Hybrid Battery Expected Life

I think it is unlikely that you will receive 15-16 years of service on the original battery, driving at 5K miles per year. Your battery is currently 6 years old. Especially since you live in an area with hot summer weather, battery electrolyte loss is likely to lead to a failure of at least one of the 38 modules in the next 4-5 years.

 

I think battery may last him for next 6 years or even more given the low mileage he does per year. From what I hear, Toyota folks planned the life of the battery to be around 150.000 miles and/or 12 years. But of course planning is just planning. Only time tells the truth. In neither case I would panic prematurely.
If you get bored of the car in mean time and replace it with the newer, possibly plugin version, then nothing to worry about.

 

Remember, Toyota recently dropped the price of the replacement HV battery to $2,299. In 5 years, it is likely they will drop the price again.

 

15% have needed battery replacement?

Uhm. Heh.

Everyone I know who has a 2001 or 2002 Prius has had to replace the battery. Every advertisement I see for a 2001 or 2002 Prius says "New Battery!" on it.

If you buy a salvage battery, you'll likely be facing the same problem in a short period of time. And yes, a new battery will cost you around $3000, and with a car that is worth about $5000 that's in the "total loss" neighborhood.

Expect to have to replace the battery once every 5-8 years. Mileage doesn't seem to factor into the equation. People who drove their Priuses for 200,000 miles in 2-3 years didn't have any problems with the battery, but people with 100k miles 6-8 years in are having failures.

If you have your Prius in a climate controlled garage all of the time, your battery will probably last a bit longer. If you park it outdoors expect to be on the shorter end of that.

 

"Remember, Toyota recently dropped the price of the replacement HV battery to $2,299. In 5 years, it is likely they will drop the price again."

Plus labor. The total bill is $3000. AND they try to add on the HV ECU and all of the cables to the bill, which doubles that to $6000. When I replaced my battery, I refused those other parts and Toyota is now refusing to warranty the battery.

 

gippah,

Interesting that they would force you to replace the ECU and the cables.

Which model year do you have? Did you do the free service to clean the pack connectors? How many miles did you have on it when it failed?

 

Yes, the TSB to clean the terminals had been done. However, the technicians said that this does nothing to prevent corrosion. Toyota engineers would probably love to hear that.

They wanted to replace the cables because they said that the corrosion gets all over the cables and the ECU. How it could get to the ECU in the front of the car is anyone's guess, but the computer system that Toyota uses to troubleshoot does say to replace them all, which of course costs more than the car is worth.

The tech did say that there was a lot of corrosion on my cables, which he "cleaned as best he could, but couldn't guarantee that everything wouldn't fail again w/o replacing them." The labor cost on replacing the cables is astronomically high.

It's a 2001 and it has 114k miles.

 

113k miles is out of warranty?

 

Careful here. A lot of Classic owners have had to replace their
*12V* batteries, not necessarily the hybrid batteries. Be very
clear on which battery you're talking about [or hearing about]
when you say "every owner".
.
_H*

 

I think we better get real here:

From Some Hard Figures on Hybrid Battery Replacement ~ Hybrid Car Review

 

This is the highest % failure rate I have seen reported - Where did it come from please?

 

This is why I don't like posting here. Do you think I would be this stupid? When you guys post comments like this, you waste everyone's time.

These numbers are probably accurate, but are also probably very old. Toyota dealerships in Texas have reported a previously unseen spike in battery failures over the past summer, and many of the technicians had never seen a single one fail before. The dealership I first took mine to said they had *six* G1 Prius battery failures in the *two weeks* before I brought mine in with several more in the leading months, and there's no telling about how many came in after.

Of the three other people I know who have G1s, they all have had to replace the battery. One was lucky and it failed while still under warranty, but after he fixed it he did pawn the car off onto his daughter. Looking at the ads in the Austin area right now for G1 Priuses, there are three available, and two of the three state that they have new hybrid batteries. The other one is from a used car dealer and they probably wouldn't put that in the ad even if they knew one way or the other.

There is mounting evidence to support that the batteries will fail after a certain period of time, not after a certain number of miles. This makes sense anyway, batteries that are left outdoors to suffer the full range of temperatures in a climate don't last very long. Toyota's management of the batteries by the ECU is pretty good so failure by usage alone isn't that likely.

Are you being serious?

 

Calm down Tex. We have to rule out all alternatives. Just assume we think everyone is stupid, especially the one typing the message you see on the screen as your fingers are moving, applied to everyone, and we'll all get along. Remember KISS, a simple 'no' works.

I've noticed that in all things technical there is an aging that can be assumed depending upon the source. It comes with the territory.

You suggested all over Texas, which is a pretty large area. Was your local shop the source of this information about how wide spread it is?

Just curious, could you point me to an online source of these ads? I would like to contact the sellers of these replacement battery NHW11s.

Source?

I am seeing evidence that heat is the enemy and it seems to come from both environment and charging. I am pretty sure that hills and higher speeds with speed changes encourage 'heat pumping' of the traction battery.

Ummm, I'm not so sure about the higher charging rates and battery temperature management in North America.

Cool it Tex. Discussing facts and data is not an ego game and shouldn't be treated as such. It is just trying to be through, to make sure we've covered all the bases. With one exception, expression of emotions in technical stuff is counter productive.

The one exception is making fun of our own follies. My favorite expression, "If I had any brains I'd take 'em out and play with them."

Bob Wilson

 

Yes. In NY, it is covered 10 years / 150k miles. The reason I asked is because I am not familiar with the warranty coverage for 2001 Prius in your state.

 

2001-2003 US Prius were all covered by the same 8 year/100K mile warranty for the hybrid system and the traction battery. Starting in 2004, 2G Prius was rated AT-PZEV in CA and other states following CA emissions regulations. Hence in those states 2G enjoys a 10 year/150K mile traction battery warranty, and 15 year/150K mile warranty on other hybrid system and emissions control components.

It doesn't surprise me to hear about a rash of Classic traction battery failures in TX; this helps explain why recent Classic owners with a battery failure have had to wait an extended period to obtain a replacement battery from their dealer. Since the battery in my 2001 failed after ~60K miles, I have personal experience that the Classic battery is not as bulletproof as some owners wish to believe.

With 48 responses as of this writing, my Classic owner's poll shows a 17% traction battery failure rate without regard for odometer reading. Only the electric steering gear is more troublesome according to my poll (admittedly based upon a small sample).
http://priuschat.com/forums/generation-1-prius-discussion/45766-classic-prius-repairs.html

 

If anyone recalls the posts from a self-identified Prius tech here a year or two ago, please link. He suggested that the NHW11 resealing was recognized by Toyota as a 'patch' and eventually there would be a much larger number of failures related to electrolyte leakage.

My own observations with Graham Davies mini-scanner was that mountain driving could quite often push the max cell temp above 45 oC and I didn't like that. My habit was to use the air conditioning defensively, but that's unlikely to be a common practice.

So we might hypothesize hills -> heat -> ooze, eventually. And certainly hope that the NHW20's have their caps screwed on tighter.

 

Yep. I had to wait three weeks for my replacement battery.