Hybrid Battery Replacement Prius II

Hi guys, I'm new here sort of. I had a user name long ago but I wasn't active. I just wanted to give some personal experience on what happened with my Prius II 2007 as it may help some of you fellow Prius II owners. This post is about the dreaded issue of replacing your expensive hybrid battery under your rear passenger seat. It's expensive and a pain in the nice person..but it will need to be done..hopefully sooner, rather than later. My car has 98,000 miles on it. It's a 2007 Prius.

OK--on August 3, 2014 I'm driving down the street after coming back from vacation in NYC. I was gone for about a week and a half. I left my Prius in my garage at home during that time, nobody drove it. As I was on my way to Costco the red triangle suddenly came on and the flat tire looking icon as well as the check engine light. I was freaking out. I slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. I shut down my engine and waited a few seconds before starting it up again. Same deal. No change. It was a little rough this time around..but not that rough for me to jump out and call AAA.

Then I sat there thinking what could be the problem. Maybe someone messed with it while I was away on vacay..or maybe something was going on with my 12v battery. In any case, I didn't experience any buzzing sound in the cabin as I did when my brake actuator failed last April 2013..so I drove it back home and left it there.

On Monday August 4, I called Luscious Garage (they did my actuator work and other work for me in the past) they said I could drop it off even though I didn't have an appointment made in advance. I know that my local Toyota dealership in San Francisco on Geary and 5th Avenue would have made me wait at least a week to get my car in. After dropping off my car I got a phone call not too long after while I was on my way home. The guy at Luscious said that I needed a new hybrid battery. He said it was pretty simple as the codes it was throwing off was telling him "new hybrid battery needed". Wasn't feeling great at this moment as I knew it was going to cost me $3,000 grand for a new battery. I called Toyota and asked them if this was covered by warranty. The guy that answered the phone there without me explaining anything further about my car, year, model, immediately said "NO", it's not under warranty. Then I went on to explaining in detail, he seemed very uninterested and put me on hold for 15 minutes until I finally hung up.

That's how Toyota treats its customers. Like shit. I don't want this to be a rant about how lousy and horrible Toyota's customer service is, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. Toyota is absolutely terrible at customer service simply because they don't care about customers. They sell 10 billion cars world-wide every year, a few customers being unhappy or treated roughshod isn't going to hurt them or change how they react.

Back to my Prius:

I was told by Luscious that I could buy a new battery which would be a little over $3,000 grand with labor cost, or go with a deal where they hand remove new cells from an older Gen I model and replace them into my battery for $2,600 total (which included the $60 fee to check out the car). Or I could go low budget ghetto style and purchase a remanufactured deal whereby used cells from a used battery from a wrecked up Prius II would be installed..for $1,300 with a 30 day warranty. I figured both the $3,000 grand and the $2,600 option gives 12,000 miles or 1 year warranty is worth the money vs going with $1,300 and 30 days..I mean it's really an unknown what will happen but leaving yourself without a decent warranty spending that $$$ is pretty awful.

Luscious Garage are good people. (this is not an advertisement for them--just my experience) It took them less than 2 days to fix my car. I learned a few things. #1 don't trust Toyota dealers, #2 go to a shop that treats you right and doesn't give you the run around or bad information, #3 drive often, because I was told that these hybrid battery cells don't like staying dormant for long periods of time.

Best of luck everyone.

R