Hi there, My battery is now 3 years old and I’m wondering what the consensus is on the best place to buy one. I had a bad experience on eBay before. Thanks for any intel!
3 years old My goodness I hope it's not bad yet wow you in a place where a lot of moisture gets in the car?
My OEM is going on 8 years now. Costco carries the Prius 12 V now. It's made by Interstate, but I can't vouch for it.
You're talking the 12 volt I guess If it's not acting up don't touch it see how long it'll go at the first sign of it acting up change it basically how it should go Sears has a new AGM out I think it's made by interstate supposed to be another little bit higher cold cranking amps which we don't really need to worry with per se so there's always that I mean all these things now are about 170 bucks plus just for the battery some people have played around with universal batteries and all that but you have to have adapters for the terminals and may not be worth the trouble.
Sorry, do you mean the battery? I don't know the answer to that. However, I bought the current battery in 2020.
You think? My beloved yet retired mechanic says 3 years is time. Not much moisture around here. It would be nice not to have to switch it out, of course.
Yes the 12 volt should make generally around 5 if it's a good AGM etc which I think that's all you can get nowadays
The OEM in my Gen 2 lasted quite a long time. I only got a couple years out of the O'Reilly replacement. I tried getting one from Interstate when that died - they didn't list one. I finally went to Advance and got a Die Hard AGM. Next time, it'll be the OEM again. The OEM in my Gen 3 is still going.
I bought my last prius battery from Napa last year after looking for a better price. I can't recall exactly what the price was, but I have learned that if you buy Napa batteries on line and then go pick it up the next day at the store, you can save quite a bit of money. Napa almost always has a 20% off coupon on line and sometimes you can find another 5-10% discount. I like the mid grade AGM battery, it is the identical battery as the most expensive one, but less years on the warranty is what I have been told by Napa. The core exchange is easy and can be done with one trip if you bring some hand tools and swap it out at napa. And the big plus is Napa is everywhere if you have an issue and need replacement or a charge or something. I bought 3 napa batteries this way last year for various vehicles and have had good replacement for free or a prorated price in the past. It is just crazy that these prius 12v batteries are $300+ with all the prius's everywhere, as with most things now in our economy, they price things as high as they can knowing we have no choice but to pay whatever they are asking. I would personally not trust one of the many "refurbished" ebay batteries I saw listed.
I bought my Prius 12v battery in 2014 from the dealer and 10 years later still runs strong. I measured SOH at 69% recently so maybe it would be time for replacement in a car with a starter. However, in a Prius that no CCA are used when starting it might last to year 12 or 13. Time will tell.
