How is your rebuilt HV PRIUS battery holding up?

The rebuilt option I am most aware of is Re-Involt, now changed over to Dorman ownership/brand name. Believe they give a 3-yr warranty. I have not heard anyone say they had a problem with it.

We have a Gen2 hybrid battery survey underway, it would preliminarily appear that many of the orig hybrid batteries that fail are replaced under warranty with in-kind Toyota battery. That makes a fairly limited subset of PriusChat participants who also have third-party rebuilt hybrid batteries. The main problem I have heard is DIYer's who do not re-balance the cells. Not clear if you are questioning DIY rebuilts or 3rd party like Dorman.

 

A ReInVolt was installed in my 2004 Prius at 195k miles about 2 years ago and had a 12 month warranty. I am now at 247.5k miles and the ReInVolt is performing well. As Taylor Auto gained more experience with their rebuilt batteries, the warranty was increased to 18 months and now as Dorman Industries (Dave Taylor is still a prime mover), as noted above, the warranty has been increased to 3 years.

Dave let me keep my old battery and the 27 good modules were used (after I rebalanced them) by six other Prius owners to successfully get their Prii back on the road.

JeffD

 

Hey, Jeff! Any update on your 2004?

 

Sil

Still going strong at 275k miles. Did a round trip Connecticut-Chicago-Connecticut this weekend (~1700 miles).

JeffD

 

That does my heart good! Go Prius!

 

Dorman battery installed oct.of 2014 have over 10000 miles so far all well .best warranty Around 36 months.better warranty then Toyota gives 12 months

 

Warranty doesn't equal longevity.

Do you think your Dorman would outlast a NEW HV Battery?

Just report back when your current Dorman requires replacement. How many miles/months of service you got.

 

On my 2005, the re-involt is doing great. It was installed in 2010 with 139k,
Car now has 155k.

 

Nice! Thanks for posting. That's over 5 years old now!

 

rebuilt my own by replacing 2 cells for $70 and 3 hours labor...5000 + miles and still going strong getting 45 mpg avg

 

Rebuilt batteries won't last as long as a new battery but that's why they cost thousands less. The important thing is to buy from companies that stand behind their guarantees which I'm certain Dorman does.

 

I just got a rebuilt battery installed by Hometown Hybrid of Houston and they did a super job. We will see how long battery lasts. I ended up doing a bunch of research on the issue which I thought I would share. I am not an electrical engineer though FYI. I was very concerned with the longevity of the rebuilt battery. I have no affiliation with any of the companies.

• The warranty rates on quality rebuilt batteries from Dorman, Hometown and MileHybrid sounds very low. ~<5% in 1-3 yrs.
• Average failure down in Houston I heard was ~155k miles.
• Rebuilt wont last as long as the new batteries from Toyota but they are much less in price.
• Rebuild depends on rebuilder quality. You really want to go with someone you trust who will do a quality rebuild. I would be very wary of Craiglist low prices.
• I would not go with Greentec auto as I didn't like what I found from my research.

What could contribute to battery failure

• heat. A lot more requests for rebuilt batteries in the summer in Houston than in the Winter as well as more Southern US failures than Northern. Keep the car cool. I am buying window vents, tint and a car sun reflector.
• I heard that if you don't do a tune up (spark plugs, MAF sensor cleaning, throttle body cleaning) it can make the HV battery work harder and make it fail prematurely. My car had 81k miles on it and the battery failed. I may have been dumb and waited too long to do a tune up (just did it 1 month ago).
• I think it is prudent to clean the MAF sensor and throttle body every 30-50k miles and even change the spark plugs early. Very little cost if DIY.
• Time
• Miles
• City driving

I heard the Inverter very, very rarely fails and the fan near the battery is almost always clean.


Other thoughts. I really liked the Prius until the battery failed. However if battery failures are going to be common on Hybrids and Electric vehicles in the out years I am going to go for a basic gas combustion car. I don't drive enough to justify it. Frankly the future of Tesla and fully electric car batteries is unknown. It really hit me that the electric car companies don't really know what will happen to the batteries over time. Seems like Tesla could have significant warranty risk and owners could get some hefty bills for battery replacements. We'll see. Of course improvement are highly likely over time.

Thanks to many people on this board who have been writing over years. I and many other have benefited greatly. Special Thanks to Patrick for his many contributions!

 

You and I know this, but there are far too many stories where some owners seem to think otherwise. How and why, is beyond me. Maybe denial?

This is where we are in disagreement.
I can get a new OEM HV battery for $2071 + tax, vs a Doorman, from Napa Auto Parts, for $1939 + tax. This is a small difference of $132 for a 100% new OEM vs a used/rebuilt/reconditioned/refurbished battery of unknown quality. I use Doorman, since it is a large company that has a good Warranty.

Don't forget there are hidden costs that many realize after the fact.
1) Installation costs for the warranty replacement HV Battery, for those who don't self install.
2) Down time waiting for the replacement HV Battery.
3) Rental car expense for those who can't/won't take public transportation or don't have access to another vehicle, while their Prius is down.

Granted there are fly by night people who will replace a module or two for a few hundred dollars. This wil be far cheaper than a new OEM HV Battery. Many posts of buyers remorse going the cheap route. But this isn't applicable to our discussion, since you are saying rebuilt battery.

People make choices based on what they value and their resources (time & money). I value unnecessary maintenance, thus the desire for new vs rebuilt/used HV Battery; who wants to be revisiting a repair with some degree of regularity. For a few dollars more, new is far more appealing than a rebuilt HV Battery.

To each their own. Your money, your car. Do as you please.

 

Please call Greentech for what they are: Fraudtech (AKA Greentech). Purposely mislead buyers into thinking they are getting "new" modules.

(Figuratively) shoot that messenger. The world is not flat. Darwin is correct about evolution.
HEAT and mountains seem to be hard on batteries. People in those areas don't seem to get the same longevity as people in cooler climates and Flatter terrain.

Battery replacements have gotten cheaper. A new OEM Prius battery was $4K initially, back when the Gen2s were introduced. Now it is $2K.

When the Tesla Gigafactory gets going, their Li-ion batteries will be cheap, which will drop the price of Teslas.

Manufactures have probably done a lot of testing and modeling to know what the likely longevity of their batteries will be.

Sorry to hear the Prius did not work out for you.

Yes, Patrick has contributed greatly. His knowledge of the Prius is crazy scarry. I am of the belief that he must have been on the design team for the Gen2 Prius.

 

23 month later 55 k plus miles still going like the engzier bunny good for me price was 1305 I
="ski.dive, post: 1894133, member: 41831"]Trying to find out if REBUILT HV PRIUS batteries are any good, and how long they last.[/QUOTE]
Mine I

 

I paid 1305 after core return at summit auto.not napa . Napa equal high price to genrail public good price for repair shops. Never buy from napa unless your a repair shop my to sense

 

Is English your third language Kinglew? There's got to be a reason you can barely be understood - your writing is atrocious.

 

@ski.dive