Bought a 2007 with 204,000 miles with a bad battery, what to do now?

Hello everyone!

I bought this 2007 Prius with 204,000 miles on it, sight unseen from the salvage auto auction Copart for $1800, no damage, runs and drives, donated vehicle, I thought how could I go wrong.

Now I realize that there are many ways this could have gone wrong and it was quite foolish of me...

To begin, Coparts buyers fee was outrageous (very stupid of me not to check this beforehand), with all the other fees they tacked on, I was down $2350 all said and done.

When I went to pick it up the 12V battery was completely dead. After a jump it started right up and I was on my way. It drove fine on its way to the interstate, no lack of acceleration or anything, then the big red triangle and all the other lights came on. Still I merged onto the interstate and it drove without a problem to my destination 20 mins later with a trip avg of 49mpg.

I bought a new 12V battery for $180 installed it and checked the codes, P0A80 and P3023, replace hybrid battery pack and battery block 13 becomes weak, darn.

I decided to take out the HV battery fan and clean it while I had the interior apart to replace the 12V, it looked good, just a bit dusty.

The internal combustion engine felt smooth on its maiden voyage, and I had no problem cruising at 75mph up and down the somewhat hilly interstate. Well, after cleaning the battery fan, I did an oil change...

Half a liter of black, black oil came out. Half a liter...

It's full of fresh 5w-30 now, but this makes me wary of how this vehicle has been maintained.

I have only driven this Prius for two days since then, I have seen the battery indicator go from one bar, up to almost full, sans one green bar, back down to one bar in the matter of minutes.

The acceleration from stops is abysmal, the battery needs to be replaced, I've accepted this.

However, yesterday I am accelerating up the on ramp to the interstate, I get up to 60mph and the internal combustion engine rev's high, really high, and stays there, I take my foot off the accelerator, and the vehicle slowly accelerates. I know what your thinking, but it's not the floor mats, they are not installed. So I take the next exit, shutdown and read the codes, P0A80, P3023, and P3024. Another one bites the dust.

After looking around I cannot figure out what caused the racing engine. I put it in drive and take off, after about 40 more highway miles on 3 different trips, this has not happened since.

So I am now trying to decide how not to lose too much money on this ordeal, is this racing engine a sign of a larger problem? Or is it just a byproduct of the bad HV battery? Should I invest money in a new/reconditioned/salvaged battery? Should I look into options on how to recoup some of the money I spent on this vehicle? What is the meaning of life?

There is a HV Battery on my local Craigslist right now. It is from a hail damaged/front end damaged 2007 with 113,000 miles on it for $750. The seller says he bought the car to part it out. He checked the voltages on all the cells at 7.5-7.6 volts, and he has had the car apart for six weeks. I asked if he rebuilt/refurbished the battery and he says no, he just took it apart to check the voltages so he could feel comfortable selling it.

Could this be an option I should feel comfortable pursuing, knowing the money I have already put into this?

I would be installing the battery myself. I am no stranger to turning a wrench, but I admittedly know very little about electricity.

I have been reading up on how to rebuild the battery on this site and have been feeling overwhelmed, even though that's the option I would really like to pursue, it seems a little too time consuming to me at the moment.

How do you think I should carry on? Is that $750 battery worth the risk?

Thank you for your thoughts in advance!

P.S. I have a blue tooth OBDII reader, how do you clear the codes while the engine is not running? If I hit the start button without a foot on the brake, the main display lights up, but the reader will not connect. If I hit the start button with the foot on the brake the ICE turns over and never turns off, I am afraid of clearing the codes while the motor is running.

 

Thanks for your response. I have been leaning towards the $750 Craigslist option as well. I just wanted to make sure that problem where the motor surged in RPMs on the highway wasn't a common sign of bad things to come.

 

That's what I thought too, thank you

There aren't any shops near me that specialize in Hybrids, which is surprising to me. There are quite a few that list hybrids as something that they do work on though

 

I want to thank everyone for their replies. Shortly after my last post I decided to buy the $750 craigslist battery. Installing it was quite a bit easier than I thought. Everything went well and now the car drives normally without any warnings or check engine lights!

With that said, I am still a bit leery on its performance. I have since driven 275 miles in the past month with about 35/65 city/highway driving, and I have averaged 48 mpg, which is great!

However, here are my two concerns:

1) When coming to a stop in the city, the ICE turns off, which from what I know is expected, but it seems to run really rough and shake the car in the final second before it dies, is this a common malfunction with a fix?

2) From what I have been reading, the battery/electric motor should be capable of bringing the vehicle to speed without the ICE within the city. From my experience the ICE kicks on with every acceleration from stop. Even with absurdly slow acceleration and green bars, it will kick on around 5 mph. What could be the cause of this?

Thank you!