120,000 Mile Battery Failure. Am I the only one?

Water pump should be under warranty (recall) but to replace the 12v twice??? What are you doing to the aux rail? That will throw bad codes. If you are constantly leaving lights on and things, that's bad. Or was it replaced and the replacement was DOA? More is needed on this...

As to your overall question and doubts... You have a car with 120K miles on it and you bought it used. You lost the used lottery. Keep in mind that heat is what kills these batteries, it is very well known. It is why they die early in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, basically the entire Southern part of the USA. They also die earlier in mountainous areas (like where I am) when they are deeply cycled often and asked to deliver very demanding power to chug up huge mountain slopes. In your case the car had 93K miles of hard use in Florida when you bought it. You added more, and it died.

There have been battery failures at 80K miles and some at 300K miles or 400K miles, it all depends. In your case, it died at 120K miles, and that's not bad. It's not good, but it is not bad. You got a lower than normal life expectancy but, that's life.

As to the "hybrid specialists", they are referring to the inverter ("charge system") or most likely the inverter coolant pump. There have been a few isolated cases of inverter failures. With a few million on the road, it is expected. However it is extremely rare and I would put that possibility way down on the list. Things that can cause failure are rodents chewing away the wires going into the inverter, or flood damage to some of the ECU's that sort of thing. The inverter cooling pump failure is more common and super easy to check for. Turn the car READY, pop open the hood, and the cap on the fluid reservoir for the inverter coolant (NOT the radiator, i.e. engine coolant). You should see some turbulence in there. If the fluid is still, then yes the pump is bad. This means that the inverter will not cool down properly, and this will kill a hybrid battery and an inverter and cause warning lights along with reduced power output when it gets too hot.

You gambled on a used car, nobody else can make that up to you. If the value of the repairs is in excess of the value of the car, then it doesn't make sense to repair it.

However, I would caution your numbers.

A brand new battery can be had at most dealerships installed for $2.7K. If you are willing to do some work, then you can buy the battery and return your old as a core replacement and save $1K. If you go with a reconditioned battery it is usually $1.5K + installation. If you go to a junkyard (preferably not in Florida where they have been baking in the sun) you can get the packs for like $300 for a used pack. But if you get a car with 100K miles on it or less you can gamble it will last another 100K on average. Not bad for the price.

The inverter coolant pump is pretty cheap to fix, and really easy to tell if you have to. Do that first before worrying about it. As to the inverter, a new inverter installed from a dealership will be about $5K to $6K by themselves. So if you have a bad inverter and battery you are looking at $8K to 9K in repairs, not $5K. The chance of this is super rare though.

As for your Honda, ask any Honda IMA owner about their batteries and almost all have had them replaced. Honda crippled their cars by trying to use too much of the small battery in a bad way which overstressed them and killed them early. They did it so that they could compete with the Prius on paper, the MPG number crept up in the short term, but the overall health of the system was dead. Our HCH has had 2 batteries in it. The software "fix" reduced the amount the ECU uses the battery and lowered the MPG more to what it should have been.

If you want to play battery whack-a-mole yourself, you could get your car running again for $20 with a used module from eBay.

It all depends on what you want to do.

 

Yes we have a lot of batt failures on Gen2 I do not know if its approaching 10% but let's say it's probably 5-10% in 2004-2006, less on 2007 model year, but suddenly it starting to be 2007's we are hearing about as the years march on.

Well 2k1 is right about the lottery-lost but a lot of folks have been getting some assistance from Toyota. Probably a little harder if you are not orig owner but I am not sure that's true. Keep in mind CARB states guarantee for 10-yr 150k miles, not sure how old your was when the battery died (counting from the first purchase) but it sounds like yours went <8 years <120k miles. Hoping for better, I am not sure what the 2007 warranty guide says, but thru 2006 I think it is a little weak legally.

You have 2 approaches:
1. Try again with Toyota for out-of-warranty assistance. Maybe get the car to different dealer just to re-start the process from scratch, You want a big dealer with good marks. I'd be curious to know if the batt died before 8-yrs that might be a talking point.
HV Battery Goodwill Warranty Listing - Toyota Prius USA | PriusChat

2. Try to go with cheap 3rd party batt and get the show on the road.

 

try this
Find A Shop - Hybrid/EV Repair &amp; Service Shop LocatorHybrid/EV Repair &amp; Service Shop Locator

 

hate to say it, but as a 10 year observer of this website, i think you're the only one.

 

wjtracy,
That is a paid listing site from a specific "hybrid training center".

There are plenty of reputable independent shops not listed in that paid advertising site.

For example, check San Francisco.
Neither Luscious Garage, Art's Automotive, or Pat's Garage are listed.
These three are some of the best independent shops the country.
Their absence from the site should give you a clue to the validity of the listings.

You may want to check your sources before just throwing out suggestions for others.

 

Bisco, I was going to say the same (tongue in cheek) remark.
"Nope, never seen any battery failures. You are the first!"

Jase,
If you tell us where you are located, we may be able to help a bit more.

 

Florida but no other specifics

 

We hear stories on here about some people getting good assistance from Toyota after the warranty expires, but Toyota has no obligation to do it. If you tried and failed, then oh well.

This sounds like red flags to me. One dying like you said sounds like it could just be age. Two dying, sounds like a problem somewhere. Either in the car, or where you store keys in relation to the car, or driving habits that work on cars with large starter batteries that don't on a Prius, who knows. But it sounds like something that should be investigated.

I think you have grounds to ask for more explanation here. In no way should it only last 25K miles which sounds like a year and a bit for you. Could be bad workmanship or just a bad replacement part. They could have put back on the item that was recalled lol. Who knows, but I would have pressed harder on this one...

"Abusive" is the term for vehicles subjected to above average strain during service life. The simple fact your car lives in Florida, is abusive. Similarly, the fact that mine lives down a gravel drive and is regularly subjected to high altitude offroading (seriously, with jeeps) is also abusive. Your car has a battery in it, batteries don't like the heat. Batteries want to be the same temperature as humans essentially. If they are too cold, they don't like it. If they are too hot, they don't like it. Batteries are divas. Since you are in Florida, your car is going to hot most of the time, and it just won't like that. Nothing you can do about that. You can try to mitigate it by only parking in garages, but eventually the car must be driven on roads.

If you want to see an extreme case of this look at 2011-2012 MY Nissan Leafs. Those in hot areas like NM, AZ, TX, and the deep south are showing much more rapid degradation than those in NY or WI or something like that. They can deal with the cold easily because it will automatically warm up. It can't deal with the hot, because there is no active thermal management to cool them down. The Prius has a fan that turns on when it is hot, but that's it. No liquid cooling or anything. And when cold, the NiMH warms up fast.

So to reiterate, your car is going to be an outlier because it is in a less than ideal abusive situation.

And my Honda's have all required work just after 100K miles. Clutch around 105K in the Prelude ($800), transmission around 120K in the non-hybrid civic ($2500), and even a TPMS sensor death on a 2012 Accord.

Anecdotes aren't very useful, you have to look at the greater picture. The simple fact remains that Honda and Toyota in general are both great brands and very reliable. I would not go so far as to call your car a lemon as you have, I would just say you had a failure earlier than expected, but still a very long way into its life. My Prius and many others on here have more miles than yours with zero maintenance. Not many cars on the road can claim that.

They were outside of the warranty, too bad so sad for them. One of my coworkers had his fail at around 108K miles. Toyota covered the entire cost of the battery, he just paid for labour. Anecdote for anecdote. Toyota didn't have to do a thing, but they did.

If 8 hours of your time is not worth the cost savings, then I am seriously wondering what you are complaining about. You can even do that over a weekend... We drive 4 hours one direction on the weekends sometimes just to go hiking in some backhill. If you can't be bothered to save a few thousand dollars, then that's nobody's problem but your own.

Yours failed earlier than average, but not "early". To fail early, would be under warranty, and then this thread would be moot. Your failed outside of warranty but still gave you and a previous owner(s) a decade of service.

I don't know what you paid for. Most dealer's only pull codes, they don't "test" the battery at all. If they gave you a printout with each module voltage and each cell voltage, then kudos to them and I would trust that dealer as they obviously have someone who knows what they are doing. Where is your battery health report you paid for, what information is on that page? Or was it just Billy-Bob saying that all was well and sending you on your merry way?

If there was a problem with the "charging system" as you put it, your car wouldn't move. If there was a problem with the "cooling system" you should notice it with the HV fan turning on loudly and the car losing power. This is a 20 second test by popping open the hood and looking for turbulent liquid. Put your mind at ease in under a minute, what's so hard about this?!

Then that's your issue, and go find another dealer. You do have a geographic problem though. The Southern US and it's backward ways have held on to some horrible companies. I also believe this is why you and your friend are getting nowhere but people in better states get nice treatment. In MS, LA, TX, AR, and OK you have to deal with Gulf States Toyota Distributors which have exclusive rights to distribute Toyotas in all those states. NC, SC, GA, AL, and FL (i.e. you) are all governed by Southeast Toyota Distributors. Both of these companies force all sorts of evil on people, but there is nothing you can do about it other than travel outside of their regime to purchase and maintain your vehicle. In the rest of North America, Toyota sells to Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. Then TMS sells to all the dealers over the country. But for the south, TMS sells to GST or SET which then sells to you. You can read countless horror stories about people trying to deal with Souteast Toyota over very simple warranty items and it is out of Toyota (Japan) hands.

It is most certainly not a lemon. But it is not the most reliable car ever seen either.

 

after so much success with 7 toyotas over 15 years, i would never consider a honda, though i don't doubt their quality. why on earth would you decide to buy a 6 year old toyota with 93,000 miles? because honda doesn't make a 50 mpg car.

 

It would not be the first Florida person mentioning a lack of assist

 

In Miami, Toyoworks Service Center on SW 114th is the place to go. Good reviews on Yelp and Google Plus. I replaced my hybid battery at 164,000 miles last December. 3 yr warranty. Just drove 2400 miles to St. Louis and back [Miami area] without a problem.
My car is a 2005 prius with no prior problems with only oil changes and tire rotations qualify as maintenance. Also replaced all fluids and original plugs at same time as hybrid battery change. Car ran good as new after this service and still does. I'm not in any way related to Toyoworks and enjoy passing on a good recommendation. As a DIY'er in many areas, I only watched the hybrid battery replacement process and glad I did not undertake this task-way above my pay grade.
By the way, recently, I helped a family member purchase a 2005 for $4200 and after two months, the hybrid battery needs replacing. Family member was willing to pay up to $7000 for a used 2006/2007 something else. Once this battery is replaced, the car is likely good for 5 or more years assuming there nothing unfortunate happens; that's about $1500 a year cost for a used car. Best decision was to find a lower cost used car Toyota and go from there. Family member's prior used car purchases were at same price range but those cars were rust buckets and dangerous to drive.
Good luck to you

 

My 2005 Gen2 failed two weeks ago. Almost exactly 120,000 miles. I decided to just go with a factory replacement. Mainly because I didn't think I would be able to get a new car for at least a few years, I wanted to make sure it was reliable, and I didn't trust the other options.

I will say I think I caused it. I bought it in 2013 with 95,000 miles. I only drive it to a park & ride a couple miles away from my house for work. Then maybe 10-40 miles per week outside of that. All of my regular places I go (grocery store, mailbox, most fast food, etc) are ridiculously close - maybe 1-2 miles. In the last 2-3 months I've had to work from home 4 days a week, so it wasn't even being used every day.

Why I think I caused it is my wife and I tend to sit in the car often. I'll run into the store, and just leave it in park with the AC running. Or we'll get fast food and eat it in the car. We do tend to sit in it in park with the car on maybe once or twice a week for 10-45 minutes each. I'd guess a combination between the infrequent driving, the much less frequent driving recently due to working from home, and the short distances of my usual drives, and my regular parking with the car 'on' just slowly damaged my battery.

Though I will say 120,000 miles isn't all that strange to me. That seemed pretty reasonable with how I drive it.

 

i don't think you caused it. it's more likely that it was 11 years old.

 

Ya - the timing didn't seem all that unreasonable. The price of the replacement battery was a bit of a shock, but I'd noticed increasing battery issues in the last 6 months or so.

I'm a bit sad. I was hoping it would last until the Prime came out. 22 miles is perfect for me. I think I could have gotten away with filling up my tank like 3-4 times a year with how I drive. And I think I could have afforded it - my first new car - but probably not now. That battery is certainly not cheap.

 

how many miles a year are you driving?

 

Around 6,500 miles a year.

The previous owner drove about twice that (12k miles per year) between the purchase and 2013 when I bought it. It was about 102k miles when I bought it. It's 120k now.

 

I know this thread is old, but my battery decided to celebrate summer with a Christmas tree dashboard. My odometer was at 120,000. Performance had been going downhill for about a month, with the battery draining fast and the car hesitating and lurching at times. I am grateful as all heck that it was covered under the 150,000 warranty, and just had a new one put in. What a zippy difference!
Still racking my brain trying to figure out why my battery petered out so soon.

 

The two good things: that is a rare story on the Gen3 in the USA.and Toyota covers it no probs.
It would be interesting to touch base with Lucious Garage to see what she is seeing re: Gen3 batt reliability trends.