2nd Main Battery Failure in 9 months

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Mattirs, Jan 8, 2019.

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  1. Mattirs

    Mattirs Junior Member

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    My 2005 Prius has 248K on it and the main battery finally started to fail on us. Last March we replaced it with a refurbished battery from GreenTech Auto, the middle level, before any codes were thrown. After 3 months the battery started doing the same thing as the old one did, would discharge quickly at times, in the mornings it would only be two bars when parked the evening before it was in the high blues. One day while driving to work it through all kinds of errors one of them being the P0A80 along with the triangle of death plus the cooling fan was running at full blast. I took it in and they replaced it. After about 5 months it is now doing the same things without the racing battery fan.

    Could there be something else that is causing the battery to go bad that does not through an error code?
    The only ones we are getting now are the P0A80 and the P1121 plus the triangle of death.
    Am I just unlucky in getting two bad batteries?

    Thanks,
    Matti
     
    #1 Mattirs, Jan 8, 2019
  2. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    You're not unlucky, you're like everyone else that buys used batteries. That's what a refurbished battery is.

    I guess you should just get another replacement until it fails again
     
    #2 JC91006, Jan 8, 2019
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  3. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    Refurbished batteries as simply a bunch of used cells placed in your pack. Unless balanced, failures will continue.

    Are you the DIY type? Will green tech replace the battery again?
     
    #3 Raytheeagle, Jan 8, 2019
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  4. ILuvMyPriusToo

    ILuvMyPriusToo Senior Member

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    +1. Refurb batteries often seem to be problematic. Make sure they cleaned the fan unit that cools the battery.
     
    #4 ILuvMyPriusToo, Jan 8, 2019
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    make a commitment to a new battery, or a new(er) car
     
    #5 bisco, Jan 8, 2019
  6. Aaron Vitolins

    Aaron Vitolins Senior Member

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    Refurbished battery are unfortunately garbage. The original can get you quater of a million miles but refurbished can't even do a few months :(
     
    #6 Aaron Vitolins, Jan 8, 2019
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  7. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Oh my. Another victim gets pulled into the refurb whirlpool. Refurbishing can be successful to a degree, but you need to invest significant time and effort into the process and very few businesses are willing or able to do that. Eventually, they will be unable to honor their warranties, but others pop up in their place.
     
    #7 jerrymildred, Jan 8, 2019
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  8. sam spade 2

    sam spade 2 Senior Member

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    There are all kinds of "rebuilds" with HV batteries.
    That usually means that they replace ONLY the cells that have actually failed and you end up with a battery that is, as an example, 20% new and 80% old.
    The old cells will continue to fail as time goes on.

    This is not a unique situation and will continue indefinitely.
    If you are lucky, you have a good warranty and future failures will just cost you some time and little or no money.

    Do some searching on here. There probably are several hundred threads about this.
     
    #8 sam spade 2, Jan 8, 2019
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