European gen3 Prius failings :(

Since Socrates is getting his replaced, when they take the old one out, photograph it and especially the sticker with the P/N on it. If Toyota uses a different part, it has a different part number. Even things that look the same and work the same, but have a small internal rev difference always have a different number.

 

and if i dont take a picture of it you would think its b.s. ? BUT I WILL TRY TO SNAP PICS OF IT NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT FOR THE NON BELIEVERS . they seem to think that we complain out of spite !

and the heat in Greece isn't high its just a long lasting light summer that we get here and the traffic for the last 3 years has being very light because of the crisis many car owners stopped driving and started using public transportation... ideal city driving conditions ... any reasons that we might think of for the batteries dying is dismissed. AND THE PROBLEM JUST KEEPS ON AND ON . WHY WOULD TOYOTA PICK GREECE TO SEND THEIR WORST BUILT TO ??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TOYOTA SHAME ON YOU !

THE NEXT BATTERY WONT BE COVERED BY WARRANTY AND THEN THE NEXT AND THEN SOME MORE !!!

 

Here in San Francisco all taxis are hybrid. The shop I work at and other auto shops regularly sell the fan clean out service. I would guess that successful Hybrid repair techniques will become wide spread in the next few years. Technicians that service hybrids all over the world would be well served to join this forum to speed up the learning process. There is probably a language barrier to blame for slow spreading of knowledge too.

Hybrids are very different than standard cars. The positve - Hybrids have been more reliable than the standard fleet vehicles they replace like Ford Crown Vic and of course more fuel efficient.
The negative - Hybrids are more expensive to repair in a front end collision.

 

Well, using a high tech pedestrian vehicle for commercial gain may actually not be covered under warranty, and as has been mentioned many times, running the car 24/7 is going to "use up" the traction battery in a shorter time than normal, sorta bordering on chutzpah here, so... why not try to get your private insurance company to cover any cost's associated with maintenance and replacement of parts in the "cab" business?
And is the cab privately owned or owned by a Fleet? Either way, nobody get's a free ride
Might I suggest installing a better traction battery cooling system in prii that are going to spend their lives doing "service work"?
Might be a nice living for someone adapting the vehicles over for "service work".

 

Hi,iam from Greece iam a taxi driver and i have a big problem with a hybrid battery! My city have five prius gen 3 all the cars battery dead between 130000 and 180000km. If toyota have this problems, they mustent give this cars as a taxi.Every 14 or 18 months who taxi driver can pay 2500 euro for a battery pack! Gen2 prius have 400000km with no problem. Is anybody here to tell me something about this?

 

THEY SAY IT WILL BUT I AM STILL WAITING FOR A DEFINITE ANSWER I AM STILL DRIVING IT WITH THE OLD BATT. EVERY TIME TE CHECK HYBRID LIGHT COMES ON I TAKE THE SMALL BATTERY TERMINAL OF TO RESET SO THAT THE ENGINE WONT KEEP ON RUNNING

THERE IS A PIC OF MY DASH BOARD

 

my friend ask the cost and they tell him 2565 euro frindly price!! they are crazy every 15 months we must pay 2565 , i think that we ll take the judicial route!

 

My first suggestion is to stop writing sentences in upper case and using lots of exclamation marks. It makes you look irrational and poorly-educated and is quite likely to make people simple ignore you.

Second, if you come to a web site asking for attention and help it doesn't help to suggest that people don't believe you since they'll be insulted and then ignore you.

Your shouts may be in an attempt to embarrass Toyota, but in my view your approach is putting people off and hurting your case. There are Prius experts on this site and they're problem solvers who are very data driven. Emotion-filled posts just get in the way.

In my opinion you should be trying to gather accurate data from as large a set of Gen 3 cab drivers as possible, including those in other countries and including those whose batteries have failed and have not failed. Get data on the failures themselves. (Time of year, time of day, nature of the failure). And yes, get the part numbers of failing batteries. Hell, if you can, get part numbers of non-failing batteries.

Also, you should be trying to work on the operating conditions for the batteries. You wrote that Greece isn't really hot. Well, there are two things about that:
- Greece likely has hotter summers than many of major hybrid taxi markets in the USA and Canada. Athens is probably one of the hottest places in Europe. On an A/C company's web site (The World’s 10 Hottest Major Cities | Air Conditioning) Athens is ranked as the 9th hottest major city in the world.
- What matters are conditions that the battery is enduring, not the ambient temperature. So there's also impact from exposure to sun/shade, amount of A/C use, the effectiveness of the vent.

If Gen 2s were fine, the question is what has changed? Well, it's a heavier car with a larger engine, so maybe Toyota's leaning on the battery more. Maybe the venting changed. Maybe the battery fan isn't as good. They may simply have cheapened the car in a way that makes typical operation as a taxi in Greece outside the limits.

If you think it's specifically a parts problem because Toyota is using inferior components in European Priuses compared then you need to help show that. When somebody makes a suggestion to collect the parts numbers of failed batteries to compare to batteries in other markets (not necessarily even failures, there could be people here who would be able to check their battery part numbers) just do it without accusatory comments.

Anyway, here's an example of a Spanish forum thread where Spanish taxi drivers seem to give some replacement distances. Maybe you could use that forum to reach out to Spanish drivers to get information from them. (I searched for Madrid (2010 prius battery failed madrid) because the temperatures on the Madrid plain are some of the highest in Spain, although lower than Athens):
Mi Toyota Prius - NUEVO TAXISTA DE MADRID SE SUMA A VUESTRO FORO- problemas con la batería a los 170.000 km - Prius 3G 2009-2010-2011-2012-2013

 

As already mentioned, stop the caps.





People don't believe you because it doesn't make sense. We have empirical data from lots of other taxi operators, mostly in North America, where there is absolutely no problem. The fact that the taxis can go 400K or more miles without needing a replacement is used to bolster the reliability of the Prius in general.

In your thread, and every other thread you take over to SHOUT AT TOYOTA, you just make stupid claims and then never back it up. You stated in previous threads that you take your Prius to a normal taxi mechanic. He is apparently a great mechanic, but knows jack $hit about Prii. You also mention that you never change your ATF fluid because it isn't in the Toyota manual against the advice of everyone here. You also run the AC at full blast all the time and creep along the streets at super slow speeds almost forcing the car into EV mode which we know is detrimental to battery health.

Grumpy is the only one to actually post a sane question. Fortunately it is also really easy to prove or disprove. Since only the European market GenIII Prii are failing and/or having more problems than average worldwide Prii, perhaps different parts are made for that market for whatever reason. If this is true, then they will have a different part number than their North American counterparts. If they are exactly the same, then that is not the issue.

My other guess could be like what Grumpy says, but instead of different parts, they used a lesser qual part. For example, most silicon that semiconductor companies sell as consumer, industrial, and military are grown exactly the same in the exact same process, on the exact same wafer. The immediate tests on the wafer kill out the completely faulty parts. During final test after being cut, packaged, and bonded, different internal tests and stresses are applied to gauge the health of the parts that otherwise pass the tests. Some have defects that will only rear their ugly heads at temperatures in excess of 125C but are otherwise ok. So they are marked consumer class and out the door they go. If they are essentially perfect, they get marked military grade, and out the door they go for a much higher price. Toyota might have an internal quality check (this is pure speculation) and send lower grade devices to markets where they are expected to drive less and therefore the MTBF would equal those shipped to higher mileage areas like North America. These would more than likely not have a differentiation between part numbers.
We know that Toyota alters the Prius for the North American market already from the GenII. The bladder versus tank for petrol was the first obvious one. So there is already some differences. But as far as I know, the Prius master collective does not know the differences between the GenIII NA and GenIII Euro.

Perhaps buy a junkyard transaxle and battery from the states, import them, and see if they last any longer.

As to all the dealer quotes for repairs of a few thousand euros, that is pure bologna. We all know you don't pay that. Just like when your pure ICE vehicle's transmission breaks down, you don't go to the dealership and pay $4000 to fix it. You find a slightly used one, or rebuild the one you have, and have your taxi mechanic put it in for peanuts. I know you have junkyards, go use them. Most Prii die of accidents and have perfectly good parts just sitting there.

 

you my kind sir are a gentleman and a scholar . and if you believe this to be my reaction to your post? then i will thank you with a BRAVO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is not a toyota embarrassment attempt it's a cry a cry for something that i believed was the best of the best spent years that past defending and cut food from my table to own it and to prove others wrong and in the end it let me down ! the fact is that my education level is not what you might believe to be adequate but then it sounds like a good way to take away or pick away and discredit someone from the get-go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the fact is the battery broke down to soon way to soon from what successes stories Toyota love to use for advertising its product in the Internet !!! !!!!! !!! !!!!! !!! and i am well passed the point of asking for help and the ATTENTION IS NEEDED NOT FOR MY OWN SELF BUT FOR OTHERS THAT READ IN TO FORUMS LIKE THIS ONE AND ONLY READ ABOUT MINOR PROBLEMS. so for all my bad intentions and even worst delivery method THERE IS SOME HONEST TO GOD GOOD INTENT in it !!! i wish i had read of one such thread when i was reading in to buying a prius !!!! i would have opted for the AVENSIS instead and saved o whole lot of money in the proses . i used to get offended with people like me if they dared to say anything bad about the car ! tune ups oil changes tranny fluid cleaning of the ventilation systems on the traction battery hahahaaaaaaaa .... some times in life somebody needs to SCREAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I was referring to the negative perception, with the way that you post putting people off. It puts me off, but I've persisted this far, because I want to encourage you to take a constructive approach to the problem and to take advantage of the expertise here in order to get a positive resolution. A positive resolution would be better for you, better for other cab drivers and, through lower pollution and petroleum use, better for everybody.

Well, we got your message a long time ago: taxi drivers in Greece shouldn't drive a Gen 3 Prius.
We are not seeing battery problems reported by cab drivers in any other country here.
We are not seeing battery problems reported by non-cab drivers in any country here.

If you're not interested in gathering evidence that the problem is more widespread than Greek taxi drivers and you're not interested in resolving the problem I am longer interested in your posts.

 

In the 2-yrs I have been more active here, I have seen very little evidence that Toyota monitors this site. If I am wrong about this, someone from Toyota please send me a PM; but I am not expecting a PM. Even if Toyota were following this site, it would be Toyota USA. What has been effective on occasion a member will write a personal letter to Toyota USA. This site is really a social media site, where Prius accessories are sold, and where we can share experience and opinions on many topics, and specifically not a site used for communications with Toyota, except once in a while the USA marketing team stops in for a few non-technical posts.

As far European Gen3 issues, we are interested but seems to have no parallel here in USA. We have a couple of battery experts as members, who may have some insights on this. Also perhaps consider discussing with Re-Involt.com to see if they have any idea. Of course, Bob Wilson is trying to help.

 

Cheap aftermarket batteries will be on the market soon. A $2000 battery would be more like $1000 I would guess. I heard Doorman company the manufacture of aftermarket parts like window regulators will be the first to sell non Toyota hybrid batteries. Doorman window regulators , for example are $60-$80 instead of the $180 dealer parts. As hybrids become main stream parts will become cheaper.

 

There is a recent post that Dorman has bought out Re-Involt.com

 

Currently there is a hybrid battery check program ran by Toyota Motor Europe. 10 year warranty if serviced in official dealer shops. Good for private drivers, I think fleets are included but with a limit...

Toyota Hybrid Service Programme