Hello all. Got a question. I’m a diy guy as much as possible. (Cheep and proud) Got a 2012 Gen three base model. Car has about 150000. Normal city conditions with hills. Lots of road trips. Always kept the vent clear for the hybrid pack that’s in the back seat Hybrid pack went bad last year. Dealer tested and confirmed. Found that Dorman offers a reman through Chain part stores with a three year warranty. The whole tray air fan included. Swapped it myself and things were grand until last week. Threw the code again and dealer confirmed it was the battery pack again. Processing the warranty paper work now. My question is... would the inverter be the contributing problem to the battery dying this time? The reason I suspect is ever since I had the car it made this air compression sound about a minute every time I would shut it off. Sounded like it was passing gas. We call it Bartley the farting Prius. It came from the front of the car. All the threads I could find were vague and I was told to ignore it. Any help is much appreciated.
A re-manufactured battery is simply a battery that has had the bad cells replaced with used cells from another battery and balanced charged. I would not expect the life expectancy to be that of a new OEM battery. It all depends on how they stand behind the warranty. I would be interested in hearing how Dorman treats you with your warranty request. I agree that the noises after shut down are normal and not related.
I thought Dorman stopped offering the 3 year warranty some time ago. But if they are going to honor it, then that’s great. However, the fact remains that even their replacement is just another group of 28 used cells that passed their “testing” a couple of times. If you plan to keep the car, you might want to find a “core” battery so that you have one that you could either buy new cells and build yourself, buy the new cylinder cells, or buy the charger/discharger equipment and recon yourself.
Understood, however, this was a company vehicle. There are four identical ones where I work and mine is the only one that makes this noise. Yep all rebuilt for sure. I got it for the warranty. The price was about 1000 below dealer after rebate. It’s pretty easy to swap out so I balanced all the options and that was the best one at the time. So hoping to see how they treat me. I will update this thread when it’s all said and done. As far as the noise it’s not the normal clicks and whines. It’s a loud almost honk. I would record it but it won’t make it as it’s down. If it’s normal I’ve never heard any other Prius do it. I guess my main concern is there any possibility that the root cause could be the inverter. I haven’t done the JOV recall yet so I’m assuming and connecting imaginary dots. Yes I like your idea. I probably will go that route. Figure I never have to do a timing belt on this thing so that battery pack could be just another 100000 mile interval operation. I don’t have any other issues with it and I would love to keep it forever.
Not to worry about the sound. It's either the brakes or the evap system doing their thing. As to the reason for the traction battery failure, it's because it's a Dorman. Once in a while someone gets lucky and has one last a long time. Those are the stories that keep them in business. Sort of like a lottery.
Hi y’all, Wanted to update. I got the battery swapped out. The company is Cardone and they were super easy with the claim. The warranty was good for three years. I got it last November so it was still well within the time. When it comes it’s the whole tray with the cooling fan and components so the swap was super easy. I need to check on the extension for the warranty if there is any. I’m not expecting this one to last the life of the car but if I can get some more time out of it that would be great. Thanks for all your feed back. I will check out the brake system and other stuff too and update if I find anything.
Always get a NEW Battery....... unless you want to be stranded while out of town.... or will they come to you 500 miles from home....
Hey Tim, thank you for the response. I agree with you 100% However, for my circumstances at this time the cheeper route was all I could do. The warranty was honored through the manufacture and I did the swap myself. The initial battery reman cost me around 2000. The new one from the dealer was about 3500. I can’t remember their warranty but they would only stand by it if they put it in of course for another 1-2 thousand. Soooo I did the math. i as well carry towing and rental on my policy so that will cover me when I get stranded hundreds of miles from home. Just an option for people to consider who’s battery goes out. bought the car used and it has a lot of miles on it so aftermarket reman stuff doesn’t bother me once again thank you for your post.
And they will come to you 500 miles from home? What if you are farther than 500 miles? How long does the warranty last? I will file away this info in case I have the need to replace the battery. Oh, and what battery is it?
