Time to buy a new Prius?

You seemed to have had a good run with the car, it did make it to 187k, which is right at the designed end of service life for the car. It wouldn't be in your best interest to put a new battery in the car with that many miles on it because the new battery will last another 8 to 10 years (way past the life expectancy of the car). If you decide to keep it, you probably want to rebuild the battery yourself or buy a salvage yard battery to put in it. You should only expect to get a couple more years of somewhat reliable service on this car before you would start running into replacing parts here and there to keep it running.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably take advantage of all the great rates for the new Prius cars. They are heavily discounted and should offer you another 10 years of trouble free driving.

If you do decide on scraping the car, please allow someone here to buy it.......

 

Is HOV important?...you can still get a PiP with HOV from Dianne here
Prices on PiP's without HOV are reportedly incredible in CA...many leasing I think
Did you contact Toyota Dealer re: batt replacement or Luscious G? sometmes Toyota gives a break

 

i can't believe lucious is selling rebuilt gen I packs for $2,600.

 

If you might be driving less than 24K miles over the next couple years, leasing a 2014 Prius Four would be a good alternative. Then in 2016 buy an new GenIV Prius as your next long term car.

 

A doorman brand rebuilt battery with a 3 year warranty seems like a good option not that I have ever purchased one. I wonder why Luscious does not install doorman packs, they seem to be the biggest supplier with best warranty.

 

most likely you will. luscious has a great rep, all the best!

 

Betting on heavily discounted leftover inventory in a strong year for automotive sales doesn't sound like a good move. Things have changed a lot in 10 years and I would have moved on. It's a good idea with any car to decide sooner rather than later how far down the repair path you want to go as old cars become money pits pretty quickly.

I'm curious: How new are those Gen1 cells?

 

I replaced the cells in my 2002 Gen 1 Battery Pack back in March 2011 with a set of Gen 2 cells from a person on eBay who took them from a couple of 2006 Prius's that had about 58k on them. He knew how to stress test them to ensure they would hold up in parallel. Cost was about $1,200, and I was able to tackle the job myself with the hardest problem being getting the cover back on the pack so the holes would line up which I solved with elongating the holes. Another issue I encountered was actually lifting the pack in and out of the trunk which I solved by getting a couple of people to assist me with this. When I got the car back together, it ran better than new and I received higher mileage than I had previously received from when I bought it with about 98K on it maxing out at 45 to 50 Mpg. At the time, the car had roughly 115K on it and I have beening using the car daily putting 100 to 150 miles a day on it since August 2012 to where it now has 232,400 miles. The pack lasted during a nine month period where the car sat idle when the inverter was blown due to an inoperative coolant pump although I can't get it to fully charge like it used to do after replacing the pack and my mileage has slipped somewhat. However, I am thrilled with the result and how this little car keeps going and going. My advice is to ask questions of the person with whom you buy the replacement cells from. Make sure they know how to diagnose the pack.

 

If by Gen 1, you mean batteries intended for the 2001 - 2003 model years, I would avoid that.

Instead of buying the correct new battery for $3,200, I would look for a used battery coming from a G3 wreck (2010 to current model years) and transplant the 28 modules into the existing traction battery case.

If, other than the traction battery, your car has been reliable, then it would be reasonable to invest in a replacement traction battery and see what happens. Good luck with your service decision.

 

If your over-riding priority is to save money, and the Prius is in good shape overall except for the traction battery, then replacing the battery is a no-brainer.

I'm not a fan of remanufactured batteries, so I suggest one of three replacement choices

1. If you are comfortable opening the battery case and messing around inside, follow Patrick Wong's advice and buy a lightly used or new G3 pack and swap the modules. Cost $1000 - $2000
2. If you are a garden variety DIYr, buy a new, OEM pack from Toyota for about $2000 and install it yourself
3. You do not own a wrench: Pay LG the $3200 for a new pack.

You might be thinking that a cheap reman fits your timeline for a new Prius in a couple of years, but I argue that a better replacement now will give you more flexibility, AND pay for itself when you sell the car.

 

^^^...OK there's that Lucious Garage benchmark replacement price I was asking for

 

this thread is confusing.

 

Or, you could repair your battery pack yourself. There are 28 cells in a Generation II Battery and if you have a moderate electronics/mechanics skill, it is likely only one or two cells of the 28 have gone bad causing heating and failure. I did it myself and it cost me $53 USD including shipping to replace the bad cell and it took me 2 hours to pull the battery pack, open it up, test each cell with a multi-meter, replace the bad cell and then put the battery pack back into the car. You can see the video I followed by searching "hybrid guybumbling" - or just search youtube for one of the several great prius battery repair videos.

Edit to remove offers of service for a price: Priuschat doesn't allow selling or offering services for personal gain without contacting Danny the site admin and getting his approval.