BATTERY Cost

compare that cost to a major engine rebuild

 

The Classic has antilock brakes, traction control, multiple airbags and crumple zones. Which tests are they weak on?

Dealer service is always pricey.

No, because most of them don't need a battery. How much did you pay for the rest of the car? What's the mileage? The traction battery has a 8 years or 100,000 miles warranty. Are you still in warranty?.

Previous thread on same topic (I arrive at a different figure than the price quoted the O.P.)

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-hybrid-news/2805-elite-service-meter-running-hybrid-repairs-3.html

 

Lots of car parts are expensive, if you have to replace them. How much for a new engine? How about an automatic transmission? Why single out the battery, since it almost never fails?

Tom

 

Your profile said 2003 Prius. That's not Gen II as you indicated in your post.

 

May be poor taste to reply to the OP since I feel it's tone is somewhat baiting, but guess I'm just feeling ornery this morning.

Warranty does NOT equal Life expectancy!

I *think* a 1990 F150 transmission had a 3 year 36000 mile warranty, yet it's 19 years later and I still see lots of 90's vintage F150's driving around, and from the people I talk to, most are still on their original transmission.

Look at most laptops today. I usually get 2-3 years out of a laptop before I see some catastrophic failure (I'm very hard on my laptops). Most of the ones I buy come with a 90 day factory warranty, yet I routinely get over 900 days of use out of them.

Standard rule of business is plot a bell curve of the projected component failure rate. You put the warranty period at the beginning of the bell curve, not the middle or end. If the life expectancy of the battery was 100,000 and the warranty was 100,000 then that would imply that Toyota expected a 100% replacement obligation (which they DID NOT). That would be tantamount to a HSD recall (which has NOT occurred). Frankly I'd be surprised if Toyota projected anything higher than 5% replacement obligation on traction batteries. So at a 5% replacement GUESSTIMATE the 1 million HSD drives that Toyota has already sold would expect to have 50,000 of them warrantied (or 950,000 of them to survive without issue). Since I haven't seen anywhere close to that many battery failures reported in the press, I suspect Toyota's projections were probably MUCH lower than 5%, probably closer to 1% or lower.

Also, the best comparison that I have to a battery replacement is a transmission replacement. Last person I knew buying a 100k+ dodge thought long and hard about transmission replacement costs before he bought it, and a prius battery is warrantied for 3 times as long as an early model dodge. It's also somewhat applicable since the Prius doesn't have a transmission in the conventional sense. It doesn't have gears (only one gear). The PSD serves the place of a conventional transmission, and that is more like a differential than anything. Very long lifespan.

UFC.T.T, if you honestly weren't baiting my apologies, but I get that question at least once a week since I bought my Prius 2 years ago, so over 100 times now.

11011011

 

Dan is right. If it is under warranty, it would cost you zero dollar to replace it.

 

Apologies. I've been away from PC for a while so I was too blunt in my previous posts. :tape:

I think you'll be just fine, and if anything worries you, get it checked out. If you need any work on it, the Prius is getting common enough that you could probably find some pretty good Prius / HSD mechanics that don't charge Toyota prices.

I've personally met over 100 prius owners, and I do know of one that got a battery replaced. His was 7 years old and the dealership took care of it with no out of pocket costs.

11011011

 

My thoughts?

Go away troll-boy.

... Brad

 

I was at Toyota today needed a 12V after 5.5 years, the dealership has yet to change a Battery as of yet. all they get is maint and 12V...

 

Oh, hell no! I didn't look at a single 1990 timeframe F150 with automatic that either still had its original transmission or didn't need a replacement back when I was used truck shopping back in the late 90's. By 80,000 miles everyone I came across that was mated to the V8 was either already replaced or ready for it. That and they were leaking fluids out of every seal and gasket. There might have been some that didn't need transmissions, but the engines ran so poorly that I couldn't tell. This was in northeast Texas.

Don't use the F150 for comparison.

 

If you ever wonder how or why Prius HV battery would last a very long time, check out the article I wrote.

Understanding NiMH hypercycles (usbseawolf2000)

You can get a brand new HV battery pack for less than $2k. That's less expensive than an automatic transmission which warranty is about a third as long as the HV battery.

 

I was looking at a smart car a while back just because they are so rediculous looking they bring a smile to your face every time you look at it. I had them appraise my 01 prius to see what they would give me for a trade. They came back and said $2000, even though Blue Book says $4500. They said it was because the Traction Battery was still the original and they had to assume it would fail soon.:lalala: I told them if that were a factor then Kelley would have already factored that into their estimates, and that they had just made up my mind to order the new Prius.

I'm anxiously awaiting my 2010.....