Dorman Battery Experiences

Google who owns pansonic now .stevie and check your facts my link did not work check for yourself .

 

panasonic cordless phones? dang, thought we were done for the 'nite'.

 

King Loo,

Rather than give up on you, I'm going to make an effort... found the correct link:

Corporate History - History - About Us - Panasonic Global

Funny how the information you link shows absolutely nothing about its partnership with Toyota.

Here's Primearth's history:

History | Corporate Info | Development, manufacture, and sale of a hybrid car and the battery for electric vehicles (battery) | Primearth EV Energy Co., Ltd.

Hmmm... Primearth EV Energy Co. established in 1996, but corporate name changed to Primearth EV Energy Co., Ltd.

I wonder why?

Because it was Panasonic EV before...

Panasonic divested to acquire Sanyo to address monopoly concerns.

Toyota's battery venture with Panasonic gets renamed Primearth EV Energy

I hope education doesn't cause you discomfort.

Nitey nite.

The picture of the pack case you provided was of a Gen1. Surely you can zoom in to show that those modules weren't made anytime in the recent past...

Steve

 

Cheeck my post stevie

 

Corporate History - History - About Us - Panasonic Global

 

Steve,
The last picture in post #147 was the same Gen 1 battery. I guess I figured that would be proof enough but I was mistaken. I've never stopped to take pictures of a new Gen 2 battery mostly because I pick them up and take them straight to the customer. I'm sure I'll have one in a week or so and I will take lots of pictures for anybody interested. Maybe start a new thread, "Buying and installing a new battery".

Matt

 

Take look stievie may be you can comprhend show 20 percent toyota owenship

 

Last post for the night fact gen1 and gen 2 cells no longer in production gen3 yes goodnite

 

I am interested in what you do to prep a core for return. Are there official Toyota requirements? I imagine there could be differences from one dealer to another. It would be courteous to discharge the core modules. Or just leave the bus bars off. It amazes me that shipping high voltage batteries is not regulated as hazardous material.

Thanks, Brad

 

you can't fix stupid?

 

You must have many more facts that you can share, it's terrible being in the dark about such earth shattering information.
Hoping you agree water gives better mpgs than gasoline, and filling the tires with water doubles the already excellent mileage provided by burning water, just an example

 

I get the same list price of ($2588.67) here in MO. But they also charge customers a $1,350 core charge (your old battery) and around $1,200 for labor and installation (sometimes more) plus taxes. So it's usually over $4,000 by the time you're done to buy new from the dealer and end up with only a 12 mos. warranty. I offer new for $2,950 installed with a 36 mos. warranty.

 

So you're doing installs, procuring new Toyota batteries and installing them, for cost plus $361 labour charge. Not bad.

Edit: interesting refence on battery costs:

Toyota hybrid battery replacement cost guide (2016 update)

 

There seems to be a viable market that is growing for Prius battery replacement outside of a dealer. So far, it has been hit and miss. I've been putting aside $20 per week (with 7 years being my goal) and at that time, I will purchase a new one.

 

I realize this is quite an old thread, but it seems to be the only place that has real info on Dorman batteries.

First I want to say that the Toyota dealership that I called to get a price on a hybrid battery for my 2011 Prius (Temecula Toyota) told me that he could NOT guarantee that if I purchased my battery from them that it would be new. He said it could be new OR remanufactured and that what they get is what they get... same price for both, one year warranty for both. That being said, I chose to have my HV battery replaced at a private shop that uses Dorman batteries. I had no idea that Dorman batteries were reman at the time. It was installed of March 2016.

My original battery is another story. The reason it died is because the cooling fan clogged and the battery overheated - without warning - until it was too late. I did not know about the cooling fan issues until after the HV battery died. It was JUST outside the warranty coverage expiration.

But back to the Dorman... Thanksgiving week 2016, 8 months later, CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM pops up while in Nevada on vacation. Took it to Findlay Toyota. P3004. Bad inverter. They replaced it free of charge under the new 15 yr warranty on inverters for certain VINs, which was great except that we had to pay for a rental AND had to drive home in the rental AND drive back to Nevada to pick-up the car once it was done. Ruined our vacation.

Nine days later... CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM again. We take it to Temecula Toyota. P3004-131. They said they called corporate and corporate said Findlay Toyota never should have replaced our inverter b/c we had an aftermarket HV battery because the battery was the real problem. Only solution is to buy a new battery from Toyota or take it back to the shop where we bought the Dorman battery to have it replaced. Rental #2 while we took it to the other shop to get it checked-out. They said Toyota cleared the codes but checked-out everything for us. They could not find anything wrong.

A week later CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM... AGAIN. P3004 again and some other codes they did not tell us. This time they check everything. The problem IS the Dorman battery. They installed TWO more Dorman batteries, and both of those were bad too. I am not even kidding. (Two more rental cars!)

So my Thanksgiving vacation was ruined, and now my Christmas break is being ruined because I chose to buy a Dorman battery. The shop demanded they send a brand new battery (but I found out tonight that Dorman does not make new batteries) or buy us a Toyota HV battery. Tomorrow will be 2 weeks that we have been without our Prius.

I wanted to put this information out there. It *feels* like we will never have a resolution to this. This experience with a Dorman battery has been a complete nightmare. I don't care how nice or fast they are. I cannot get back the past 6 weeks of my life. And it's still not over.

 

Another strange thing that happened since having the Dorman battery is that the positive terminal on my 12 volt battery corroded horribly. It was perfectly fine before the Dorman battery. I replaced that 12v battery before we found out the Dorman HV battery was bad, just to be sure it wasn't causing problems or the reason for the corrosion.

 

welcome!
sorry you got bad info from one toyota dealer. yes, it's still hit or miss with dorman unfortunately.
how many miles on your car? toyota often gives good will discounts on bad batteries close to warranty.
all the best!

 

I hate to "like" such a miserable first post but thank you so much for posting your experiences. Too bad you didn't join here when you first had troubles with your 2011 as we would have STRONGLY suggested you try for a goodwill warranty but that's water under the bridge.

GOOD LUCK with getting all this worked out.

 

I'm curious to know how many miles you have on it as well. This is one of the rare Gen 3 battery failures I've heard of. I'm assuming Toyota didn't cover this under warranty because you have greater than 150k miles.

 

Kind of a long story. We had problems with Temecula Toyota before. We had the ECU recall service performed along with brake service in July 2015 at 145,325 miles. Immediately after we started getting 32 mpg. We used to get around 45 mpg on average. We thought maybe brakes were dragging and took the car back a few times. Temecula Toyota insisted there was nothing wrong with the car each time. MPGs only got as high as 38 after that. March 2016 was the P0A80. Mileage was at 171,705, definitely outside of the warranty period. We lost trust in Toyota after the ECU issue, and since our battery was out-of-warranty, we decided to try a private shop. But I still called Toyota to compare prices. I think we saved maybe $500. I would have GLADLY taken it back to Toyota to replace the battery had I known the problems we would experience. But, like I mentioned, Temecula Toyota told me they could not guarantee I'd get a new battery. Could have been new, could have been a remanufactured one.

I will say this, though... immediately after the HV battery was replaced in Mar 2016, our MPGs went back up to about 48 but soon settled around 42. After the inverter was replaced in Nov 2016, our MPGs were ranging from 50 to 60 for the brief time we had it before we got the next CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM. So many highs and lows with this car. We never had a problem with it before they flashed our ECU. The service writer at Findlay Toyota was the first person to admit to us that he had heard of that happening. That guy was a saint snd went out of his way to make our experience as painless as possible.