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Prius Battery Replacement Kit (GenII/GenIII) with NEW custom cells

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by 2k1Toaster, Oct 13, 2017.

  1. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I don't buy them. All I can relate is the rants I get from people. And it is not isolated. I'd say about 10% of my contact forms start with these horror stories about dealerships refusing to sell them batteries, or refusing to allow them to pick them up, etc. I know some are refused after payment because I get "and now I can't buy another battery because it is going to take 2-3 weeks for the charge to reverse on my card and I need my car for blah blah blah". In those cases I try to ship out a battery before I get payment to get them back on the road.

    I hope in the future Toyota cracks down on rogue dealerships. Or just has a Tesla-style option. I just want to order a car from Toyota with these exact specs and I will wait 2 months for it to float over from Japan just for me.
     
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  2. Aegean

    Aegean Active Member

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    I do not disagree that people might have issues getting a new battery from Toyota. But the safety reasons excuse from dealerships it is a joke when in USA you can buy legally guns, alcohol, drugs and hundreds of other items that are a safety hazard for your life or health. A hybrid battery should be very low on the list.

    Now about the price of the aftermarket modules at $1600, it is just supply and demand. The market changed considerably this year not only with Toyota selling new batteries for $1657 but also with other vendors like Greenbean offering lifetime warranty for rebuild batteries $1449 installed.
     
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  3. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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    They kinda had to. @2k1Toaster deal was so good it was lower their price or die.
     
  4. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I mean we'll never know for sure. But aftermarket solutions existed that were crap for a decade and the price didn't change. Refurbished companies existed for a long time and the price didn't change. I publicly announce my new kit and a few months later the price changes for no reason that caught everyone off guard? Seems too much to be purely coincidental. Considering I hang around the Toyota plant in Georgetown often enough too.

    But it is good for everyone the price came down. Toyota should be able to lower their price to the $1200-$1300 range based on current material costs and me estimating their volume discounts, supply chain, and volume shipping logistics. I wonder if I do a fire sale they'll match it lol.
     
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  5. Aegean

    Aegean Active Member

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    You should try it and make these Toyota parts executives that make 20M a year lose their sleep. That would be fun!
     
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  6. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    You can't compare the Greenbean to the other two options.

    And $1449, wow. No-one should pay more the $500 - $600 for rebuild.
     
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  7. R-P

    R-P Active Member

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    I guess that would depend on the work they put in: the cheapest I saw for a junkyard pack was 500euro. (1euro is roughly 1 dollar). And I thought that was about the going rate in the US as well?
    If they actually did some module testing and matching, I'd consider 750 to 1000 a decent price. Which I probably wouldn't pay if I can get a new one for 1600-1800$
    But I agree, 1449$ is absurd. And given the horror stories from people getting their (lifetime?) warranty honoured (possibly from different companies though) and all accompanying cost NOT COVERED by the warranty associated with it, t does not seem like a good plan.

    Would anyone buy a 10 year old car with unknown miles on it for 80% of the price of a same model that is brand spanking new?
    Even if a mechanic had checked it out and claimed it to be in excellent working order? I think no one would even consider this, regardless of the claimed warranty that came with it.
     
    #727 R-P, Sep 12, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2019
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  8. Cory Potrafka

    Cory Potrafka Junior Member

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    So, I was considering ordering this kit. Newpriusbatteries.Com is not working, a concerning dead end at the very first step. You still in business?
     
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  9. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Yes all is well except we have a giant power outage. The store is working, store.newpriusbatteries.com.

    Have been without power for about 20 hours now with subfreezing temperatures....
     
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  10. Cory Potrafka

    Cory Potrafka Junior Member

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    Yikes, that sucks. I'll check out the store link. Do you have in stock and have an idea of when I will receive them after ordering/paying? I'm in southern Virginia.
     
  11. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Well ordinarily it would be same or next day ship out from Colorado. So 3 days about to get it. But with no power, we can't do too much. Hoping to have power (and heat!) by this afternoon so it would be tomorrow if ordered soon. Otherwise Thursday.
     
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  12. Cory Potrafka

    Cory Potrafka Junior Member

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    Ordered
     
  13. bruthajess

    bruthajess Junior Member

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    Brand new member on this forum, all though it has been my go-to site for many years for everything related to my 08 Prius (that has been passed along to my kiddo) and my 12 Prius (that will likely passed along to my other kiddo in the future). Just ordered my new Prius battery from NewPriusBatteries for the 08. I'm looking forward to getting it and installing it with my kiddo. I'll keep you all posted on the progress!
     
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  14. Tim Jones

    Tim Jones Senior Member

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    I have the aftermarket battery...working great...... $1600 delivered to my door.
     
  15. George W

    George W Senior Member

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    On my OEM batteries, the temperatures been higher (96-120 degrees), to the point of using an app to manually run the fan all the time.

    With the new cylinder pack, the temperature is so much more stable, every time I boot the smart app to check the temp, it's just a few degrees above ambient. Really liking the new pack!
     
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  16. WHCSC

    WHCSC Member

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    What app?
     
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  17. George W

    George W Senior Member

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    Hybrid Assistant
     
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  18. bruthajess

    bruthajess Junior Member

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    I got my new battery this past Tuesday but I was unable to start working on the car until last night. I unpacked the new battery last night and reached out to 2k1Toaster to get some instructions and he sent them right away. I started pulling everything apart in my (well, actually my sons) prius last night so my son and I could focus on the install this morning. All things considered it was quite easy, just a little time consuming working through the steps. It was certainly handy having a strong 18 year old help me lift that old prius battery out of the back and also lift the new one back in once it was ready. After we got it installed we turned on the car, cleared the codes, and everything worked like a charm.... no issues whatsoever! After that my 18 year old son said "it is so satisfying doing the repair yourself!" with a big grin on his face. Overall, I think you are getting a great deal on a brand new battery, but hearing my son say that after working on a project like this....well, that's priceless!
     
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  19. thomassurdi

    thomassurdi Member

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    Five
    I’ve been going strong on my new battery pack for 8 months and couldn’t the happier with it. The only hiccup I had was that my battery went out of balance and threw a bunch of codes because I didn’t torque all the little harness nuts to the correct torque spec which is very low. It was 100% my fault, and was easily fixed by re-torquing them with a torque wrench and letting the battery rebalance itself over the next few weeks. The moral of the story is, make sure you use a torque wrench for those nuts. Don’t guess. The battery Itself is awesome. You will notice that the fan comes on more often which Toaster assured me is a good thing with this explanation:

    “Our design gives space between all the cells for air flow. It also allows the temperature clips to attach directly to the cell. Additionally our enclosures are pure metal. Instead of reading the temperature of the modules through an insulator (plastic) which will artificially cool the numbers, you read it through a conductor (metal) which will give you the actual temperature of the exterior of the cell. The Toyota algorithm is designed for the plastic modules so they actually do a dumb addition to the reading which is fine. For example if the battery cell in the original car is actually 50C, it might measure 47C or below at the temperature sensor on the bottom of the plastic casing. The car will read 47C and the ECU will add 3C to make up the difference. With ours, when the cell is actually 50C the temperature sensor reads 50C. The car, not knowing we changed its design, will report 53C. This will cause the fan to turn on more often and higher setting which provides more airflow. This is good because it keeps the pack cooler more of the time.”

    I mean, the guy is a genius, and to be quite honest even if the Toyota battery pack was a little cheaper, I would probably go for this pack anyway. It just seems like a better design, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Toaster4K for giving us another option besides getting squeezed by Toyota.
     
  20. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    That's really nice that you were able to do it with your son! Hopefully you both had a good time and learned some things. :)

    Lol, thanks for the compliment! My pack which is the oldest in existence is still going strong. I recognize the fan cycle more prominently in the mountains which is probably the harshest terrain you can get. In the old packs you could go up and down a few long grades before the fan kicked in, but then it would not shut off until I parked to go skiing. It could be on for 30-60 minutes and as many miles. Now it turns on and off basically every accent and decent. As I crawl in to park, the fan is off. Makes me feel better than it is cooled when it needs to be cooled and not just baked to death!

    That is awesome that you guys both got it installed and it is working well!