HV Battery Goodwill Warranty Listing - Toyota Prius USA

First off, huge thank you for this original post. If I had not read this months ago, I would have had no idea to ask for this and would probably be shopping for a new used car.

In short, I have an '07 which I bought around 4.5 years ago with 30,000 miles as a CPO from a Toyota Dealership and have had all maintenance done at a dealership. At this point, the car has around 163,000 miles on it. Additionally, within the last two years we bought a new Prius V and then traded it in for a used Rav 4 based on a job change of circumstances. I actually did not even need to tell them all this, they were able to see the history of all 3 vehicles from the cell # I called from...

Anyways, this morning I received a call from our local Toyota dealership who said their diagnosis identified one of the cells within the hybrid battery had failed. Dealership quoted me about $3,100 to replace the hybrid battery. When I asked, they gave me Toyota headquarter's number (800-331-4331 extension 4, extension 2) who I then contacted and requested goodwill assistance. They sent me a verification e-mail and said it would probably take 24-48 hours. Within an hour Toyota headquarters called me back and lowered the total cost of the job from $3,100 to $2,800 and offered me $2,000 in goodwill credit bringing my total cost to about $812. I thanked them profusely and moved ahead with the repair. As if this were not enough, they even thanked me repeatedly for being a loyal customer and said numerous times how much they appreciate us.

I will take a look at the bill at the end of the week when the work is all done, but I am wondering if in essence Toyota covered the parts while I am covering the labor. Not sure, but either way, I could not be more impressed with Toyota. We will definitely be sticking with Toyota vehicles for the rest of our lives.

 

Just wanted to add my info in case it helps others.

I bought my 2006 Prius new in August or September 2006 in Maryland (lived in Virginia). I moved to Georgia in 2007 and have lived here ever since. I've had a few relatively minor issues with the car and had most service performed at World Toyota in Atlanta, although I recently started going up the road to a hybrid specialty place that doesn't try to upsell as heavily or talk me into minor but pricy services (World seems to want to clean the throttle body every other time I'm there).

Last week at about 149,250 miles, the dash lit up like a Christmas tree, including the red triangle of death. I knew immediately it had to be the hybrid battery; there had been some warning signs (charging up to two green bars, mileage decline, battery discharging quickly, etc.). Sure enough, World ran the codes the next day (7/20) and found the battery failure. They quoted $3398 including installation for a battery replacement. The hybrid shop charged $3350 for a new battery and $2750 for a refurb, so I decided to see what assistance I could get from Toyota.

I called the 800 number above (provided by the service advisor at World)--can't remember what option I chose but it wasn't hard to figure out. I explained the situation and the agent opened a case. It's CRITICAL to have your case # available each time you call.

And thus began an almost weeklong ordeal. I called back the next day, talked to a new person, and found nothing had been done on the case. The new person became the only person I would work with; each time I called, I asked to be transferred to her so I didn't have to start over with a new agent each time. I had to be diligent about calling back at least once each business day to ask about progress.

Finally, on Tuesday 7/26, the agent gave me Toyota's offer, which I accepted: $1500 assistance from Toyota plus a markdown of the price by World from $3398 to $2750. So my share would be $1250 plus tax. I was paying out of pocket for a rental because neither Toyota nor World would cover it, so that added about $225 to the total amount.

The car took a day longer than promised to be ready, so I got World to cover the last day of the rental. They also ended up making the tax disappear, which saved me a couple of hundred dollars.

The agent at Toyota never asked me to give a reason why I deserved the assistance, although I did point out that if I lived in a CARB state, the replacement would be covered under warranty. I had a pretty solid service record with World and previously a dealer in Virginia, which they may have looked at when making a decision. The service adviser seemed impressed by how much assistance I received and also remarked that at $2750, they were doing the work at essentially cost--no profit. There's no way to know if that's true, of course.

One other thing: Despite the prolonged wait for an offer from Toyota, I was unfailingly polite and patient with the Toyota agent. She was my advocate with corporate, and I didn't want to do or say anything that might incline her not to make my case as forcefully as she could.

I got the car back yesterday. I haven't noticed a huge change yet in the car other than the gas mileage for this tank of gas is climbing upward steadily. Service advisor told me the warranty is 3 years/36K miles on the new battery.

 

Adding my experience since this thread has helped me out tremendously...

2006 Prius, ~125k miles, warranty expired beginning of Aug. 2016

Brought in my car to the dealership 3 days (!) after the warranty expired and well under 150k miles. Dealership quoted $3300 for hybrid battery replacement.

I called Toyota to ask for goodwill assistance and they came back two business days later offering 50% assistance. The person I spoke with said their reasoning was that the battery was only under warranty for eight years, and thus was two years out of warranty. Even though this wasn't true, I was surprised that they were still willing to cover 50% of the costs for something that was believed to be two years out of warranty.

So, I pleaded with them for some more assistance since I was actually only DAYS outside of the warranty period. I spoke with a supervisor instead and explained the situation once again. She called back a few hours later after reviewing the case with her colleague, and said they would increase their assistance to 75% of the costs, which I gladly accepted.

Things to note:
• Make sure the person handling your claim knows that the battery is under warranty for 10 years if it applies in your case
• I've had a few Toyotas and Lexuses under my name, so that probably helped a little
• For the first 93k miles of the car's life, it was dealer maintained. I bought the car at 93k miles and maintained it through a family mechanic. However, I took the car to where it was maintained for most of its life in hopes that they would be more willing to give me a better quote since the car has a repair history with them. At a quote of $3300, I'm not sure this was the case.
• Both the dealership and the person handling my claim didn't think that talking to a supervisor would help my case, but I still thought it would be worth a try. Sure enough, I saved an extra $800.

Hope this helps others that are in the same situation.

 

Our 2005 Prius, in California, with 162,500 miles needed the hybrid battery replaced. All service had been done at the original dealer and we had bought the extended warranty. We did both things because the tech seemed new in 2005 and we got great deals on both that we learned about online (probably through priuschat).

Toyota's goodwill warranty program paid for the entire battery and we just paid $642 in labor. That's below any other options we looked at and the new batteries now carry a 3-year warranty.

I now feel goodwill toward both Toyota and Priuschat. Without this thread, I wouldn't have thought to call and ask for help.

Thread about asking for advice with what to do is here: the Hybrid shop battery reconditioning | PriusChat

 

only a 3 yr warranty for a $3000 battery? think Ill keep rebuilding mine as needed.

 

Beachbummm
Do you have a thread somewhere about your experience rebuilding. (number of times, number of modules replaced, frequency, etc)
Of not can we briefly talk sometime?

 

not a post but have replied with my experiences... I have owned 4 Prii (not at the same time of course) and had to rebuild the batteries on each when I bought them, never pay more that a grand for any of the cars, find them on craigs list.. the most I have had to do was change 4 mods in one car the rest were all 2 per car and I install a new yellow top 12 volt.I keep the car for anywhere between 6 months and a year, then sell them, I have never had a repeat battery problem . I cant say what happens after they are sold but no one has come knocking looking for their money back. I don't work on other peoples cars just the ones I buy.

 

I know the local salvage yard (LKQ) dose not sell the HV battery pack , Invertor or LCD display. when I asked why the manager said they are pre-sold to a company in mexico for refurbishment ...true or not IDK but that's the story I got

 

sounds plausible.

 

toy is doing beta testing in cali, new cells in old case for less money.

 

So there really isn't much of a long term record. Darn. 6 months to a year is not really what people are looking for.
Was hoping there was some linger term data.

 

well you are the expert so you know the data long before you asked the question ...
not everyone can afford a full rebuild or replacement HV pack or think a 10 year old car is worth the investment

 

Sorry, I realize that my previous post may have come off sounding wrong. I am not trying to be smug or all knowing. I am the first to admit that there are plenty of things I don't know.

When I asked about "your experience rebuilding", I meant how things turned out. Not what are your credentials. Does that make sense? I hope so.

I am truly interested to hear of how things are going for guys who are doing this kind of DIY fixes. Especially longer term anecdotes. I don't know how it turns out for these folks. Too often I only hear a few initial updates about how it went, but then the updates stop coming in so I always wonder how it's going over time. Did it last? Are they having to change modules every couple of months? Did it become too frustrating and they scrapped it? etc.

As you point out Beach Bummmmm, for some, playing whack a mole is all they can afford, or want to invest.
Great example is a young college kid who just bought a 250,000 Prius for way too much ($5,995), and within a week the battery fails.
Clearly the seller knew the battery was junk and totally ripped the kid off. The kid cannot afford to drop money on a new pack right now yet he needs a good-enough function car for the time being.

I was hoping you had started a thread somewhere about your DIY project that you could regularly update so we could all follow along to hear how things turned out over time.

 

Thanks for this thread--you guys just saved me a bunch of cash.

2006 Prius, 10.5 years old, 116K miles, CA, quoted $3500, will be $1300 OTD. Toyota kicked in $1500 and negotiated the cost of the service with the dealership. They cited brand loyalty (we own three Toyotas) as a major factor.

 

congrats! well done. (@Danny should be getting a % of all these savings.)

 

Thanks to those who run this thread -- you saved me $1000.

I live in CT (CARB state) 2005 Prius purchased in May, so it'll be 12 years next month (2 years out of warranty). 145K miles.

Toyota person was pleasant and emotionally supportive (this is just the latest in 2+ years of non-stop high-cost and high-stakes bad luck in my life). She ended up giving us $1000 off the total cost of replacement. The dealership didn't seem to have a markup on the battery and came in $600 less than the first dealership we had it towed to, so we'll take it.

She did specifically mention that the first thing they look at when considering whether to give any assistance was if you take your car to the dealership for service. We have two Priuses -- 2005 and 2009 -- and purchased the pre-paid service to 45K plan on the 2009, but other than that we've gone elsewhere (my husband's uncle is a mechanic).

She said that having two cars was great, but she's had people who have had 8 or 9 Priuses who used dealer for service. I told her, we're just not there yet... we've only had 4 cars in our life!!

That said, she did give us the $1000, which I am grateful for -- she didn't have to give us anything. She also mentioned that the main reason she did give us something is because the dealer service guy vouched for us and our character -- he said we were nice and respectful people (I was also pleasant on the phone with her), and that seemed to go a long way.

What I learned : 1. Go to dealership for service. 2. It pays to be nice.

 

Thank you for this thread! This is just a summary of my experience that was discussed in more detail here.

I have a 2006 Prius (in service July 2006) with ~75,800 miles, diagnosed by Toyota dealership as needing a replacement battery (codes P0A80 and P3000). It's always been in a non-CARB state so was well beyond the 8-year warranty. Original quotation was $4,061, plus diagnostics of $237. Dealership indicated they would take care of the diagnostics if I wanted to replace it, and then a week later reduced the price a further $500 or so but suggested that I call Toyota Customer Service to ask for assistance. I did (at the number at the beginning of this thread) and a few days later was kindly offered $2,500 in assistance toward a new battery. Total cost to me including the original diagnostics was $907, a huge savings.

It wasn't mentioned whether it was a factor, but we also have a 2013 Sienna, and both get serviced at Toyota dealerships and were purchased Certified Pre-Owned. I should also note that at no point did anyone (me, the dealership, or the customer service person) use the phrase "goodwill warranty" -- the phrase was "assistance".