Water damage Hybrid Battery Totaled? No one will touch it

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life The spark plugs are toast because the car sat in the rain the wiper tray covers the spark plug extensions in the top of the valve cover unless that's been removed for some reason not likely though your wipers are still there right? So to mess with the hybrid battery at this point the first thing you one should do is lift up the tray in the trunk with the car off and nothing happening remove the spare tire and push one of those rubber plugs that you see in the spare tire well perfectly the one right under the battery or right closest to the HV battery You just poke your finger in it it'll pop out on the ground You can pick it up and retrieve it if you want I usually leave that one out so when water gets into the area it has a way to get out called the pass-through I also take the plugs out if they're any in each of the side wells where the 12 volt battery is and where the little pocket is over on the other side In my cars I even take a drill and I drill a couple small holes where I see the water will stand and now it won't so water passes through if it comes in I personally don't have any leaking cars but this is just in case like I'm gone like you are in that happens water just passes through doesn't build up and get in the battery and all this stuff once that water drains out you can reach over on the left side of the battery and remove the orange plug which basically disables the battery more or less then you can touch things pretty much I'm not sure why or who won't touch it if I was there I would touch it all day long I've been shocked by this mess before pretty uneventful actually You get a little twang I wouldn't say grab 211 volts but just one side anyway that's where you're at you'll find somebody that can do something I didn't even look to see what area you're in but unless you're in some highfalutin you know these people are just trying to get you for money they want to tell you all this so you're scared and you'll pay a premium and not touch anything My air conditioning guys like this I don't mess with him much anymore.

 

Austin Texas you ought to have no problem there should be plenty of people down there that aren't scared of nothing alligators HD batteries you name it should not be a problem You should also have some independent shops down there that do the battery rebuilding and refurbishing It should be at least three or four in the Austin area I would think others here may advise You need independent people that I guess aren't scared.

 

Totally normal problem with an old Prius... I've dealt with it many times and person telling you no one will touch it is ill-informed and clueless. There's no such thing as "blown spark plugs." Sometimes water gets in there and screws up ignition coils if you drive in flooded areas, but that's not what happened to you and the mechanic is just making stuff up so he doesn't have to work on your car.

Prius leaks are common in Gen2. It primarily happens in the roof seams under the black trim strips on the roof, as well as the seams you see when rear hatch is open. You need to clean those areas and look for cracks and put epoxy on them.

Then in the spare tire wheel well and 12v battery well there's rubber plugs that you pull out with needle nose pliers from underneath the car to drain them.

Next step is to dry out the interior, which will happen quickly in Texas. Up here in the Pacific Northwest I put a big huge dehumidifier in there to dry it out real fast.

As for the electrical issues, do you have warning lights? What are the error codes?

You'll definitely want to pull out the orange safety plug to disarm hybrid voltage battery and remove the covers and check for signs of moisture and corrosion, especially where the voltage sensor harness plugs into the battery ECU and you might have to replace those parts if that's the source of the problem. A used ECU on Ebay is $100ish and a new voltage sensor harness is $80.

Once all this is done, you can continue to enjoy your Prius for years to come. If you lived near me I'd probably charge you less that $400 total for everything, and that would include the replacement parts I mentioned.

But in Austin, it's harder than that. I just asked my neighbor who used to live there for decades and he said every mechanic he interacted with in Austin was "fraudulent or threatening."

But perhaps you have a friend or family member who works on cars who could help? There's plenty of videos on YouTube and we can walk them through it all and answer their questions in this thread.

Alternatively, there's a really talented mobile mechanic in Oklahoma that might be able to schedule you for a visit: https://www.instagram.com/skimmilkhybrid/

 

can you drive it?

 

With blown Spark plugs? The humanity!!

 

Lol, Do you know what "blown spark plugs" are? it doesn't have anything to do with the car, it's a made up excuse that only lives in the dishonest mechanic's head.

 

Was the car parked in a hollow of some kind, so that water could enter from beneath? If yes you have a flooded vehicle and big problems. Otherwise, ignore everything this person said. True, the trunk area can get very wet if there is a leak from the roof. If it does the water going in is rain water, which is usually nearly indistinguishable from distilled water. Even if the HV battery was truly submerged in that it would probably be just fine once it dried out. Of course don't try to turn it on until it is dry. Soaking in water is one thing, running in water is another.

As for the spark plugs, more or less the same deal. If the car was not truly flooded then no permanent damage should result even if it got wet. And I really doubt it did get wet - none of my cars in 50 years of driving have ever had water on the spark plugs just from rain. (Driving through a deep puddle from rain yes, driving in rain with no puddle, no.) Nobody designs a car where that would happen. Can you imagine why?

 

You should just do it yourself

 

Ya that was the reason for the wise nice person remark.

 

my main worry would be, can someone find where the water is getting in, and stop it?

also, if there is mold, its quite a job to delete it.