Prius Battery Replacement Kit (GenII/GenIII) with NEW custom cells

I just ordered my new Prius battery today. Hopefully it shows up soon since I'm in California.

 

I’m certain you’ll like it, it’s one of the projects that just works.
I’ll see how it holds up in the next ten years or so.
I’ve never had a more trouble free car. Put gas in it, change the fluids and a belt and a new 12v battery every 5-6 years or so and it just keeps on running.
I was surprised to see a few posts back that their cars were using oil. I’ve used Mobil 1 after I had put 3000 miles on it and now have 179,000+ and it doesn’t use any more oil that it did when new. About 1/2 quart between 10,000 mile changes. I’ve had the oil analysis done a few times and this seems to be a good point on my car fuel dilution hits about 2.5% I could go longer but that’s more than I drive in a year at this point. I have switched to the high milage, extended change blend for the increase in seal lubricants, and sludge detergents. But the oil looks dam good on the dip stick. I changed the valve cover seals as it had a small leak and everything looked clean and smooth.

 

Gen 3 can have issues with oil getting through the pcv valve into the throttle body causing oil usage. It appears that an oil catch can resolves that issue.
The pcv circuit is different for Gen 4.

 

Interesting, similar to the gen two problems when they help at the oil change places would dump in 4 qts of oil. Made my Prius very unhappy.
I’d expect better from Toyota engineers.
From the link it appears that the performance parts industry has a ready solution. I wonder why the didn’t do a recall on that, i would think it would lose them their near zero emissions rating.

 

A long thread here, among others.

Oil Catch Can, Eliminate that knock! | PriusChat

 

UPDATE: Installed my new battery kit on my 2005 Prius. It was pretty painless and the car is running so great now. I've gained at least 2 mpg on my normal trip to San Diego too. Acceleration seems way crisper now.

 

Out of curiosity, were able to use an inch-pound torque wrench for tightening the hv battery nuts?

Or did you just kinda-guess at what felt about right.

 

I just guessed on tightening those and just went as tight as I could with a nut driver with a good grip.

 

I got the kit and decided to post about my experiences. Some Background: 2007 Gen 2 Prius, 122K miles, got the RTOD, the brake warning light, the VSC light, and the check engine light all at once. The fan in back was on all the time. The battery was really quick to charge and discharge (which explained why the fan was on all the time). Came to Prius Chat to find out more, and found out about this kit, and two years later after it has launched, it seems to be doing pretty well.

I purchased a toaster kit about two weeks back. Ordered on a Wednesday, got it the following Tuesday. $1600, with free shipping, just as originally posted here (I worried that the tariffs had driven the price up). Procrastinated for 2 of the three days I took off to deal with it. I'm a shade tree mechanic who has been in the trades for a coupla decades, so I wasn't afraid of electricity, and I took my time with this install (total, about 13 hours). I have never worked on my HV battery before, so this was a real treat. I now feel I know my no-longer-misunderstood friend, the HV battery. I have since corrected many people that the battery is 201.6 VDC, not 300, as many people seem to think.

I tested all the new modules when they arrived. They're stamped as being 14.4 volts each, but my Fluke showed them as 15.5, 15.6VDC each, consistent with what @ericbecky posted from his Torque Pro app. I tested my old modules when I took them out, and Module 6 was at 6.4VDC, confirming my diagnosis that the battery was bad.

I quote peecee above because I feel I had a similar experience and agree with a lot of what he said, especially the part about the clip-on sensors. Some differences: I knew I needed a torque wrench and bought one (you only need one that goes up to 10 Nm (Newton-meters)). There were more than enough new bolts in my pack to fill every hole when bolting down the new modules (I'm guess 2K1 changed that). I checked everything for electricity with my fluke at various points, and wore some rubber insulating gloves (that weren't electrically rated, but good enough).

I think it would be good to say in the instructions that the auxiliary battery cap is red and the safety plug is orange. It would help find them easier (especially the safety plug). The drawing of the safety plug and its location in the car is not the best, especially because the plug is obscured by the battery casing. Luckily, Youtube is my friend.

When I had finished, I turned on the car and got tons of warning lights, but no RTOD. The car's ICE didn't turn on, and then I noticed that the power button light was orange. Obviously, the car was not actually on! Depressed the brake again and hit the power button again and the car "Ready"ed, and the rest of the warning lights disappeared. The power button light turned green, and all was right with the world. No need to clear any codes with Techstream or anything else.

Hint: As you take bolts off, put them in a Ziploc baggy with the step number you are on, and a brief description of the step. Only started to do this halfway through, but glad I started because some of the drawings are not super great about where all the bolts are. It can be tough looking at your bucket of bolts and deciding what goes where.

When I moved the safety disconnect high voltage wires when attaching the connections with 7-2, I had trouble, like several other users here. The wires were not cold and bent well enough, but I was not satisfied with how much the insulated wire were rubbing the case and exposed metal. Wrapped up the wires in electrical tape where they were coming in contact with the casing to give some extra protection (it was about 8 passes).

My thanks to the OP and his great kit! Only a little more work and a total neophyte could do the install. I feel very accomplished after completing this journey of discovery.

 

Can we get an update on how the batteries are holding up? How many miles has everyone put on their new battery is question for any problem so far?

 

I’ve got just over 4000 miles on mine with no problems at all.

 

i did put over 10k on mine already. So far so good.

 

We installed this recently. Time was about 10 hours, including some breaks and cleaning the battery fan. And finding tools since the cheap sockets I had were destroyed, for example when undoing the 12mm compression plate bolts with a cheater. These comments are going to be similar to several above - I'm glad I read all these priuschat threads and watched videos before attempting installation.

The instructions are apparently getting better, but as of writing still not consumer-level foolproof type of instructions. For example the instructions skip the step that you need to unplug the voltage monitor wiring harness from the battery computer, unclip it from the battery shell using a trim-fastener tool, and loosen a plastic pipe clamp, then plug in the new harness into the computer and re-clip it. There is no description of this step and no pictures. Also on the step for connecting terminals 8-1 and 8-8 the pictures contradict each other - one shows the ring terminal on top of the main power connector, the other shows it underneath. We chose on top. The instructions also have a page on clipping the temperature sensors onto the batteries - but this comes after the section on loading the new batteries in the tray. You have to decide where the temperature sensors will go before you load the batteries in the tray so you can either route the wires above, or attach-as-you-go on bottom.

I would also like to see a better solution for the safety disconnect wires being too long to fit exactly on the new kit - it is very easy to accidentally route them so that they butt up against sharp metal. I'd be willing to pay a bit more for a kit that had replacement wires.

I would like to see more data, for example, the name of the manufacturer, and some comparison charts of the oem battery vs this regarding state of charge, temperature, and voltage. On the OEM batteries we have for example this government study, measuring airflow and temperature differentials (found by searching priuschat for the word cylindrical): 2002-01-1962, Thermal Evaluation of Toyota Prius Battery Pack, Matthew Zolot, Ahmad A. Pesaran and Mark Mihalic, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

But overall it was a fun build, the arrangement of the new voltage measurement wire harness is very nice, the temperature clips fit very well, I love that they include extra pieces in case I broke a few, and I have not noticed any difference in the behavior of the car. The ultimate question of value will depend on time. Thanks.

 

@2k1Toaster You may get some improvement ideas from the post above this.

 

did a 200 mile test drive... temp was 80F outside. kept it about 55-65mph. first half got about 48 mpg, second half got about 58mpg, per the MFD. hard to be exact with all the variables involved (lots of wind, second half was downhill), but i would call this 'nominal' so far.

i only heard the battery fan kick on for a few seconds after first "boot up" of new system. after that, i haven't heard it again.

car is 2007 Prius Base, 190,000 miles, burns 1 qt oil per 3000 miles.

 

like @msg7086 said in https://priuschat.com/threads/prius-battery-replacement-genii-like-youve-never-seen-new-cylindrical-cells.181277/page-29 the short term MFD mpg seems to be reading higher than it used to, for me about 55 mpg @ 60mph 81f, 32 miles travelled. like @dolj said i will try to wait until a few tanks of gas have gone through to be more sure.

 

Where would I go to have a look at those batteries you’re referring to?

 

NewPriusBatteries

 

I went ahead and installed the oil catch can on my 2005 as well as on on my wife’s 2000 E-250 custom van.
If I can reduce the sludge build up in the engine it’s worth the money ( the kits are cheep) and the little bit of time. The hardest part was figuring out where to put it so I can check it and empty it if needed.

 

Did some amateur BAFX3127 OBDii + Torque Pro logging w usbseawolf2000 PIDs, for two sessions. I feel like i might have confirmation bias, but it also seems in the ball park of normal, compared to the original prismatics and the govt report here: https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/assets/pdfs/2a_2002_01_1962.pdf