Reconditioned Battery/5 year warranty/1500 dollars

$8k for a new Prius battery???? What exactly is he smoking?

 

Maybe that's the price for a Prime battery?

 

I think you heard what you wanted to hear.

How come you prefer to believe him that it cost $8k to replace the battery when the real cost is $2.4-$3.4k. Some research can easily verify.

Anyway, good luck with your choice, I really hope it works out.

 

I think you have a typo there regarding the price of a NEW hybrid battery ... Or your mechanic is a liar.
Eight thousand???

More like Three.

 

I mean ultimately does it matter that much? Of course I'm not going to pay $8k for a battery when I could get a whole car for less. I'm saying labor and all I'm getting a full 3 year warranty on a battery for $2k. I don't really know what other options there are that are reasonable. The car can't be worth much to sell without a working battery and finding a buyer could be hard. I personally don't believe in financing or leasing so my option is paying cash for whatever I get. so my hope is the $2k I spend will get me another 100k miles or more. I haven't searched the net enough to see if there is a cheaper and reliable way. I'm not tech savvy so doing it myself isn't reasonable. Surely others are faced with this issue quite often which is why I started poking around here. If anyone has reasonable solutions better than this one I'm all ears.

 

Warrantees are marketing tools. These rebuilders are offering a 3 year warranty on a 10+ year old battery pack in which they replaced a few cells with other 10 year old cells. Toyota is only offering a 2 year warrantee on brand new batteries. The warrantee is not necessarily a good indicator of the quality of the product.

See my post earlier about warrantee work. Can you afford to be stranded with this car, and have it towed if the rebuilt battery fails? Can you afford to be without a car for a week while a replacement battery is shipped to, then installed by your mechanic? Can you afford a rental for the week that the car is in the shop?

In all sincerity, I hope it works out. But in my opinion, the numbers are against you.

 

I really hope it works out for you. If I intended to keep the car as long as possible I would have found a way to go $1k more and had a new battery installed instead of refurbished. A brand new battery can be purchased for around $2400 with the same three year warranty; installation is extra.

A new battery most likely would give you another 10 years. Refurbished will not. You're taking a pretty good chance the car will need multiple refurbished battery installs in that time frame. $3k for new and 10 years vs. at least $4k, possibly $6k for refurbished over that same 10 years. Plus the down time for another battery replacement..

In my opinion, though, you are definitely doing the right thing if you intend to part with the car soon after your refurbished warranty expires.

 

Hmm, I found a guy in Cali who sells brand new HV batteries made by Panasonic. Said he has "connections" with a guy there where he can basically sell it to me for $2100 after getting my original core from me. If my mechanic hasn't already ordered the part I may go that route as this one has a 4 year warranty. The only down side is if I would need to claim the warranty I have to ship it back to Cali and I live in PA. Thanks for the advice, hoping it works out. I'll post what finally does become of the situation.

 

The warranty Mr. "California Connections" offers looks good on the surface. Who provides the shipping container and pays the freight? Does his pack with "new batteries made by Panasonic" include all the other parts that are needed for it to be a "just drop in" replacement or will it come with the "some assembly required" label?

 

When I spoke with him yesterday he said they charge $450 on top of the base battery price and once I ship the battery back that amount is refunded and shipping is taken care of on his end both for the new as well as the return of the old. I don't know about if the warranty came into play but I'll be sure to ask him. Also it seems Panasonic is the leading producer of Prius HV batteries? I've seen a few sites reference that they are partners with Toyota.

The name of his business is Electron Auto, here is how I found him by looking on eBay and again buying direct from him rather than through eBay saves a few hundred since he isn't paying seller fees.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/282518125896

 

Panasonic has spun that off. It's now Primearth EV Energy. Primearth EV Energy - Wikipedia

 

Have you even checked any nearby Toyota dealers for the hybrid battery? I bought mine for less than your Cali guy but I did have to pay tax. However I got it the next day.

Good luck,
Glenn

 

The one local dealership said about $2600 before tax and I could get it same day. However no warranty so it's a coin toss. Go to the other side of the country for new with 4 yr warranty or go local and pay $600 more for no warranty but less hassle.

 

When you say "local dealership," is that a Toyota dealership? I believe the warranty on a new Toyota battery comes from Toyota, not the dealer

 

Correct, it's Toyota dealership. They said they would give me a 1 year warranty if I had the labor done there but they wanted an extra $500 for that which isn't worth it imo. I tried calling Toyota USA and the people I talked to sounded like they never heard words before and were completely useless. They couldn't answer simple questions about how much it might cost or warranty info or anything and suggested I call dealership.

 

Sounds weird to me. But I seem to remember there being several people around here who've had new batteries installed. Maybe one of them will tell about their experience here.

 

If you research it you can confirm this, but that dealer needs to pay attention to the Toyota service bulletins they receive. A while ago the warranty on replacement batteries was changed from 1 year to 3 years, if dealer installed and the standard 1 year parts warranty if not dealer installed. Not that it makes any difference, in my opinion, a new battery will always out last a rebuilt/reman POS by many years.

 

Well that's the route I ended up going, new that is. I ordered from Mr. Cali Connections lol. It will be $2100 installed when the dust clears which for a new battery with 4 year warranty is good. All shipping of cores is totally paid for even in the event the warranty does come into play. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how this works out.

Here's hoping for another 170k on my 06!

 

That will be very much appreciated. As far as I am aware, you are the first Gen II to use a non-Toyota new battery.

Do you plan to take the lid off before you install? If you do, it'd be sure be nice to see some pics of the inside and any others you care to take.

Anyway, all the best, look forward to that future post.

 

Looking forward to seeing pictures of this "New" battery.

skeptical