So I just read the posts on what the life is supposed to be for the batteries and the warrenty. But what I would like to know if what are people actually seeing? How many batteries have had to be replaced after warrenty, (uhh or is that not possible yet cause it has not been 8 years since thier introduction??) and how many have been replaced on warrenty and with what effort or struggle with Toyota? Dave
I haven't heard of any replacement. The most mileage that I know of (and still going) is over 200K in a taxi.
There've been only a handful of battery replacements reported online. Most were due to failure of individual faulty cells. None were for the battery "wearing out". There are quite a number of people with well over 100k miles still going strong. This should not be something to concern you about the Prius any more than a transmission does in a conventional car. You may have one fail prematurely, but there are no widespread issues with them dropping dead 10 miles after the warranty expires.
Mine was replaced under Warranty. The story is on here somewhere. No problems with Toyota. Clean as a whistle. *edit by mod: LINK To Story
Based upon posts to the internet chatting groups, the failure rate of Prius HV batteries (after the ostensibly-Japan-only NHW10) is between 1/1000 and 1/10000. Almost all have been under full warranty, some partially Toyota-paid, and at least one bought a battery from a vehicle that had been crashed. In other words, HV battery failure appears not to be an important issue so far. At just about the same failure rate are Prius transmissions. Toyota does not suggest precautionary fluid changes, yet there is some chat-group evidence that these may be appropriate. I suggest that any Prius driver who elects to have the trans. fluid replaced at about 60k miles will not have done very wrong. There is really not much to complain about with these vehicles. Toyota made them well, supports them well, and in only a very few instances are we chatters pushing back. Buying another vehicle, you could do a lot worse, that's all I have to say.
