Who to choose for Refurbished HV battery

go patent your idea before I do it

 

I did I bought a pack out of a 2002 that had a new (Toyota) battery in 2010 for $300.00. I charged a few cells that read low from sitting a few months just to be sure it would not fault when started and to make sure that they would take a charge. It has not moved appreciably from full since.
Of course it was a complete fluke that I found it. I was looking for tires when I talked to the owner of the wrecked car. The battery was not advertised.

 

2010 and 2015 are very different times.

The demand for packs is much higher than in 2010.
Heck you used to be able to get a pack shipped to you and they didn't even want the core back.

Those days are long gone, though.

 

I bought the 2010 pack out pg the wreck last week

 

Ah, got it. Totally misread your post.

 

I would just trade in my prius to get a new battery.
I don't wanna get electrocuted in the yard with 300V. damn can't imagine myself dead holding a battery.

 

I'd trade in my 2005 Prius for a new one too, except that my wife and I need to finish paying off our other car (2013 Nissan Juke) before we can buy a new Prius.

So far my DIY Prius HV battery repair has been working perfectly. ​

That "Danger: high voltage" issue didn't bother me: I'm a career electrical/electronic engineer and have been working on valve/tube guitar amps since I was 14 years old. Tube amps routinely carry DC voltages from 400 to 500 volts.

I'm hoping to get another 12-15 months out of the 2005 Prius. We bought it in 2006 with 12k miles on the clock. It's my daily driver but I mostly use it to drive around town. The Prius is OK on a road trip but my wife and I have always had another car that's more fun/comfortable on long trips. We had a 2000 Honda Accord with EVERY option before we bought the 2013 Nissan Juke (which is also "loaded" with plenty of cool accessories) Plus there's no big mpg advantage in a Prius when driving on the expressway at 75+ mph. But the Prius blows away the Nissan Juke on mpg around town (Prius: 45-49 mpg, Juke: 25 mpg).

-EB

 

The most important thing to remember is to never deal with Prius Rebbuilders / Falcon Hybrid solutions if you want to have a battery that holds up. Still no response from them on my warranty or refund for their POS battery.

 

Still another day with no response from Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions. Not that I expect any at this point. I am posting so that this thread shows up on google searches as a service to Prius and Hybrid owners and operators.
The choice of new is probably the best if you plan to continue to operate the car for any appreciable length of time.
Nest would be if you are trained and capable in electrical work to replace the bad cells on your own and leave Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol out of it. You can be assured of a poor product from them along with poor / non-existent support when the battery fails.
I can't speak about other battery rebuilders, but Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions is not the answer!
They are also selling cells under the name of hvhybridparts on ebay. They are probably charging hell out of the cells to get them to the claimed 7.6 volts for sale individually.
I would beware of having anything to do with them.

 

Good information, but the ability to offer what you think is a crap module with good voltage should tell you something about your own sales efforts.

And it seems obvious to me that if really thought that the Falcon pack was good except for a couple of modules you would have just replaced those and been on your way. So to Falcon you say "junk!," but to potential customers you say "nice group of modules except two."

 

the most important thing to remember when going any route besides new oem? ymmv.

 

The BATTERY is junk because of the poor quality control. By definition a battery is a group of cells connected as a unit like a battery of cannon grouped together as a functional group.
The BATTERY can easily be junk where individual cells might be goo or bad. In the case of Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol their quality control produces junk because their selection process has a 10.5% failure rate guaranteeing poor performance.
There is a collection of good used cells with indeterminate life remaining along with two cells like the 7.6 volt units that Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol are selling on Ebay as good batteries! These will not provide good performance even when installed with even one of these batteries in a group of good batteries. The limit of the function of the entire battery is limited by the capabilities of the weakest cell.
While the batteries that measure 7.6 volts will work the state of charge will vary a great deal based on power demand and will function poorly like the battery I got from Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol even after the two bad cells were replaced. It would fault out with the two bad cells since they went below the 7.1 volt limit.
It is hard to justify spending the value of a car to put it back on the road, however. I have learned more than I wanted to know about Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol and Prius batteries!
The one thing I am sure about is that one should never trust or deal with Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol. Other rebuilders may or may not be trustworthy, but I know that Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol is not in that group of trustworthy and capable parties.
Since getting any adjustment out of Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol is out of the question the best thing I can do is make certain that others don't make the same mistake. If you see a seller on ebay from Ridgeville, NJ then this is probably them in another guise.

 

So it's abundantly clear from redbarron55's posts that rebuilt HV batteries from Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions are less than perfect.

My questions for the forum are these:

• Has anyone had a GOOD experience with a rebuilt HV battery from any other vendor?
• What kind of reputation does Dorman have?

I considered purchasing a Dorman HV battery ($1,200 locally), but instead I decided to rebuild my existing HV battery. 2 modules were bad. I purchased used modules on eBay (I bought 4 so that I still have 2 spares in case I need them). Those 4 used modules cost me a total of $175 including shipping. My only other expense was my time.

My 2005 Prius is running perfectly, but I've only put about 300 miles on it so far.

My fantasy is to buy a low mileage HV battery from a wrecked Prius. Perhaps that's not practical since the folks who resell used modules are likely snapping them all up already?

-EB

 

Personally I think you have a pretty good plan. The only suggestion I might have is to temporarily remove the rear seat and enough to pull the cover and measure the individual cells in the normal state of charge after driving and after it sits for a while. A measurement after sitting and turning on everything you can without the engine running. With the loads of the lights, A/C, etc with a more or less conatant drain if you measure the individual voltages then you could probably detect a weak cell and use one of your remaining cells to replace the weakest one or ones. While it would be difficult to do out of the car you can load the battery with it in the car fairly easily. Take into account the time it takes to measure the cells and this might affect the cells that took longer to get to.
You can measure the cells in groups of two like the computer does fairly easily from the front side or since the cover is off you could reach over and measure across each cell. In my car the good cells measure right at 7.8 volts in that condition. While just voltage measurements without a load are not the best measurement sometimes you have to do what you can to get by.
With a load on the cells it is a pretty good reflection of the internal resistance of the cell and therefore a pretty good indication of the quality if that cell.
The voltage difference between a cell unloaded and a constant current output voltage measurement can produce if not a perfect quality measurement at least a relative measurement of the quality of the cells since in series the current through each cell will by definition be the same. Voltage differences will reflect the difference in individual cell's internal resistance.

 

+++ on your suggestions, rebarron55. Thanks!

I recently purchased a Torque/OBD2-USB dongle and also a mini-VCI. I haven't used them yet, but I figure between those 2 monitoring devices I will be able to learn a lot about the performance of my HV battery while the HV battery is installed in the car. I didn't reinstall the left/right side trim covers into my car yet so that I can get at the HV battery quickly if I need to.

I also picked up a pair of HV battery end clamping plates and some long bolts so that I can safely charge/discharge the 4 modules that are on my workbench. 2 of these are used/tested modules that I bought on eBay. 2 modules were removed from my HV batttery: One of these has a shorted cell (it reads 6.6 volts). The other was working but tested slightly low on voltage compared to the other modules in my car, so I decided to pro-actively switch it out.


-EB

 

the problem with polling people about good and bad experiences are:

1) how long has the battery been in?

2) not everyone will have the same experience, so:

3) it's only as good as the warranty (policy and actual) and ease of replacement

 

For some rebuilders the warranty might as well be lifetime, since apparently the warranty is for the life of the battery which might be pretty short in the case of Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions.

 

Checking under load is definitely more informative than at rest. In another current thread running the owner bought an app that lets him log the resistance of each pair concurrently.

 

If you know the voltage across each pair from the computer and the actual current then the combined internal resistance could easily be calculated. With less trouble the voltage measurement under load since the current bust be equal in a series circuit the relative value of the pair or cell if measured that way is a pretty good indication.
I think that this is a way to detect a weak cell since the internal resistance of the cell is a very good indicator of condition.. The same could be said of my method of measuring the voltage after removal as a running unit because that same series resistance will affect the charge voltage indicated. If the battery has been sitting for a while the external leakage paths along with any internal current leakage paths will discharge the cell.
If the cell is being discharged by an internal path then it is probably toast anyway.

 

I propose these criteria for "rebuilt" HV battery success:

1. No battery DTC codes occurred after battery replacement
2. MPG increased to a "normal" level ( > 40 mpg) after battery replacement
3. Rebuilt battery functioned OK for at least 12 months
4. Rebuilt battery functioned OK for at least 10,000 miles

-EB