Finally had to replace Traction Battery

Hello Sage Brush you seem like a regular here - would it be normal for a 2008 gen 2 battery to go at 8 years but approx lets say 120,ooo kms
as they way you are all talking on the forums it wouldn't be - if the car has not been driven much does that indicate a likely hood of them being nearer replacement?
i have asked some urgent type questions in other places on the forum waiting for someone to bite...as i am needing to decide on my first prius 2008 itech here in australia..
thanks for any body at all that can help

plus info on the battery replacements in australia? would be awesome

Shakti

 

That would not be normal at all Shakti. These batteries typically last 8-10 years.

 

Any updates? Hows your actual FE mpg,? Im not supposed to be here as my prius 08 battery seems to.be in good shape.. Atracctions law! But we got to learn the good way..

 

great news, thanks for the report!

 

Cells removed from a battery rebuilt by Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions in February 2015. This battery had in initial red triangle fault upon receipt, but driving the car a while temporarily cleared it. It failed again a month later. No respons for a warranty replacement from Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions or other considerations and almost no communications after a month of waiting. I had some guys at Beach Cars in Ft Walton FL. check it out and changed tow bad cells. It was bak running, but a little weak. I lucked upon a GEN 1 pack from a wrecked Prius that had been replaced with a new Toyota battery in 2010. I bought that battery which being relatively new was better than the poor battery performance from Prius Rebuilders. Their battery still has two weak cells. The measurements from this morning (7/12/2015) are as follows:

I measured the cells as removed yesterday Measured this morning)
1 - 7.84 16 - 7.83 31 - 7.68*
2 - 7.88 17 - 7.83 32 - 7.83
3 - 7.86 18 - 7.81 33 - 7.85
4 - 7.84 19 - 7.83 34 - 7.85
5 - 7.89 20 - 7.84 35 - 7.89
8 - 7.82 21 - 7.65* 36 - 7.90
9 - 7.90 22 - 7.82 37 - 7.89
10 - 7.83 23 - 7.83 38 - 7.88
11 - 7.83 24 - 7.91
12 - 7.82 25 - 7.83
13 - 7.83 26 - 7.82
14 - 7.81 27 - 7.85
15 - 7.83 28 - 7.82


I measured these this morning and marked the ones I think are weak with red above. My Guess is two better cells would make this a good battery for a GEN I with GEN II cells, but I am no expert. The way I see it is that Prius Rebuilders has about a 10.5 % failure rate on selecting cells for their rebuilds. With 38 cells they are almost guaranteed to have bad cells in their products with little or no after build testing. A very bad bet for their customers. I replaced two of them already and there are two to go as I figure it.
At least these are the numbers from a running battery just removed. At 7.1 volts the cells will fault and throw the P3006 code. (I think)
The cells I had replaced measured below 6.8 volts.
To fix the "new" battery I had to use the cable on the front from the battery blocks to the battery ECU and the ECU and these parts will be missing. The rest of the cables and the master relay are installed. Included is to cover and the bad parts from the other battery.
With a 10.5% cell failure rate you are almost guaranteed to have one or more bad cells in any pack you purchase rebuild from Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions. A very bad bet! I have this battery with all of this information for sale on Ebay :

Prius Gen 2 Battery Cells | eBay

As noted above what you do when you make a mistake is how you are judged. Anyone can have a failure, but if you don't do anything about it then shame on you. This company deserves to die it's natural death from poor service and poor product and willful neglect of their customers.

 

Well, you are clued in enough to have not tried another two cell replacement.

Your advert on Ebay has reasonable disclosure by the way. Good for you. An informed shopper will realize that your testing is inadequate, but you hope to find a sucker.

 

I don't think I am looking for a sucker in this sale. The cells are in as charged condition being just removed from an operating car and not force charged like some of sale on ebay.
I feel that a reasonably competent electrical guy and figure out what to do and get reasonable service. A lot of the cells on ebay are from sellers Like Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol and they are misrepresenting the state of charge of the cells that they are selling as good cells.
Since these batteries must have been charged with the very same current in series the resultant voltage after the surface charge and dissipated is a pretty good indication of condition.. The weak cells are very evident in this pack. I understand your pessimism on cell replacement and without a doubt the fact that one or two cells have failed is a pretty good indication that the service life of the cells in the same batch is nearing their end.
However changing one or two earlier failed batteries is a much better economic risk than swapping the pack for a questionable pack from Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol. It depends on the capabilities of the person involved and the chances of successful outcome is dependent on the failure curve of the batteries involved.
Personally I dealt with some "guys" at Beach Cars in Ft Walton who specialize in reselling Toyota prii and they guarantee the batteries foe a year when they sell the car. They have had good success and stand behind their work and were very helpful in my case. I was lucky to find the "new" 2010 battery the next week to put in my car leaving the Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol battery as surplus.
II have not studied the measurement of life left in a Prius battery cell, but if they are like most other batteries I have had experience with over the last 40 or so years the measurements I have provided will give a pretty good indication of the current quality, but there can be no way to predict how long they will perform and to some extent that applies to new cells as well.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but you continued to have poor car performance after the Ft Walton module swap, which is what prompted you to jump on the current pack now in the car.

 

The battery functioned after the cells were replaced and drove OK. I was looking for some tires since my son needed a car for a while and the Prius needed new shoes.
I found a set of tires looking on Craigslist and it said they had less than 1000 miles on them and the picture listed showed that they were mounted on what looked like Gen I Prius wheels.
I called the guy and asked him if they were Prius wheels and why wheels and tires and the answer wa he had loanded the car to his mother and she was run off the road and the car was wrecked and the tires had less than 500 miles on them. I asked him if he had any other parts like the battery and he said he had a battery that had been replaced under Toyota warranty in 2010 when he worked at the Toyota dealership.
He wanted $300 for the battery and it was too good of a deal to pass up.
I bought the battery and pulled the cover to inspect it and had to replace the battery measuring block cable and computer and charge a couple of cells since it had been sitting for a few months and was dirty. The discharged cells were at the end that is open with the fan duct removed and probably had more moisture collect on the terminals to discharge them while sitting.
I installed the battery, but left the cover off to drive it and measure the cell voltages after a 100 miles or so for driving and they were all arounf 7.8 volts so I put the cover on and bolted everything back in place.
One thing I have noticed is that when starting in the morning this battery pack produces good mileage after the first 5 min. segment. Since I drive out of the neighborhood and then have a 27 mile drive at 55 mph it is a pretty good measurement of battery performance.
The old battery that finally gave up after 13 years it would take a while to produce the high mileage. I thought it was this long period of time to heat everything up, but I think it was the length of time it took to get the state of charge high enough to work properly as a hybrid charging and discharging. The "new" rebuilt behave much like this as well and delivered good mileage to start, but the the two cells (really only one, but the other was pretty weak) failed.
After the replacement of the two worst cells it drove like it did before, but if you floored the car from a standstill to 70 mph the battery charge would drop to 1/2. With the 2010 battery you can floor the car from 0 to 80 mph and the battery will still show the high charge state the whole time and just show recharging to replace the energy from the use.
I was lucky to find the 2010 battery for what I paid for it and I hope to recover some of the cost of the Prius Rebuilders Falcon Hybrid Solutions and Mark Sokol and Abe Sokol poorly rebuilt battery by selling the good cells to someone who needs them and understands what they are doing.

 

Never deal with Prius Rebuilders / Falcon Hybrid Solutions! You are very likely to spend your money with no recourse!
If they are a fly by night outfit or not they are not good for their word and their warranty is meaningless. Their failure rate almost guaranteed you will have a problem and the recourse it to get another poor quality warranty replacement battery with the same likelihood of failure as the first along with the trouble and expense of shipping and R&R of the pack.
It took me a month to get the first "rebuilt GEN I pack with GEN II cells and it lasted a month after I had to charge the thing because it had the triangle of death upon installation. After calling to get a warranty replacement that was supposed to take 5 -7 days and no response for a month I had two bad cells replaced and found out about their quality control! Still no response!
Luckily I found a pullout battery that was new in 2010 and installed it and the car runs like it should and does not just barely work like the sorry excuse for a battery from Prius Rebuilers / Falcon Hybrid Solutions.
Plus you will get little if any support and what little you do get will be very slow. If you don't live close enough to go in preson and beat down their door don't even consider using them. Perhaps not even then.