Burning oil/needs new hybrid battery

Bad advice from mechanic...

A quart of oil lost every 2K miles is close to normal for a car with 175K miles...

As for catalytic converter, yes OEM ones are very expensive, but if your cat fails an aftermarket one costs less than $100 so it's not going to be an issue.

 

Unless you live in California. CARB has to approve the replacement CCs, which makes them expensive.

Toyota Prius CARB Catalytic Converters | MagnaFlow

 

... or a state that adheres to CARB standards.

 

U make no sense

 

@Spiral80 Almost anything can be repaired and maintained...with cost and effort. Only you can decide if and why you want to start throwing big money at an old car. For everyone else...Nevada City is in CA.

 

Not sure what is the issue with the battery. Depending on use they can last for a long time. If you do a lot of high speed or hilly driving and the battery gets to the bottom of the scale on the display, how long does it take to recover to the top third of the picture? How many bars does it typically show on start up? Regardless, rebuilt packs are about 700 bucks installed and will last for a few years. Mine is on year 6 and has no issues.

 

That was my point. Well, it could be the one in Montana, but I doubt it A mechanic in Montana would have told the OP not to worry if the cat fails because they can just bolt on an aftermarket, which isn't expensive, or (looks around to be sure they were alone), just put in a straight pipe (you didn't hear that here) because there are no inspections.

 

This may be true for you, but as time goes on and the used battery stock becomes older and weaker, it will be less true for others.

This one where mileage does vary and the variables are many.

 

There are two things going on. The first is that the oldest available modules are now very old, one really wouldn't want a pack made with a 2004 module regardless of how it was reconditioned. The second is that there will be modules entering the rebuild pool from packs which were replaced fairly recently. Are there manufacturing date stamps on the modules themselves? If so, seems like the purchaser of a reconditioned pack would want a list of those. I have never bought a reconditioned pack for this vehicle, perhaps they already supply that?

 

Good advice from your Cali mechanic...

I would get something that meets your current needs. The Prius has resale value as is; waiting for the big repair is a bad time to sell.

Your car is 17 years old. In addition to a hybrid battery, oil burning will eventually take out the cat (unless it is stolen first), brake boosters fail, coolant heat storage systems act up and routine maintenance costs accumulate.

 

I've spent too much time with battery rebuilders who have spent tens of thousands in lab-grade testing gear and decades of experience to agree with you. The age of a battery module doesn't define its lifespan, it's use over time defines its lifespan.

What's more, basic scientific knowledge of NiMH chemistry and its need for periodic reconditioning to maximize its lifespan is something Toyota eliminated entirely in order to generate more revenue and create a massive amount of fraud and waste.

They are lying about packs needing to be replaced about 70% of time. When it comes to actual materials' science, corrupt and greedy corporations are very much anti-science. Even the general check engine light for all issues with hybrid battery has a description that is often a lie: P0A80 - Replace Hybrid/ev Battery Pack. All you could have is corrosion or a bad wire and the Toyota Stealership will insist you have to pay $4K on a new pack before they even do further diagnosis, they just point to what the error code says and that's how to fix the problem.

It's been demonstrated on here countless times, the stealership just shrug their shoulders and says more expensive stuff needs to be replaced AFTER customer drops $4K on a pack and it doesn't solve the problem.

Think of how many low income people who have had their lives ruined and lost the only car they could afford to put gas in because of this level of corruption at Toyota?

 

I rest my case

 

Sure, but there is simply no way the purchaser of a refurbed pack can determine the latter value for a module. Not even the people putting together a commercial refurb pack will generally have any information on that. If the modules have date stamps then at least in theory that information can be shown to the purchaser who can use it as a proxy for the other unknowable value.

 

The rebuilders offering 3 to 4 year warranties and not going broke doing so are the ones who can tell us way more about a modules history than we thought possible. Also, the big companies offering lifetime warranties, have similar abilities, but they've proven to end up going broke and getting bought out, like GreenBean for example.

 

How much is it for a new (not reconditioned) HV battery in your area Spiral. From what I've read it should be about $2k or a bit more, is that correct.

If you've owned the car for a long time and it's in otherwise good condition I'd consider getting a new battery. One quart oil per 2k miles is not that much and mine (currently at 280k miles) never increased much past that in the last 120k miles anyway. That's equiv to 300mL per 1000 km, which is roughly what mine has been consuming for years now without any great increase. Yours could easily go another 100k miles plus without oil consumption being a big issue, just make sure you keep the oil up to it and use a good robust oil. I find oil with an "ACEA A3/B4" rating gives me lower oil usage compared to more the 'fuel economy" rated oils like ILSAC GF5 etc.

BTW. I put a new (from Toyota) battery in mine at about 300,000 km, and oil consumption was similar to yours at the time. That car is still going strong at 462,000 km and I've never regretted buying the new HV battery for it.