Hybrid Battery Warranty / Plug In Prius Misconceptions

Both are FUD.

1) All states have at least the 8 year 100K mile warranty. In CARB states (like California, New York, etc) you get a 10 year 150K mile warranty on the hybrid batteries.I don't know if AZ is CARB or not, but minimally you get the 8/100K

2) The Toyota sales rep you spoke to was woefully ignorant. The PiP (Plug-In Prius) can function exactly like a normal Prius. Fill it with 12 gallons of gas and get 50mpg. No charging needed. Now you can charge the plug-in batteries and it will give you about 13-18 miles of pure electric range at up to 62 miles per hour. If you go faster than 62mph, the gas engine kicks on and it drives like a normal 50mpg Prius. If you go further than 13-18 miles, the gas engine kicks on and drives like a normal 50mpg Prius. If you run out of gas, it switches to full electric and lets you drive until you completely kill the traction battery (not recommended) but it does allow you to get off the road or maybe drive 1/4mi to 2 miles (depending on terrain) to the gas station and get fuel.

 

2k1toaster's answers are basically correct.

AZ is not a CARB state AFAIK. Toyota Prius Warranty and Coverage covers the Prius warranty correctly for non-CARB states. One can select a recent model year Prius family member in the upper right of Toyota Online Owners Manuals and Technical Manuals and then download the warranty booklet.

There is NO way that there are any US states w/0 hybrid battery warranty.

As for #2, if you accelerate hard enough in a PiP (even if below 62 mph and fully charged from the wall/EVSE), the ICE will kick in.

 

cwerdna is correct in that heavy acceleration will kick in the engine on the PiP. I believe extreme temperatures will too.I am not sure if the maintenance cycle for the PiP has been confirmed. If run in EV mode for X miles (thousands of miles?) it runs the gasoline engine to keep the fluids going, gaskets lubricated, and so on.

Also keep in mind that a car must be bought and registered in a CARB state to get the CARB warranty. So buying it in AZ then moving to CA, does not give it the CARB warranty. Buying it in CA, registering it in CA will give you the CARB warranty.

Another point is that a warranty is just that. It is not a time to death, it is a time and mileage approximation that very few vehicles will have failures within. So you do not have to replace the battery at 100K miles. You just don't have to pay for it if the worst happens before 100K miles. Just like your engine warranty is 36months 60K miles (I think). It doesn't mean you need to replace your engine at 60K miles or that it will die at 60K miles. There are Prius taxis on this board that have 600K miles on them and more with the original traction battery. There have also been a few rare failures that Toyota as covered under warranty. There have also been a few failures just over 100K and anywhere over that. It all depends on how you drive, what your climate is, and the actual chemical composition of your battery, and so on. It is rare to replace them, but it does happen. $3500 from Toyota, $1500 from ReInvolt. No different then a transmission failure in a normal car, which the Prius doesn't have...

 

Believe it; many salesmen at Toyota dealers know next to nothing about the Prius. Remember, they want to sell vehicles with big profit margins, not that they don’t make profits on the Prius, but they are not as high as other Toyota cars. To my salesman’s credit he admitted that he was new to Toyota, and knew very little about the Prius, but he worked hard, answered all my questions, and helped me make my decision by learning the car with me. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case with all of them.