2001 Prius battery dies at 70K, Toyota won't pay for repair

[usbseawolf2000]

Otis,

Sorry about your car and what you are faced with. Did you do the TSB to clean the HV battery terminal corrosion?

[tochatihu]

Otis, I sympathize with your difficulties contacting Toyota by phone. Guessing that the floor mat and accel pedal recalls are keeping their telephone people very busy now. I hope you keep trying this approach. What to the other phone options do? Is has been quite a while since I called TCE and any calls to the US are difficult for me now (from China).

[orange4boy]

Originally posted byadric22: Well, from what I'm seeing, pretty much all of the Gen-1 priuses still out there are either already needing a new battery or will be needing one shortly.

What's your evidence of this?

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by jdcollins5

The warranty on the Gen III battery in non-CARB states is 8 years/100,000 miles.

Also true of the Gen II.

[adric22]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

What's your evidence of this?

A combination of what I'm seeing online in forums like this, on craigslist with cheap prius' with dead batteries, and from toyota technicians I know who are seeing lots of these coming into the shop needing new batteries around 140,000 to 160,000 miles.

And just from what we know in general about the life-expectancy of the chemistry used in the 1st gen as well as leakage issues, the toyota recall on the Gen-1 batteries, etc..

True, I don't have a list of every 1st gen prius ever made with a list of their ages and whether they have had battery problems. So it is just an observation. But I know I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone spend a lot of money on a Gen-1 Prius unless it recently had the battery replaced. Otherwise, do what I did and buy one real cheap with a dead battery and replace it yourself. At least that way you know the car is going to last for a while.

[hybriddriveguy]

Originally Posted by brad_rules_man

If you do end up buying some used batteries, I think Toyota pays $500 like a bounty to obtain and recycle the battery. Might check into that.

I know Toyota at one time had a $200 bounty on old packs, but all the dealers in our area (Southeast US) say they have suspended the buy back for now. I don't know if this is nationwide or not. There also has been quite a bit of confusion about whether or not they would pay for the packs if you were not purchasing a new unit from them.

[hybriddriveguy]

Originally Posted by Otis

Also, here is some food for thought as to whether this is a perfectly normal event and I should grin and bear it. "Out of 750,000 Prius battery packs produced and distributed so far, only 306 have been replaced as worn-out or a warranty fault. 'The life of the battery pack is generally about the same as the life of the vehicle,' said Toyota's Jeremiah Shown." That's from a piece in Driving Sports called "New 2010 Prius takes hybrid technology to the next level". The article appeared June 18, 2009 so presumably there have been more battery failures, but still...

Based upon our conversations with dealers nationwide, this number is definately very low. We are seeing 90% of the failures occurring between 120k-140k and we have sold close to the number of packs you have here.

[Otis]

Ok, today I got up early in time to gett in the CES queue. Have been on hold for 20 minutes so far. Passed the time by doing something the recording suggested which was to go on the Toyota website, register for an account, then click the "contact Toyota" link at the bottom of the page. (Hm... actually you don't need an account... it's also there at the bottom of their home page.)

This gave me the CES number but also a snail mail address. I'm going to write to them if I don't come off hold by the time I have to leave for an appointment:

Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
19001 South Western Ave.
Dept. WC11
Torrance, CA 90501

[Otis]

By the way, now that I'm at 5 posts I am allowed to put a link in here. The following are two pieces I wrote on my own blog about this experience... please comment there if you like:

Prius hybrid battery fails at 70K miles, Toyota won?t pay for $3700 repair | Otis Regrets... or Not
Early Prius owners get screwed on battery warranty | Otis Regrets... or Not

[Patrick Wong]

Hi Otis,

When you get to the point where you've decided that seeking help from Toyota on this issue is like "pounding sand", then maybe you might ask Luscious Garage for help since they are in San Francisco. Luscious Garage | Blog | Prius headlight problem, D4R HID bulbs *still overpriced, not covered under warranty*

If your battery problem is due to leaky electrolyte, that can be cleaned off.

If your battery problem is due to a failed module, maybe LG can help you to obtain a salvage unit.