere. I suspect independent shops. I would check them out on Craigslist to locate the dealers and then call them for their advice on shops. I would probably call a number of them to see if the same shops keep coming up. That may be an indication of their abilities.
I saw a few places listed in the triangle, was hoping someone here maybe had an experience with an independent.
I can't give a personal reference, however a google search reveals several independents in N. C. Google
