I have no idea what I'm doing

Contact Autobeyours. They can probably help you. 137 miles from Waynesville, OH

Google Maps

Prius hybrids sales and service Scottsburg Indiana

Note: As per their website, Autobeyours doesn't do Gen 1 batteries, but they might be able to point you in the right direction.

Beware of rebuilt traction batteries being sold online. Not all are what they are cracked up to be. Buyer beware.

Best of luck to you.

 

"...with all the savings I had..." tells me you are likely not a good candidate to be a Gen 1 owner. Check out the following:

Who should and should NOT buy a 2001-03 Prius | PriusChat

I post this because you may want to get yourself out of the hole you're in rather than dig deeper. If you have actual data supporting he had prior knowledge of a bad battery, and he didn't disclose it when you explicitly asked him (assuming you did), you may have a case for a small claim. If he is unwilling to accept the vehicle in return - maybe for a few hundred less even, the threat of a small claim court action might change his mind. I have no idea if this is valid, but I would investigate it if I were in your shoes.

If you want to keep the car, or you feel you have no other choice, you need to get detailed information about your issue. "needs a new battery" is not necessarily true. There is a LOT of information on this site about how to DIY for very little $ - even with battery issues. DRACO recently garnered great favor from his mother in law by making significant improvements to her Gen 1 with a lot of sweat and effort, a few simple hand tools and less than a few hundred $ in replacement modules and other equipment.

Get the specific codes read and report here.

If you have a Win32 O/S laptop (XP or 7 are best), you can get a MiniVCI, which gives you almost the same diagnostic capabilities as a dealer for less than $30.

Good luck,

Steve

 

I put a Dorman refurbished HV battery in my '02 not too long ago. I bought it through Carpart.com. It was ~$1600 + ~$975 core. Dorman uses Gen II cells in the pack, so there's a benefit right there. The swap wasn't too difficult, except for getting the ~200lb pack out of the back seat, and the new one back in. All the HV warnings & "you need special gloves" and such aren't that big a deal when you follow the steps & let the systems discharge after pulling the service plug.

If there's someone in your area that services HV battery packs (swaps bad cells), that would likely be less expensive. There used to be a guy around here (Pacific NW) that for a minimum $500, would come to you & do all the diag, pull the pack & replace up to 4 (?) bad cells for that flat fee. Additional cells were like $20-25/ea since he was already there & had it apart.

When a pack is bad, there are typically only a few cells in it that are actually bad. There can also be corrosion on the battery contacts, there was a TSB on the early Gen I's for it.

 

One thing I'm surprised not to see mentioned here yet is that the OP reported the check engine light.

The check engine light is not a light that tells you anything about your HV battery needing replacement.

Maybe the battery does need replacement, maybe it doesn't, according to the advice the prior owner was given, which would have to have been based on something besides the check engine light. If that was the only light, then the prior advice may have been wrong, and the car may not need a battery. But it does have a check engine light.

If the prior advice was correct (based on some additional information we don't have), then this is a car that both needs a battery, and has a check engine light. That should be taken into account when deciding how much to put into the car.

The best way to get the necessary information is to read the trouble codes from the car.

-Chap

 

<AHEM> miniVCI and a windows XP laptop </AHEM>

So @Samoser, perhaps you might tell us a little about yourself? What you do for work and hobbies? The reason is it helps us understand how to communicate with you better.

We are used to dealing with all levels of skills and backgrounds and we're here as a resource. We're mostly harmless and have been known to be helpful. For example, I'm a 66 year old, network engineer whose first Prius, a 2003 bought used in 2005, awakened my curiosity about these cars. Married, my Cougar wife has six kids and I had four younger brothers so we're used to dealing with all sorts of skills and backgrounds without being jerks.

Bob Wilson

 

+1

and as brother Steve mentioned get the TIS with MiniVCI. Without this you are shooting blind, wasting time and money throwing parts on her. Ask me how I know.

Maybe a kind OH member can let you borrow their TIS & mini VCI???

 

Just a note, you don't need a 32-bit Windows computer for Techstream/mini-VCI, it's just easier to get everything working with 32-bit than 64-bit. I have it working on a 64-bit Windows 7 laptop. Here's the guide I followed to get it working. (Solution) Mini VCI + Toyota TIS Techstream 8.x on Windows 7/8 64-bit. - Toyota 4Runner Forum - Largest 4Runner Forum

 

Warning! Danger Will Robinson Danger!

Be very careful about a low mileage old battery. There is a scammer in MO selling poorly rebuilt junk as low mileage batteries. Even a real low mileage battery is not a guaranty that it will keep working.

This is a really bad way to rebuild packs. Avoid such low quality repairs.

About five years ago this was true for first Gen cars. That time has passed. There are far more bad than good modules out there now.

The only really reliable repair for Gen I batteries is a new pack from Toyota.

 

I would agree that a new Toyota pack is best, that's what I did last year on my Gen 1. But I plan to keep driving mine for many years yet and everything else on the car is in good shape. A quality rebuilt battery could be a good option, but they will be in the $1,500 range.


- - Mike