Dorman battery appears to have failed after 3 months

The refurbished Dorman hybrid I bought only lasted 1 month. Sounds like a very similar situation to yours. You can see my thread here:

What is killing all my Hybrid Batteries?! 3 batteries have failed. | PriusChat

My mechanic dealt with the Dorman people, so I cannot comment on their customer service, but he told them that the P0A80 code came up and they sent a new battery in about a week. They may just be picker when it is an individual instead of a mechanic.

Anyhow, I wish I knew not to buy a refurbished battery and just went OEM. I just got the newer Dorman refurb batt put in and drove for the first time today. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that this one is better than the last. However, I hate to say I will always have a fear in the back of my head that the battery could fail at any time.

Good luck and I hope you get that replacement soon.

How Dorman ethically sell these batteries that are failing so quickly?

 

This is why I hate california, we are at about $3.00 for fooking gas, Wth.




iPhone ?

 

mine been going since Oct 2014 35 k plus miles one issue in the being

 

one issue in the being?

 

See my post tow home one issue in the being

 

will do, thanks.

 

OK, I got the Mini-VCI and it seems to pretty clearly implicate the HV battery. I have the standard P3000 error (123) as well as P08A0 and P3018, which indicates block 8 of the battery is weak. That block is reporting 15 volts as compared to the other blocks reporting values of 17+ volts.
In the weeks since I first posted on this thread the warning signs have gotten a lot more prevalent. The vent fan runs full speed all the time, the SOC display swings wildly from purple to green, dash fully lit up, etc.

This is dead Dorman battery #2 in 9 months. It seems clear to me that remanufactured batteries are NOT the way to go as it appears they can fail at any time. So they keep sending me replacements and I get the joy of spending 3 hours taking out the dead one and putting in the next. I don't see how they'll be able to continue this and I suspect at some point they'll go under or stop providing replacements. Then we'll all be stuck.

After much thought I decided to get a full refund and just buy a new replacement from the local Toyota dealer. Guess what? One more awesome feature of the Dorman program: the dealer won't take a Dorman battery as the CORE ($1300 worth) because it's not a "Toyota part". What do I do now, spend days stripping orange paint off the dead unit or trying to get Dorman to send back my original?

Any advice or experience with this guys? I guess my other option is get one more Dorman and sell the car ASAP.

 

I don't really know how to cut/paste in this forum. Yes - I definitely had your problem. In spades. Try to figure out how to search the post I just put up for another guy (JetPack) related to this.

 

I wanted to share my Dorman battery experience .

In Nov 2015 our 2005 Prius had the original hybrid battery go out after 200,000+ miles. The engine had already been replaced once in Nov 2011 at 110,000 miles with one from a 2009 with 23,000 miles. See this thread. Also around Nov 2015 that engine from the 2009 started burning oil with about the same 110,000 total miles (including the ones from the 2009 donor car) that the original engine started having problems.

We have been saving for a car but weren't quite ready. I purchased a Dorman battery from Advance Auto Parts and installed it at the end of Nov 2015 and everything was all good, save for the engine burning oil.

On April 23, the Christmas lights came on again when we were 6 hours from home. I took it to an auto shop to have the codes read for $100 and sure enough, it was bad cells in the battery.

At that point I was not willing to put in another battery for it to go out every 5 months and pay a shop $100 a pop to diagnose it. I also can't trust this car to get us home. I want my money back from Dorman and they can have their battery back.

In the end, Dorman did authorize the return of my money for the battery. Advance Auto Parts actually issued the refund straight back to my credit card. They were great and worked with me through the whole thing.

The car was taken to a scrap yard and we got $400 for the the carcass with an oil burning engine and no Hybrid battery. See attached picture.

We bought a Honda HR-V to replace the Prius. No more hybrids in our future.

 

^ Very sad.

 

i see nothing sad here. the OP bought a high mile hybrid car with bad battery, slapped a cheap used "rebuit" one and expected it to perform as a new car with great reliability.

the last poster got 200,000 miles from a car and gave it away for $400 to a junkyard (hint: it was worth much more than that) and somehow is upset about it.

if i want a reliable car, i buy a brand new car with zero miles. getting 200,000+ miles out from a car is great news IMHO. i personally junked 2 cars (not counting accidents) because they were not reliable and i was too busy to sell them for pennies: Renault with 122,000 miles and Datsun with 145,000 miles. I also gave away one car for free to a friend because of failed tranny. it was a Nissan with 100,000 miles.

but, it was a good read. at least i know to stay away from Dorman's "rebuilt" batteries.

 

Not all dorman battery's check .posts

 

It's sad because Nickbike got 200k miles out of the hybrid battery which is a very respectable number. He bought a used Prius with a bad engine. Then he bought a remanufactured battery that was bad. Bad luck, bad choices, or all hybrids are bad? It's sad he came the conclusion that he did.

 

No hybrid good .dorman battery good to me check my post about my dorman battery

 

Hybrid are great

 

hybrid are fab.

 

Yeah if they could get the batteries to "commodity" status that would be great. We're still beta testers I think.

It is just hands-down addictive, that the engine shuts off every time it's not needed, and the battery alone is the motivator whenever possible.

 

i agree, there should be 3rd party generic new HV battery replacement options, just like there are for 12V. but, it's possible now to build a non-hybrid car with start-stop system and part time atkinson cycle.

 

Old Domans had the 3yr warranty, the new ones are orange with black stripes and come with 5yr warranty.

Still in development they are working on a glow in the dark blue case that comes with a 10yr warranty.