POLL is your battery replaced or inverter

Inverter failure on 2012 PHEV at 25K. Still not replaced, since as of today, Toyota can't seem to locate a new one in North America and the part is on "backorder". Incredible.

 

I'm trusting everyone is ticking the relevant boxes on the survey?

Regarding the inverter failure on the PIP. I assume it's a different one to the 'normal' Prius? I was surprised when Toyota UK held a replacement inverter in stock and that it was delivered in a couple days. Perhaps the PIP is so new and relatively rare that they don't expect the part to fail so soon and don't have any. Either that or they're replacing them so often that they can't keep up

So what percentage of Prius owners are suffering HV battery and inverter failures? Not looking brilliant from where I'm sat considering it's a £2,000/$2,500 repair.

 

grumpy, you're getting grumpier.

 

Mostly to do with old age. You'll understand where I'm coming from there lol

 

oh yeah, if my wife didn't jump all over me every now and then, i'd hold the record.

 

That's 4% of people who bothered to vote. Not 4% of prius owners. I get that it is an expensive repair but so are major parts on non hybrid vehicles. A friend of mine just paid out $4000 on a gear box for his SUV.

 

2004 303,000 miles no Battery or Inverter or any other drive line equipment. First 4.5yrs hilly terrain, last 5.7yrs in hot So. Ariz.

 

Here in Portugal, a 2 Gen has been quoted 1700euros for a new HV battery (official dealer shop) replacement job.

 

this is a lifetime poll, so, we have battery replacements in warranty (100-150,000 miles) out of warranty (100+ miles) and way, way, way out of warranty. (200- 300,000 miles) what does it all really mean? to me, i'm not complaining if it's replaced in warranty, or i have to pay for it after 150,000 miles or so. anecdotally, and from companies that do surveys, prius is a very reliable car as stacked up against other vehicles. what else matters?

 

2005 P2 here. I had my hybrid battery replaced in April of this year @238,500 miles with a new replacement from Toyota. My total cost was $2450 installed. Now I'm at 252,000 miles on the way to 300,000 (probably some time in 2016).

Still on the original inverter, original brakes and original shocks!!!!

 

Yes ... around 200K miles.

 

Pardon me while I dig up a dead thread, but I was interested in the battery failure numbers. Looks like the numbers for those who took the poll are 5% battery replaced & 4% had inverter replaced. While I don't know of statistics specifically related to the inverter, I have looked through stats on True Delta and compared them with numbers posted by Consumer Reports and reported by Toyota reps. From what I found, the 1st generation Prius has a battery failure rate around 1% while under warranty and between 5-10% after warranty period is expired. And the 2nd and later generations of Prius has an extremely low battery failure rate while under warranty (a Toyota rep claimed 1 in 40,000) that rises to roughly a 3% failure rate after warranty period expires. Also, time seems to be a much more significant factor in battery failures than miles driven. In the True Delta data, only one of their 42 reported battery failures happened in a Prius that was model year 2008 or newer, whereas the miles driven at time of battery failure was all over the map, from 70,000 miles all the way up to 350,000 miles.

I think the 2 things to take away from both this poll and from True Delta's and Consumer Reports' numbers are that batteries wear primarily with age and type of use (and not primarily with miles driven) and even with the increase in failure rates with age, a substantial percentage of Prius owners (easily over 90%) will never have a battery problem during the life of the vehicle.

 

We have very little data on Batt failures. Consumers Reports did one survey about 2012 but a lot of Gen2 batts failed since then.

If you have some data from True Delta or Toyota, we'd love to hear it please provide the LINK or sum up the data for us. Toyota has not been saying much about failures , but I am not sure anyone asked Toyota for data. Toyota used to say cumulative batt fails were less 1% of the total Prius population, but I think it probably went over 1% with time. I would not be surprised if 2006 MY is 10% failed by now, but we just do not have any public info on it.

 

Most of my data is from True Delta. The rest is essentially based on 2 articles, neither of which I can link because the forum isn't allowing me to post them. The first is from Hybrid Cars, where they reported Toyota claimed that battery failures on Gen 1 models were 1% and battery failures on Gen 2 models were 1 in 40,000. The second is by Consumer Reports in which they published hybrid battery failure statistics based on their 2013 survey comparing Honda Civic Hybrid & Toyota Prius models from 2002-2010 in which the Civic Hybrid had failure rates of 8-32% and the Prius had failure rates of 0.1-5%.

For the True Delta data, I went through the repair listings and noted every battery replacement. Then I wrote down the model year and miles driven for each one. I derived failure rates by dividing battery replacements by number of repairs reported for each model year, and then multiplying that percentage by the listed number of repair trips per 100 vehicles for the model year (which I used as a rough percentage of any repairs needed). There were no current number of repairs per 100 vehicles listed for the 2001 & 2003 model years (which also had the most listed battery replacements), so I guessed at those based on the data from other model years.

Overall, using the True Delta numbers as specified above, here are the approximate battery failure rates for each model year of Prius as of December 2016. 0.0% rates mean there were no reported battery failures for that model year in True Delta. I'll also include the battery replacement rates Consumer Reports noted for each model year in 2013 by saying "CR x%".
2001 9.6%
2002 3.4% / CR 5%
2003 8.3% / CR 4%
2004 1.7% / CR 1%
2005 3.3% / CR 2%
2006 2.8% / CR 3%
2007 2.7% / CR 1%
2008 0.0% / CR 0.5%
2009 0.0% / CR 0.3%
2010 0.0% / CR 0.1%
2011 0.0%
2012 0.4%
2013 0.0%
2014 0.0%
2015 0.0%
2016 0.0%

I also graphed the failures per odometer miles, but did not find a clear pattern. Median number of miles traveled at time of hybrid battery repair was 151,650 miles and mean number of miles was 160,560.

 

Good approach indeed.

Two notes:
1 - Recently I visited Barcelona, and some Prius taxi drivers talks point to a 250,000km mean failure, regardless of age. This "fact" (?) is probably related with driving style (urban) and mild/hot weather.

2 - The population of survey of CR and TD gather more "interested" owners than the general public.

 

Aren't most of the Barcelona taxis GenII?
.

 

Two past surveys conducted on PriusChat (by myself and UART) gave higher Gen2 failure rates than CR or TD, but of course we only had a small data base of participating members (about 100+ or so) and no good way to eliminate bias due to the fact motorists with bad batts would be more likely to be posting on PriusChat. UART's survey attempted to eliminate the bias, but he still ended up with a pretty big number (15%+ Gen2 fails if I recall).

I am curious to see if 2008+ are less prone to failure.

 

Just went through the 200,000+ mile thread, and there was a much higher battery failure rate among the people who posted in that thread than in the True Delta or Consumer Reports data. In the 200,000+ mile thread, the gen 2 battery failure rate is 14.5%, compared to 3% in the other data. That could indicate that mileage, while not the only factor, still has an effect on how long the batteries last.

 

It seems that most people look to Prius Chat when they are having issues with the car and are not casual browsers of the site. However, there remain a good number who monitor the board in order to provide helpful insights and know how to the newbies out there. Believe it or not, my 2005 Prius with now OVER 293,000 miles and closing in on 300,000 is still doing quite well as far as the hybrid system, engine, and transaxle. I have been expecting it to die now for the past 2 years and was hoping (at the time) that it would make it to 2015. From what I have read and experienced over the years (12 now), the Prius needs not much more than routine oil (engine / transaxle) and filter (crankcase, engine, blower motor) changes as well as tire rotation, and plug, PCV valve replacement at required intervals. The other expenses over the years seem to be the headlights (replaced both sets at least 3 times), new hub and bearings (attributed to the severe salting that is done on the roads close to the Canadian border), and, of course, using two sets of tires (winter and all-season). The '05 is currently driven at least 150 miles daily, 5 days a week. In the past, it was used from 2007 - 2010 as a postal vehicle between 3 and 4 days a week, then full time as a postal vehicle for nearly a year 6 days a week. Since the USPS has issued me a truck, I have not driven the Prius on the route. In 2013, we bought an '08 with 64,000 miles on the clock. That vehicle is now driven full time by our son and has over 150,000 miles. He replaced the 12v battery last winter, new tires, a set of HID bulbs, engine water pump (warranty), inverter pump, and new brakes. Other than that, no issues. A great car. Just wish that the rocker panels were faced in an alloy or plasticized as they do eventually rust out in our neck of the woods. I guess the most important take away that a newbie should understand is that in order to attain the high mileage and longevity of the vehicle, it is critical that the fluid levels be monitored and changed. Do not put off maintenance. It will cost you much more in the long run!