I will be buying a gen 2 prius from a family friend in April (with a friend discount). The car has 125k miles and a dead 12v battery. The owner mentioned that it could use an oil change as well. I am a pretty good mechanic, but never looked at hybrids since they were a tad more than I was comfortable working on. I plan on getting a battery swap (not sure if I want to do the optoma yellow, or OEM, or AGM with lead swaps), and taking it through a quick drive through oil change and head down home (460 miles). Any warning signs I should be looking for? I will be limited on the tools I have since I will be flying in and borrowing hand tools from them to get the job done. Any wisdom is appreciated. I thank you all in advance.
Welcome to PriusChat!! How long has the vehicle been sitting unused; days, weeks, months? There is a possibility that the HV battery has gone south from sitting too long.
there are a lot of things on a 13 year old hybrid to be concerned about. #1 is, who is going to repair it?
Weird. I thought I replied, but i can't see it for some odd reason. I will update the adventure as I get closer. I have a backup plan to get it transported back after I fly for the title and if I fail to get it running
If you hope the car lasts 84 months, the Toyota 12 volt battery is warrantied for that. (Prorated) The Optima was a great choice when it was the only battery that fit. The cheapest on Amazon today is www.amazon.com/dp/B01DLGRPPM Here is your maintenance manual. https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms-s/T-MMS-08Prius/pdf/T-MMS-08Prius.pdf
The correct 12v battery has the small Japanese terminals and is typically carried in stock by NAPA and "Batteries + Bulbs", which are both nationwide. Duracell Ultra Platinum AGM Battery for 2008 Toyota Prius L4 1.5L Smart Key 325CCA Car and Truck - SLI51PAGM at Batteries Plus Bulbs https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NBP9851P Just about anything you'll need to work on can be done with a 1/4" drive ratchet and a set of metric sockets. 8mm-14mm. And the 10mm/12mm will cover 90% of that. An impact driver with a 1/4" drive adapter makes life even easier. Throw a new/good 12v battery in it and hopefully it fires up. Then force charge the HV battery for a couple minutes.
Or just drive it and see how it goes? Is there an inherent advantage to force charging? If it involves high revving a long-cold engine, maybe a gentle drive is better.
An old hybrid can either be a loveable piece of wonderful money saving technology or a money eating unreliable nightmare depending mainly on who you have work on it and what purpose you plan on giving the vehicle. If you're mechanically inclined I'd say go for it and use this forum to help you with the hybrid side of things. It's not rocket science. Just be cautious and you and your car should be fine. Personally I recommend taking every safety precaution just because you can and it won't hinder your work nor cost very much anyway. The HV battery will start acting up some 12 to 15 years after the car was new. With a few tricks you can get a few more years out of it when it does start going bad. A new OEM battery is expensive but will get you another 12 years. http://www.newpriusbatteries.com/ are a little cheaper and seem to be pretty good too. I'm skeptical of just about everyone else that sells Prius Batteries. The next most expensive thing that might go out is the brake actuator. I'm actually a proponent of having the brake fluid changed regularly because of this. In fact I'm getting my brake fluid changed at a dealer this upcoming Monday. Another problem is catalytic converter theft. In some states your only option is an OEM cat which can cost some $1,700 to over $2,000 for just the cat. If you can and don't mind having an aftermarket cat you might even want to change it out. The OEM cats are so full of precious metals that you usually get paid for the cat swap. But if you live in certain states or you want the best emissions possible you might want to be weary of cat theft and add a few deterrents. Old Toyotas are known for their burning oil, and the Prius is no exception (which also clogs catalytic converters). The best way to avoid this is to just do frequent oil changes (every 6 months or 6,000 miles, whichever comes first) with the recommended oil. Avoid parts on the web that could be counterfeit and don't use any thicker or thinner oil or "high mileage" oil or "high zinc" oil or diesel oil or such unless you're trying to bandaid a problem that's already there. I know that a lot will disagree with me and have their reasons for doing so, but I'm convinced that a lot of these Toyotas would not have the oil burning problem they have now if owners just followed this simple advice.
Sound advice, an OEM 12V is the only really option and they're warrantied for practically the rest of this cars life. I will say that in addition to this, if you don;t plan to drive this more than once a week this will have compounding issues as so many Prius suffer due to a failing battery pack triangle of death)) due to leaving it undriven--there are lots of chassis going to the junkyard because of this wave of cat thefts. Also, take a look at the rear area where the 12v battery is and see how much water and rust there is, because that could short a lot of things and create a premature death of the car. Other than that, just do as much reading here and watching youtube videos and you can get up to speed.
The second gen Prius has few common things that give problems. The good news is that they are so common that there are many threads here to address any of these. HV battery Water pump, 3-way water valve and inverter pump Brake actuator Wheel hub bearing assembly Combination meter AC condenser Transaxle is indestructible and engine can last 400k miles!
Thank you all for the valuable info. I am planning on doing the work myself and I will return with news.
Assuming that it's Toyota OEM, put some money into protecting your catalytic converter. If you don't, it will be stolen.
take (or have shipped there) yhe tools you need for battery change oil change 12v booster /jump pack air fresheners air gauge if it's been sitting a long time expect: dead battery dead rodents rodent damage dead tires rusted brakes I would drive around town as soon as it was running, do an oil change and put new tires on it. nothing makes an old car feel new again quite like the tires if you heavily spray wax the front bumper/windshield it will make clean up a lot easier from the road trip. fly n rides (motorcycles) are the most fun ever. fly n drives a fun too, you just miss some of the elements of adventure
Just got the car home. Working through some evap codes, flickering head light and front brakes. Fantastic gas mileage and comfortable to drive!
