Who to choose for Refurbished HV battery

You might want to see what Toyota will do. They gave me $750 off of an out-of-warranty battery replacement simply by asking for it, so it made paying full price a little more palatable. I bet you could get more of a discount if you had the time and energy to whine about it.

 

It's too bad the person that installed your latest HV battery want's to charge you $500. I don't quite understand the affirmation that he is saying his rebuilt batteries don't go "bad for awhile"? Well evidently this one DID...in about 6.5 months.

Was the warranty in writing? It's too bad he evidently doesn't have the personal pride to want to back his product 100%.

$500 is probably a lot cheaper than any other alternative you have at the moment. I MIGHT...just might give this guy one more chance to "fix" his battery.

And yes, if you can get the vehicle to him, if I'm reading right, then it would only be a $250 dollar gamble? I might try to bring the Prius to him. $250 is a modest amount to see if this original failure is just fluke.



The simple answer to some of your questions is that the battery SHOULDN'T go bad after just 6.5 months. I don't know how much you paid for the replacement BUT even with a refurbished replacement battery, if the job is done right on all levels I would have much greater expectations for battery life. Something was/is wrong if you got only 6.5 months of life.

The question then simply becomes do you want to sink $500 dollars more into the battery with the same person that sold you the replacement that only lasted 6.5 months?

That's a gamble. But one I might take, but I'd want a more solid idea of what this installers warranty actually is....if he is charging you $500 every time his battery fails in less than a year...then his "warranty" is basically worthless. Then it becomes a good money after bad scenario.

Again, even though I think the installer should want to back his product, and shouldn't be charging you an additional $500 in less than 7 months from his installation, I might drop $500 on the gamble.

 

How do you figure that ??
IF the unit still contains original cells, I think it would be reasonable to expect that they would continue failing every few months until most or all of them are finally gone.
What exactly makes you believe otherwise ??

 

There is the correct way to recondition and install the reconditioned pack and there are all the other ways.

 

Please explain to us how you propose to "refresh" the internal chemistry of a battery cell after it has been (mostly) used up ??

I repeat my statement that IF old original cells remain as part of the "reconditioned" pack, the expected time until the next failure is just a crap shoot.

You might be able to better the odds a bit by proper cell testing but you can never be sure.

 

You might try Prius hybrids sales and service Scottsburg Indiana

 

First, cell, subpack and pack reconditioning is not an easy procedure to understand, much less complete correctly.

knowing the difference between a good and a bad cell is the key. But you are right as far as a subpack being mostly used up. It should be replaced with a subpack that shows more favorable performance.
Or you could ideally replace all the subpacks in the pack with new subpacks if they are available and you can afford it.

But that looks to me to be offtopic for this thread, unless I misunderstand your motive for posting the question.

actually quite a bit, if one knows what to look for, and there are a few people around that know what to look for in these proprietary panasonic cells.

 

Let's try not to pick nits that are TOO small........OK ??

 

Well simply I've hung around Prius Chat long enough to know that refurbished batteries are created and sold, and no rebuilder would stay in business very long if the life of the rebuilt/refurbished battery was typically less than 8 months. I don't think anyone buys a rebuilt or refurbished battery with the idea that the expected life is going to be less than a year.

I suspect there is different levels of quality as far as how batteries are refurbished and/or rebuilt, but I believe it is possible to refurbish a battery to a point where the expectation of battery life should be longer than 6.5 months.

Would you buy a battery expecting the cells to fail every few months leading to less than 8 months of useage?- I wouldn't.

If this battery was "refurbished" to this level of condition than I would say the rebuilder is incompetent and the product near useless.

I have read posts where people have bought refurbished/rebuilt batteries and gotten near new levels of performance and continued years of reliability..this is not an unreasonable expectation if the battery is rebuilt correctly.

 

Any battery that has less than a few year's parts warranty always make me raise and eyebrow.
I see some shops offering as low as 6 month or 3 month warranties.

While these packs may be less expensive up front than longer warrantied packs, if you plan on keeping your car for a while, you should skip shot-warrantied packs.

A quality pack that is going to last will cost more. Why? Because it takes more time, and better equipment to do things right.

 

I just replaced my HV battery with one from : Falcon Hybrid Solutions
Ridgefield, NJ 888-680-9731. I feel they had a fast ship and had several options. I am pleased..
Falcon Hybrid Solutions, Rebuilt Hybrid Batteries for Hybrid Drive Cars

 

What's their warranty........and price ??

 

Some of their batteries have a warranty as short as 12 months. :-(

 

IF (and this is a big if) the rebuilder is reputable, LOCAL, and can be expected to still be in business by the time the warranty expires, I would consider a pro-rated 36 month warranty that had free replacement for about $1000. That works out to ~ $27 a month replacement cost. *

New OEM otherwise.

As said above and I have been pointing out for what seems like forever, the $250 - $500 surcharge to use the warranty is a joke on the consumer.

* Why expect ~ $30 a month cost ? A new OEM battery costs about $2000 and I think conservatively can be expected to last 5 years, which is 60 months. $2000/60_months = $33 a month.

 

Lately it seems like at least once a month a sad story appears of someone burned by a low price.
Read the threads, fellow Prius Owners! Good rebuilding is hard and is not cheap.

 

I understand that these cheap rebuilds (on CL, e.g.) are garbage, but these people do know how to install a battery.
I'd consider hiring one to install a new OEM battery for me if I could not do it myself. That could save a lot of the outrageous labor charge of a dealership and make a new (really new) battery the most attractive option for replacement.

Check out this thread I created recently that lists prices across the country for new batteries. Note that the price is just the pack; the electronics have to be swapped over from the old pack and the old pack has to be returned to avoid the 'core' charge. Details in the thread.