2010 Prius battery not holding up like second generation Prius

I would shy away from a lease return because if the first driver wasn't planning to keep it, wouldn't they have taken worse care of it? That's what we do. Our FFH is owned so we take really good care of it, wash it every week, don't drive it much in winter, change oil more often, etc. But the Prius is a lease. Thus we drive it in the harshest conditions, wash it only once every two to three weeks, go 10k miles between oil changes, etc. ToyotaCare covers us until the 25k oil change, I'm not planning to do another one after that because we turn the car in at 36k miles and the dealer will presumably change oil anyway as part of their prep for resale. 25k to 36k is close enough. We'll probably be under on our miles anyway, so turning it it right around 35k would mean that I wouldn't have to pay for an oil change. I would never go that hard on a car I own. I only do that because the Prius is a lease which we do not plan to buy out at the end of its term.

 

That's a good point. I was under the impression the dealer required the scheduled maintenance, although I've never leased car...

I wish there was a log in the car with the oil changes logged in it. I don't think car fax does that unless you go to a dealer.

 

You bring up an excellent point.

However, the way you describe how you care for your lease doesn't sound unusually harsh to me. I'd bet 10k oil changes are better than the average car owner. Besides, 10k between changes is likely within acceptable limits, depending on how you drive. I go 12k between changes on my owned TSX, and wash it about once a year. Of course, I do get a Blackstone oil analysis to see how the oil held up after a year of use.

Other than oil changes, there isn't any other maintenance item on a 3 year lease that would be crucial to the longevity of the car. I would be comfortable buying an end of lease. The only problem I've found with that plan is that people still want too much for their car, asking much over private party KBB value.

The point remains though, that people will drive a car harder when they don't own it.

 

if the previous leased owner took care the car, you are lucky

I had some conversations years back on leased car, They abused their leased car, just hited potholes like a hell, and some other things .

I was thinking to buy previous "rental car". some my friends bought prev "rental car" with high millage with less price. after 4-5 years, one of my friend car started on burning oil. oh well nothing perfect..

buying a used car, is kind of gambling

 

Nowadays, the engine and drive train are completely computer controlled. It is very hard to abuse it.
You cannot over rev the engine, engine will shut down if no oil pressure, unless the owner really want to abuse it by running it into a brick wall.

 

I would say, gentle driving and "dont care" driving ...

prior year 2000. engine already controlled by on board controller (not computer ), you will hit by limiter.

engine will not stop until the low pressure below low on most engine and warned the driver to stop such as blinking "engine check" rapidly, but engine would not start when no oil for some cars just for precaution.

I am not talking about the car engine only, just overall with other mechanical parts..

drive train aka transmission is other thing, oops... such as, Hyundai did not have reliable " for abused" transmission . I do not know with model after 2010. I drove my past Hyundai car with gentle driving:. on other side, my wife drove just hit the pedal gas and hit the brake very quick.

Now, my wife drives Sienna 2011, I would assume would survive with her habitual driving skills.

there are so many way to abuse cars which are out of controller limits.

 

Driver can make a huge difference. If you constantly drain the battery down to 2 bars, it is not going to last as long as another driver that maintain the ideal 6 bars.

 

What is describe is "HARD" driving, full throttle and full braking. This type of driving will show the weakness of a design.
Abuse is to operate outside of the design parameter, for example, when the temperature gauge shows over heating and driver continues to drive until the engine ceases or try to burn rubber. Actually the Prius won't let you do this, the Tesla can't do this either unless the fuse is pulled on purpose.

 

Even in regular gas cars, there are two maintenance schedules (Normal and Severe). Severe condition is defined for many short trips, driving on dusty / bumpy road, etc.

You can't just say, the car is designed for all conditions and should last the same.

There are severe condition for the battery. Bad if you cycle it a lot. Even worse if you cycle it deeper and more often. The computer will allow it but that's a severe condition for the battery.

 

So it isn't good to drive as far as I can on ev until the battery gets to 2 bars and ICE kicks on? I thought it was better for batteries to do complete cycles instead of many short cycles

 

Your understanding was true of NiCad batteries that suffered "memory" if not cycled fully. Modern battery technology, including cell phones, laptops, and the NiMH battery in the Prius live the longest by keeping the charge near the middle to upper portion of the charge range. Further, the more you use the battery on the Prius, the less efficient it is. Charging the battery with the gasoline motor and then discharging the battery with the electric motor is an inefficient process. Much better to directly drive the car from the gas engine, with the electric only kicking in when more power is needed.

 

See below. The shallower the depth, the more cycles you will get out of it, exponentially.

 

Interesting. We don't intentionally hit potholes with the leased Prius, but we do choose to drive it more on the rough ice-covered roads so that we don't wear out the suspension in the Fusion prematurely. My comment to my wife was, it would be a big deal if the shocks on the FFH need replacing after 50k miles because of our awful roads, if the Prius shocks are worn out at 50k it won't affect us. So I'd rather drive the Prius on our rough roads right now.

 

You're wasting your breath mate. They won't want to hear anything negative about the Prius. Been there, done that.

Taxi use is hard on a car as we both know. The Prius is too highly strung - like a thoroughbred horse. It'll be fine for a daily commuter but no good as a taxi, despite the fuel savings.

You guys need more European type diesels or tuned petrols that get much better fuel economy and are cheap to run on parts. You seem committed to US models, yet pay more for your fuel.

 

Taxi use can be different enough from average use that compared to the Gen 2, the Gen 3 battery failure rate could be much lower overall but much higher for some kinds of taxi use.

 

The battery in gen3 is the same as gen2 at cell and module level. The only difference is packaging and better cooling lead to higher power (21kW -> 28kW).

Gen3 is slightly heavier and allows more battery usage with higher engine off speed (42 -> 46 mph).

All this points to more severe condition for the battery. It makes sense that Taxi are seeing this.

 

The Gen III should be just as capable of long battery life as the Gen II. I think it would be worth gathering some data. I would first talk to the taxi drivers and understand their driving habits and how the car reacts. Things I would ask & look for is questions like, how often do you notice the battery dropping to 2 bars? Do you often press power ON and immediately start driving or do you leave the car in the "ON Ready" mode for long periods of time? Do you use any of the ECO/PWR/EV modes, if so, when. I would also look for patterns like the battery lasting longer for some drivers than others.
I'm not saying one driver is doing something wrong compared to another driver. However there may be a design weakness that could be overcome by adjusting driving habits based upon what is working better for some drivers than others.
I know the one thing I try to avoid is pressing the PWR button and driving with a heavy foot until the initial warm up occurs. Hard acceleration, or even moderate acceleration, during the first stage of warm up can cause the most rapid discharge of the battery that I've seen. The system will do everything it can to minimize the load on the ICE until that first stage of warm up is complete. The surprising things is, turning off the car for only a few seconds can result in it repeating the first stage of warmup when PWR is turned back on. I use my Scan Gauge II to keep a close eye on this.
I do everything I can to keep the battery as close to 6 bars as I can. I fully intend to drive this Prius to +300,000 miles with the original traction battery. I'm already a 1/3 of the way there with over 100,000 miles.
I'm an Electric Engineer and have spent my 26 years working in Electronics troubleshooting and doing Root Cause/Corrective Action. I can definitely see some characteristics about the Prius that could lead it to react to drivers habits in a way which could shorten battery life. However, I also believe with a few changes in habits the battery life can be extended.
The challenge is, I don't think any of us has sufficient data to completely back up our conclusions of which driving habits are better than the next. So the more we gather our data collectively the more we may be able to learn.

 

Just put on a bullet proof vest and ask away

SPH-L710 ?