Needing a new HYBRID battery, best option?

Leadfoot, that is a good point I guess for the majority of owners who get much more mileage than us. @2k1Toaster sorry if I made a bad suggestion.

At almost 29k miles now I'm not expecting ours to have trouble, other than HV battery, for maybe the rest of my life. (I'm 43). 4x8=32. 4x30=120. I'll be 75 and our Prius may have 150k miles at that time. At 83 years old it should have 180k miles. If I live to 91, 210k miles....

I've dealt with AutoZone products for a long long time. I won't say all of them are excellent. I won't say all of them are rotten conversely. Yes, I've had to replace parts sometimes once or twice, but there are others that have lasted so far among those with lifetime warranty. My labor is CHEAP. As I tried to clarify if I have to replace a part AND pay for the replacement that's a double whammy. If I don't have to pay for replacement I can afford to live with it breaking down. Downtime is an issue, but we have another car my parents can use while it is down if really needed.

I've only seen one battery vendor list a lifetime warranty on replacements, but they are reconditioned units, and this thread's title is regarding "new battery" sources.

Look, all I tried to do was suggest a possible enhancement product. I got "charged" with a personal attack in the process.

BTW-. Yes, I've taken Chemistry...

moto g(7) power ?

 

Thanks George W for sharing your experience AND your personal background as relevance!

I'm just here to share my thoughts on new batteries. I think that's the way to go, whether it's new cells or entirely new, these NiMH cells have a limited lifespan, and when they start causing problems, I do not believe it is worth it to try to fix them somehow.

Then I thought it might be nice to have a larger capacity pack, (same physical size as original if possible), and wanted to express that.

I then noted I would buy one.

I then remembered our car might not need one for a very very long time, so I noted how low mileage ours has as a disclaimer. (Who wants a potential customer saying "I'll buy one" but doesn't)?

I was told I'm damaging the car/HV battery by not driving it more.

I said I'm not going to go drive it more. That would defeat the purpose of a Prius saving gas. I noted I remembered someone at a Just Tires complaining to a store employee how "the customer is always right" and noted that is how I felt, said "Geez", which was labeled as a personal attack....


Anyways, I expressed all I feel is relevant to the thread, as someone seemed to complain people disappear and don't come back to report. Maybe you guys drove them away?....

moto g(7) power ?

 

You have the saying completely wrong. It is "The customer always THINKS they are right" When in reality, they usually are not.

 

And that reminds me of a posting on another forum. The poster said they drink (caffeinated) coffee at 2 PM and sleep well. Somebody told them they only THINK that.
The original poster tried to justify their position like this. The half-life of caffeine id 5 hours. That means at bedtime there is still 25% of the caffeine -- WHAT?? I guess I need to ease off the coffee.

 

Wow, go away for a weekend and miss 2 pages of responses!

That is exactly the use case that seems to kill the majority of Prii. It's a great car, it is working perfectly, you buy another car to replace it and now it sits more often. The old pack doesn't like that, and then it fails. Your car seems to be a great candidate for grid charging.

The Prius does lots of charge and discharge cycles when the battery is slightly out of whack right after startup. Especially since during warmup, it favours the battery. So lots of short trips I think is just as good as fewer longer trips for a Prius. Now, the engine part of the Prius HSD will NOT like that. You can't make everything happy!

I surely hope not, my Leaf has been "run into" 3 times now. That poor back bumper doesn't stand a chance.

While my primary residence is in the Springs, I have spent a total of about 3 days in Colorado in the past month and a half! I tend to think I live on an airplane, and I REALLY don't want to run into anything up at FL380!

But if you ever do need a battery, you're welcome to pick one up.

You are correct that NiMH "capacity" is minimally changed under storage. But unfortunately in the Prius, that's not the only the Prius cares about. A Prius when off has the battery disconnected (no load) which is best case scenario for storage. Assuming you keep the Prius in a climate controlled garage, you will lose about 20% SoC the first month and about 10% every month thereafter. The Prius before you turn it off, should be in the 40% to 80% range to start with (the only range Toyota deems reasonable for maximizing cycles). Obviously if you park with 40% 1-bar and go away for 6 months, you're going to have a bad time. But if you start at 80%, you have a chance of it starting when you get back. That's exactly where the 6-months max storage number comes from around here. Below about 8%-10% capacity, the battery doesn't have enough juice to start MG1 to turn the engine over. Now you have a chicken and egg scenario and you can't start the engine to charge the battery because the battery is too low of charge... Uh oh. Grid charge is the only option.

The main culprit for why sitting is bad for a Prius battery is that it is much smarter than your average piece of electronics that takes NiMH batteries. In most things you can mix-and-match batteries, even throw in some alkaline batteries and it just works because all it cares about is overall series voltage. The Prius is finicky. It needs a good overall pack voltage but then every single block of 12 cells needs to be pretty closely matched to every other block of 12 cells (14 blocks total). During these periods of sitting, the batteries self discharge. They also start to corrode their terminals, usually internally. It just happens with NiMH when they aren't being used. This doesn't affect capacity actually, but it does affect internal resistance. The Prius not only measures this value and requires it to be closely matched, but this is what gets you into trouble under heavy loads.

The larger the load through a higher resistance, the higher the voltage drop. You'll see many stories of hybrid batteries failing under heavy acceleration. Something like off the line, or merging onto the freeway, or just sustained higher speeds. All of this is a high current game and the cells varying internal resistances makes the sense voltages too far off and it fails. No amount of balancing can fix this, because the internal resistance cannot be reversed under normal conditions. A grid charger if it gets the pack up high enough can sort of bake this corrosion away and reconsolidate it back into the cell, but it's not a 100% efficient process so you still are going to have some mis-match and the high temperatures during this top end balancing does reduce capacity.

So while yes it is true that storage doesn't affect capacity directly, it affects the Prius' battery health indirectly. And this is easily shown by all the anecdotal evidence around. It is also in the warranty language of most hybrid batteries.

This is the part referenced by the Toyota warranty. If you're not doing this for long term storage, your warranty would be void.

 

I finally had the red triangle appear - I had minor surgery before the Governors lockdown and the car had sat for 6 days - DrPrius app indicated block 9 down by about a whole volt from the other blocks -I ordered the newprius battery a month ago when it looked like I would get it late April/early May - unfortunately the latest estimate is mid June - so I needed to do something to have a reliable car even in this stay at home period. I picked up 4 reconditioned cells from a Craigslist seller in Auburn and got into my battery- sure enough one of the cells in block 9 was really low (6.51v) relative to the rest (the rest were running from 7.70 to 7.80 with most at 7.78 when first measured) and when doing a subsequent headlamp load test on all of them it dropped much faster than the others - the reconditioned cells all were around 7.87 after setting for a couple of days - I put two of the reconditioned cells in block 9, took the good cell from block 9 and replaced the 7.70 (cell 28) with it - hooked up all the negatives and all the positives to balance out the voltages at 7.75- I put it back in the car and the battery has stayed in the top blue bar occasionally going into the green - it is much more stable than it has ever been since I bought it last November. However when I run Dr.Prius and the TorquePro app you can see the two replaced cells running at higher charge - so I am thinking a grid charge might be a good idea and might meet my needs over the new battery - however the Prolong website looks like it has as long or longer wait for availability than the new battery - how long does the Prolong charger take to recondition a battery set and are you still amenable to a charger loan to a fellow Washingtonian?

 

We could work something out, but your problem is the replacement modules have been reconditioned and the rest of the pack has not and no amount of charge and balance will work until the other modules are reconditioned as well.

However if you only replace one module in that bad block rather than both, the difference in voltages between blocks will be far less severe.

 

Get a new battery....... I have played the battery game...not fun... check with Toyota if needed. I have a newpriusbatteries.com unit and it works fine. But I have heard you can get a toyota replacement lower cost now. Just my 2 cents......

 

The @2k1Toaster kit more expensive than a Toyota replacement?

What @kenoarto reported from his replacement was ~$2150 installed.

Definitely more than the toaster kit and the added benefit with his kit is you can resell modules and further reduce your investment.

 

I sold my original batteries for $200..... to a guy on CL....... they were shot...... 200,000 miles 2013 pri v.

 

I checked with my local Toyota dealer and the quote was around $2000 if I installed it (1 yr warantee) $2300 if they installed it (3 yr warantee)

 

Doesn't the gridcharger recondition all the cells if you include multiple discharge/recharge cycles? I have acquired a couple of the B6AC RC car battery chargers and , given the stay at home orders here in Washington, could recondition the rest over time

 

If you don't need the total reliability of a new battery go for it. Just remember this will just happen again and again. Do you go out of town in the car? Ready for battery problems a long way from home?

 

Anyone contact CEBA for availability because of delay from newpriusbatteries?

 

Why??
@2k1Toaster verified CEBA cells do not even function at their stated specifications.
Their brackets look the same because @2k1Toaster helped CEBA develop the brackets.

 

That includes all labor, a loaner and a three year Toyota warranty. Battery can still be found a several Toyota dealers for less than $1600. FYI many dealers are offering 25% of parts and labor.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Yes, the grid charger balances voltages across all cells but that doesn't last longer than a day if your modules aren't matched up well. Once all modules have been reconditioned they'll match up well and then the grid charger is the final step and we can work that out when you're ready...

 

Toyota of Lake City sells a pack for $1650 if you install. Sounds like your stealership has a higher price than them.

 

The more recent poster with battery concern needed his/her car reliable ASAP, and late April/early May turned into mid June.

I know there was concern, but CEBA is a manufacturer who may have stock in hand, and should if I'm not mistaken have a warranty for defects such as low capacity. I'd trust these cells vs used ones any day.

Bottom line there's an availability issue right now. I asked, I did not say it's the best option, just might be a better option depending on current availability...

moto g(7) power ?

 

Do you really think trying to deal with someone in China to organize a warranty return is practical? It certainly wouldn't be fun for anyone who spoke no Mandarin (or Cantonese). Good luck arguing with them that their so-called 6.5 Ah (or even 8 Ah, in some cases) modules actually only measure out at 3 Ah! The return freight (plus the waiting) alone, will quickly evaporate any savings.

If the poster is in a time crunch, he would be better to bite the bullet and pay that extra to Toyota. In the unlikely event the poster needed to claim on warranty they at least he will be dealing with a bricks and mortar shop and real people locally. Even so, the chances of needing a warranty would be in 0-5% territory from Toyota compared with who knows what percent from Chinese sources.