Preventative Maintenance....the big battery..

i hear you can pick them up for around 2k in cali, but i don't think they ship. when you purchase, they want your old battery. are you in a carb state? have you considered the prolong system?

the vibration is probably somewhere in the fuel or intake system. is it burning any oil?

 

85,000 mile pack that is still functional?
I would lean towards purchasing a charger/discharger system from Hybrid Automotive.

Install it and then do periodic routine of preventive maintenance on the Hybrid battery.

Get every last bit of use out of the pack.

 

Hybridautomotive.com

Prolong Deluxe Reconditioning package
$658

 

Why replace a 8 year old battery that works fine?!? Let me remind you there is still Prii on the road that have a build date of late 2000 that still have the original untouched battery pack, and work perfectly fine. My sisters Prius has over 200k and almost 12 years before it was wrecked. It was abused constantly and still had very good battery capacity when it was totaled.

 

That is never been proved as adding any value. Try to offer those "grid chargers" to Idaho Battery Testing Laboratory - they do standard tests of the Hybrid cars cruising USA roads when car is new and after 160000 miles. Results of their tests showed variations - with capacity loss in Prius had been around 45-55%. Which showed that even in almost equal situations and under standardized tests packs on sample cars degraded differently. They test few cars of the same model to get the bigger picture. I would pay $$$ just to see their face expression if you offer that "solution" to them....

Unless proper testing and documenting is done and confirmed by reputable testers, those so called "grid chargers" would add the same value as attaching magnet to your Prius battery in attempt to "improve circulations of electrons". I am surprised no one has yet offered "Magic Prius Traction Battery Magnets" in USA yet as it seems people would swallow absolutely any nonsense they are repeatedly been told "being good for you".

FYI: "grid chargers" has originated from Honda Insight forum where owners of first generation of Honda hybrid had issues with undercharging and premature degradation of the Honda packs. Later has been fixed by Honda with reprogramming on-board system. Honda hybrid system is absolutely different from Toyota Hybrid system and solution is not cross-transferable.
Nevertheless smart cookies from Honda forum decided that they can make a buck by applying solution which has NEVER been required for Prius. Good on you...
Just got a call today from another country where they are using my High Voltage Battery Analysers to test mostly Prius Batteries but recently they have tested pile of Honda CR-Z Hybrid packs. They are Industrial Electrical Engineers and when I mentioned about that nonsense "grid chargers" to them (as well as about another dude outside USA who is offering sort of similar useless solution - but instead his is 12DC to HV DC on-board converters-charges) - they were laughing out loudly....

P.S. I do not sell equipment to individuals, so please do not ask.

 

There are certainly situations where it does not help. (shorted cell for example)

But there are situations where it definitely does. (Aged packs that are below minimum voltage due to self discharge.)

 

Regarding the grid chargers, I too am a bit sceptical. I know of one Civic Hybrid owner, with a battery arguably too far gone to begin with, went the grid charger route, used it hard'n heavy, unfortunately all for nought. They "may" have benefit, but so far I'm sceptical.

Regarding the "premature degradation" being "fixed" by Honda, with a programming tweak, I'd say that's largely bunk: our previous Civic Hybrid (06) is still on the road with a replacement battery as of about 2 years back, latest programming: and doing the 'ol recal's, at least once a day.

 

Friends don't let friends buy used Civic Hybrids.

Too many battery issues.

 

Yeah, we sold it in the family.

 

+1!

 

Regarding maintenance on the big traction battery i think the solution is a "electronic pecker".

In every battery the aging process is due to the fact some chemical reaction stops happening 100%. For example on lead-acid batteries that are worn-out and can no longer provide enough "juice" (amps) there is a electronic device that sends pulses into the lead plates that make them vibrate and shatter the sulfur crystals that are formed onto them. By melting or cracking the sulfur crystals they return into the acid solution and then the battery will be about 80-90% of the original capacity. This works as long as there are none short-circuited elements or the connection between plates is broken.

So, if we have a chemist on this forum and he can explain what is happening inside a NiMH battery then we can figure out what worn them out.

I do not believe in miracles, but as long as a battery is not damaged it can be fixed. Damage appears when the internal resistance of an element of the battery increases, leading to high temperatures and after that explosion. When the internal resistance is high, the battery self-discharges faster, and charges faster than normal ( phenomena described as fake-charged or memory effect) .

As preventive maintenance it could help a 95% SoC on the traction battery then discharge it and charge it again to 95% ( cycling the battery).

If u look on Prolong charger that is the way how it works however the price for that charger is way too big.

Regards.

 

Your battery could last another 85,000 or even another 200,000 miles. I would definitely not proactively replace it. You'll only replace it with a refurbished unit which has had 5-10% of its cells replaced. It may be even worse than the perfectly functional battery that you already have.

 

We designed our High Voltage Battery Analysers and Chargers after few years of comprehensive R&D and looking into what can actually help to rebuild / repair Prius Hybrid batteries in the most efficient way with less efforts and eliminating waste.
We have never offered our 1-2A Constant Current High Frequency Isolated 200-240VDC chargers to general public as a remedy for "preventive maintenance" as our view is that using grid chargers can't help Prius in any way, except when the battery was stored for over 12 months and depleted (Standard Toyota Operational Procedure to charge battery if stored for too long).
We went through the Patent Search and testing of various "suggestions". "Prolong", "Power Jokey", "Burp Charger" (AKA negative pulse charger), or variations of those were found to be non working solutions (for Prius). We have reports from New Zealand, Australia and USA about "no evidence of improvement". In New Zealand few people are offering even removal of those from cars as been dangerous.
I have samples of few "rejuvenating miracles" in the Lab and put them all to the test.
What came to our attention during R&D and what makes perfect sense is this: NiMH are loosing electrolyte when protective valves are open (e.g. during overheat, when clogged fan is not coping or outside temp is too high). One of the patents from the manufacturer clarifies re-fill of the modules with original solution in vacuum by adding exact amount of evaporated electrolyte measured by precise electronic scale. Good luck to recreate that re-fill process...

 

How is it possible many people that have tried the prolong grid charger state there's improvement in their battery performance, gaining back lost capacity in the battery after reconditioning?

 

you want to talk about preventative hybrid maintenance I'd be looking at cleaning the hybrid battery fan. 85,000 miles isn't anything like others have said. After 8 years though I'd be personally looking into cleaning the fan and making sure it is nice and clean

 

Where can an individual have a battery serviced by this equipment, is there list of vetted businesses that would allow you to release there contact information?