How to deal with Toyota re: hv battery warranty repair

Let us for the moment ignore the obvious astroturfing in this post. (Impossible model, false BBB ID, 'Toyota says', his in ability to find this manual: http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms/T-MMS-09PriusWI/pdf/2009_Prius_OWI_lr.pdf wild claims that Toyota has altered the Warranty silently, etc)

Grant, and indeed all who posted here, jump from 'something is wrong with my gas mileage' to 'my HV Battery is silently broken' in one step. Actual owners who have had HV Battery issues find that the computers issue a multitude of warning errors. Other reasons for poor gas mileage (under inflated, incorrectly alined or incorrect tires, old 12 battery, dirty fuel/air intake, dragging brakes, etc.) are never once even considered.

If your goal is to bad mouth the Prius in the hopes someone (anyone) will buy a Dodge Dart, you have come to the wrong forum. Prius owners have taken the first step away from oil consumption, few will go back. Leaf and Volt both claim the largest percentage of new owners is Prius owners, looking to go forward.

If you have come to try to lever Toyota into replacing a $2500 part instead of considering inflating your tires, you are in the wrong place as well.

If you want your gas mileage back and want help finding where it went, this is a great resource. Tell us about your car (Ideally one that was not a base plug in 5 years before such a car was made) And let us try to find where the issue is.

Fuel economy complaints/queries? Please copy, paste & answer these questions, esp. if you're new | PriusChat
Weird stuff happening? MPGs dropping? Test The Battery | PriusChat

 

Don't bother with trolls, it is a wasting of time. Just notice, that warranty conditions are different region to region. Example: in Europe we have 3 years/100,000km full warranty and additional 2 years/150,000km for HSD components. Wear&Tear components are excluded.
Edit: the warranty limits are for Prius 2010.

 

The Toyota warranty in Europe varies by country but all countries get an 8 year 100,000 miles (or metric equiv) on the hybrid components.

Under EU law cars guaranty's are transferable among any EU member country's and cars with left or right hand drive must be supplied to order in any country.

This means you can order your car of choice in any EU country "to take advantage of any price difference in that country" and take it back to your own country with a full guaranty.

 

I know we are in PII forum, but I think it has been changed for PIII with limits I wrote.

 

I

I see you have a 2010 Prius and that particular year did have a shorter guaranty but because of many complaints to Toyota later year cars were given the same guaranty as the gen2 Prius with the HSD components going back to 8 years or 100,000 miles.

 

Are you sure?
Toyota UK - Toyota Warranty | Insurance & Warranty | Toyota UK
Could you share the link for Toyota EU warranty conditions?

 

Yes read your own link :- Mechanical 5years 100,000, HSD 8years

 

And California imposes a longer warranty period of 10 years/120,000 miles, IIRC, on the hybrid powertrain.

 

IIRC, all CARB states which includes California extend the warranty to 10 years/100,000 miles. I saw a list of them a day ago posted here in PC. I read it on a warranty posted for the '09 in this string (post #21.) I believe they are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island along with California.

Source: http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms/T-MMS-09PriusWI/pdf/2009_Prius_OWI_lr.pdf

EDIT: Please refer to Page #7 of the warranty which is specified in the above link. It plainly shows that the traction battery (hybrid battery) is warranted for 120 months/150,000 miles. I did make a error in this post, and am correcting the error with this edit. Thanks to cwerdna for pointing out my error.

Ron

 

Interesting that they do that. I knew that other states could apply for permission to impose CARB emission tests, but didn't know they also adopted CARB's arbitrary rules also.

 

I may be full of BS here, but I think one of the stipulations is if you want to impose the tests, you would need to adopt the rules also. I am no legal beagle. The rules/regs are really difficult to keep up with from state to state, much less from country to country. It is my understanding that Toyota does offer a longer warranty on certain hybrid parts which include the traction battery to the "carb states".

Ron

 

Probably 99% of CARB's rules don't affect the emissions; they're more for "revenue enhancement". The new rule effective 1 Jan 13 doing away with the "sniffer" test on OBDII vehicles will result in more pollution, but keep the money rolling into CARB. Thank God my Prīus is exempt from SMOG tests; I don't need to be giving more money to CARB.

 

From what I have seen here in Texas, the annual inspection that is done on the late model cars & light trucks (OBDII) no longer have the sniffer run on it. They simply plug into the OBD port on each car and check for codes. As long as no codes are present AND the gas cap passes a test the vehicle is then approved. The very first thing the inspector does is to drive the vehicle to check stopping distance. They also check to see that all the lights are working properly along with inspecting the wiper blades, tread depth on the tires and make sure that all the seat belts work properly and do not show any excessive wear and or damage.

Edit: Now if that car or truck was huffing excessive smoke from tail pipe, usually the inspector will not pass the vehicle even if there are no codes present. There are smog rules in place down here too, and they are trying very hard to get all the old smoker's off the road. You see them once in a while, but near as much as you did five or ten years ago. Those that are still on the road usually have a black market sticker. Those can be had for a price, but you run a risk of being arrested if you are caught with one of them. Nowadays, money can buy you just about anything. I guess it has always been that way.

Ron

 

If my car can get to the yearly inspection place, I get a sticker with no more test. (my wife's SUV as well, not just a Prius)

 

Hybrid battery warranty in CA and CARB states is 10 years/150K miles.

 

fwiw on the other side of the fence my 2005 with 99,000+ miles still gets normal MPGs and seems to charge/discharge the traction battery normally.

I'm not seeing the 60-70 MPG I got 2 years ago but i'm still getting 50-60 MPG easily and I'm due for spark plugs, transmision fluid, and I'm letting the dealer do the oil changes with bulk oil (common known loss of MPG due to overfilling oil). Maybe I should pay extra for the 0w30 but it doesn't stay cold here that much.

The traction battery isn't a concern of mine at this point.

 

Yes, I agree. Thank you for correcting me. Page 7 of the warranty plainly states that the traction battery in the CARB states is warranted for 120 months/150,000 miles.

Source: http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms/T-MMS-09PriusWI/pdf/2009_Prius_OWI_lr.pdf

Ron

 

Saturday 12/29/2012, the following warning lights came on in my recently acquired '07 Prius:

• Yellow brake warning ((!))
• VCS
• Check Engine
• Red triangle of death

I was able to pull the following DTCs:

• U0100 Lost Communication with ECM/PCM
• U0111 Lost Communication with Battery
• P3000 Battery Control System

Toyota confirmed yesterday that the Hybrid battery was bad, and they said it was under warranty. My car only has 116k miles on it, and was getting ~46 mpg. The only indication of a problem was the ICE cycling more frequently when the car was stopped. Moments before the the warning lights came on, the ICE was idling high and erratically, and the car was down on power.

 

To me that sounds more like a problem with the battery ECU than the battery modules themselves. But if they want to replace the whole battery for you (under warranty) then go for it.

 

Not only are they replacing the battery, they gave me a 2012 Prius V while mine is in the shop!