Yet Another Hybrid Battery Replacement

I wonder if this would be a viable business opportunity: for someone to either at your place or their shop: do this job similar to OP. As opposed to swapping complete batteries, core charges. It seems like it takes a fair degree of labour and skill, and can be done right.

With some standards in place, an accreditation procedure, maybe it could fly?

 

it's awfully time consuming, isn't that what dorman does?

 

A lot more heavy lifting?

 

what dorman does (not that well) is take the old battery apart in the shop, replace and rebalance the cells, clean or replace other parts as necessary. it's a multi day process, and would be prohibitive to do in your driveway, or while you wait. swapping batteries is quick and easy, and should cost less, not more. see the o/p's post #16. is that something people would be willing to pay for?

 

Here's my recent experience: My P0A080 fault code and battery rebuild | PriusChat Very similar to yours and the OP in this thread. Interestingly, I also lost #12.

 

Well you'd feed the guy, he'd move in, walk the dog an stuff while things are charging. Cmon, work with me.

Alright, so it's not so bright.

 

hold on, i'm reconsidering, now that you're making it sound so appealing.

 

Well, I have GREAT news! My $36 replacement cell for #12 arrived Thursday night. It's voltage was 7.61, which exactly matched the other 27 cells. I installed the cell and reassembled the unit. I then attached two buss bars with make-shift chords and clips - one POS; one NEG. I allowed them to "level" overnight. I then installed the monster in the car, connected the NEG on the accessory 12-volt battery, and fired it up. After a short period of "weird" sounds and dash lights, the car ran flawlessly. And today, day #2, it is still running good. The battery gauge on the screen (I think they call it MFD - Multi Function Display) goes up to within 2 bars from the top and slowly works it's way down to within 2 bars of the lowest. I consider this "normal". I just hope I am as lucky as wegortw and get many more thousands of miles on the car.

I have only one remaining light on my dash. On the right side, there is an exclamation point (!). HMMMM, wonder what mysteries that will entail for me. But I have confidence that you boys on PriusChat have experiences, suggestions and solutions already out there.

Again, thanks to all who took time to write. Sharing information like this on a world-wide basis is just awesome.

TIM.

 

congrats, all the best!

 

Hmm. All of mine cleared upon reinstallation of the repaired HV and reconnecting the 12v. Maybe try disconnecting the 12v again for a few minutes and see if that clears it. If not, you'll need to investigate further.

 

As of last week, I'm on my 3rd replacement module in my 06 pack and I do grid charging/balancing/reconditioning with a prolong charger and bulb discharger after each repair along with monthly balance charges. Doing so, each repair has lasted about a year before a different, original module fails. As this pack ages and goes through yet another Texas summer, this is becoming a game of diminishing returns so my next move will be to get a new battery from Toyota.

 

rebalancing probably extends the time between repairs, but there doesn't seem to be an answer for long term repair. some have better luck than others, and there are probably a lot of factors involved.

 

Biggest factor I see is first everyone should be load testing your modules when you have the pack apart.......I can't stress this enough, it's not the same as charge/discharge cycling or balancing The strongest cells (lowest voltage drops over time) should go towards the center while the weaker ones go on the outside, this helps even out the pack over time (due to heat buildup). This leads me to my second point and that is that heat kills these batteries much faster than cycling through use. Batteries up north last a relatively long time since they tend to stay much cooler on average while in use (hot season is very short). Bottom line is you're comparing apples to oranges if you try to compare rebuilding results in Texas with someone from Wisconsin.

 

Maybe too much maintenance on the battery?

 

Most cells in a battery pack are going to wear fairly evenly. If you're now at the point that multiple cells are failing within a fairly short time, then your battery pack is probably shot.

The worst that would likely happen if you keep driving the car with a faulty battery is the car breaks down while you're driving and you get stuck.

 

Maybe, who knows. Or it could have been due to sitting for 17+ days (wife was suppose to drive it while son & I were away but didn't).

 

Remember the only reason the battery lasts 10 years is because Toyota limits the SOC of the battery to 40% - 80%. If you constantly go outside that range, it'll decrease the battery life significantly