My Prius needs a battery, Toyota denies warranty due to EV button

I've never heard of a way to check the battery capacity. That would be a good test so you could go to Toyota under normal use and show it doesn't work as it should.

I have a stealth EV mode button in the cruise control stalk, it's from costal technologies and works perfect. It won't let me put it in EV mode if it's too cold or too hot. It has to be just right.
It also beeps and goes out of EV mode if the battery is low or I accelerate to hard. I can't believe Toyota could refute that.

I also have a prius with a salvage title and saved 10K buying it. I want a plug-in hybrid battery pack as soon as they become available at 10K or so. Then I could sell the old battery pack and won't care about the warrenty since I never had one.

 

I don't really get the EV button thing. Isn't 50+ mpgs enough for you?I'm thrilled to see mpg in the 50's, and can't think why anyone would want to mess with a good thing. I guess its like the hot rodders who always try to improve things. I used to do all that stuff too. Now I just drive the car. If it ain't broke, I don't open the hood anymore. 38,000 miles, 50+ mpg average, totally stock except shark fin, and BT plate, not one problem, warranty or otherwise.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(subarutoo @ Jul 20 2007, 12:33 PM) [snapback]482382[/snapback]</div>

The only reason I want an EV button is to prevent the car from starting if I want to move it from the carport to the driveway (or from one parking spot to another) without the mandatory ICE start after 7 sec. I don't think that I would use it in any other situation. However, I don't need it bad enough to risk voiding (or even having to argue with Toyota over) the 10 year, 150K warranty.

 

I haven't seen an answer to the question of whether there is a diagnostic test for a failing battery pack. Normally, I'd say measuring the internal resistance would be a good indicator, but as I understand this pack has a lot of load balancing electronics which may make that problematic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cheap! @ Jul 20 2007, 01:26 PM) [snapback]482305[/snapback]</div>

Just thought I'd point out we Canadians don't get the EV button either. <_<

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoMoShocks @ Jul 20 2007, 12:38 PM) [snapback]482272[/snapback]</div>

Wouldn't the car's computer track usage of EV and blow your cover if Toyota really wanted to find out if you modded the car? I am sure that must be logged somewhere... :huh:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sarge @ Jul 20 2007, 04:49 PM) [snapback]482427[/snapback]</div>

any word on South America?

 

Thanks for the update. You have a good dealer and in this case, wiser minds prevailed. The most interesting aspect is that your reporting of the actual facts made it clear that there was a misconception that the EV install had no warranty consequence in many people's mind me included. I was on the borderline but your reporting established the correct borderline.

The big mistake that Toyota USA made in this case is not making it clear (website or manual or mailing) that the EV mod would be a warranty risk. A whole lot of loyal customers were/are making what they thought was a valid modification in good faith without a risk of warranty revocation. Toyota USA keeping this a secret till the first unlucky customer arrives with a true warranty defect is going to turn Toyota good will into anger. BUT Toyota obviously has the wiser minds still in charge and will figure out a better way of informing the owners...if the EV mod is still a warranty issue.

 

Nate on the THHT it will tell which module is defective and if it's just one module then that could be construed to be a internal failure and not an over all degradation of the pack which would be the effect of over use of the EV button. Per chance you didn't get a print out of the Code that it thru that indicated that the battery was the actual cause. This could also be just a failure of a connector link between the modules. As for you saying that the first flash of the computer was when it started to show up, I noticed that the first flash, after the dealer replaced the computer because they blew it when they tried to flash it, had worse perfomance, all round, than the third flash which is when the car started to preform like it did with the origional computer and origional code. That first flash was just a waste of time and Toyota knew it. That whole thing was just a disaster. So has your mileage stayed in the 50's?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Jul 20 2007, 06:39 PM) [snapback]482578[/snapback]</div>

is the battery indicator staying in the blue or green and at least 4-5 bars or is the computer trying to ruin this battery as well?

 

I have only ever seen pink once, and that was the result of heavy A/C use in pretty much stopped traffic. Just getting on the highway, no. If you were down to two pink bars and then asked for assist then I would say "normal" but honestly rare. If it was up in the blue zone and suddenly tanked to one pink over the course of an on-ramp, definitely not normal.

Could you describe what happened in greater detail?

 

I've only ever seen 2 pinks and that was in stopped traffic with the defroster on trying to remove the moisture from the windshield then the ICE started and it climbed to 2 blue. Even on the hardest hill climbs I've never seen 1 pink, ever, and that was 9 miles of 10% grade. Now the question, how many computer flashes has this car had? a 2k4 should have had a minimum of 3 flashes. I'm not sure of the code# of the lates flash maybe Galaxee's DH could give you the #. Or take it back to the dealer and get them to check and see if the comp has the latest flash.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cheap! @ Jul 20 2007, 02:11 PM) [snapback]482339[/snapback]</div>

Just curious - Why / How does the EV button go against US enviro standards? I've tried to find the answer to this via search, but was unsuccessful.

 

The theory is that you can force the engine to stay off when it really should run to keep the catalytic converter warm, increasing harmful emissions. Rumor has it that they must have overcome this since the '08 HiHy has an EV button.

 

Hi Nate,

I only see two pinks, after the initial startup in the morning sometimes. My route allows for allot of stealthing on the last 1 1/2 miles into home in the evening. So, the battery might be at 3 bars at startup. Then the car has this thing it does to allow the engine to warm up before being loaded. This uses allot of battery for the initial road travel.

To avoid that, I have been accellerating very slowly for the first 1/2 mile in the morning. I know the exact spot where the car switches out of this mode. After which, I press the throttle much deeper, get up to a higher speed and cruise.

Is your highway entrance ramp close to your startup location? Are you stopping at a coffee shop close to the ramp and restarting, which might reenvoke this warmup mode ?

By the time I get to the highway ramp, the car is up at 7 bars from all the slow steady speed secondary road travel (about 4 miles), including allot of gliding down very small hills at 40 mph. The road is a 40 mph speed limit. So, its quite good for gliding. I could take a closer ramp, but there is allot of road construction on the highway there, and its better for the mileage to cruise down the secondary road, than stop and go on the highway.

 

Going country-to-country has always been an issue, and will continue ot be, regardless what we claim as a group. I assume it will continue to be a fight we can usually win, but that it will continue to usually be a fight.

I went through this on the '01 when I had the dealer add cruise control. Regional denied coverability and stock access for a steering-wheel swap. Once the dealer was convinced it'd probably be ok, they ordered in the steering wheel from a Canada warehouse; once they put it in and verified it, they told me it'd be covered by the dealer if Regional rejected some future claim. I still assume Regional would have initially rejected a warranty claim anywhere else on the vehicle, but they took care of all the mass-recall items no problem.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brick @ Jul 21 2007, 08:28 AM) [snapback]482767[/snapback]</div>

It may be that the HiHy is not AT-PZEV like the Prius is, and that may be what's keeping it out of our hot little hands. California and other CARB states get a 10-year/150,000-mile warranty on the battery, and the rest of the states (and the world) get an 8-year/100,000-mile warranty. They may fear that the EV button *could* shorten battery life enough that they'd have to do more battery replacements in places with the longer warranty.