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Prius Battery Replacement Kit (GenII/GenIII) with NEW custom cells

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by 2k1Toaster, Oct 13, 2017.

  1. w2co

    w2co Member

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    And I too will probably be joining this group, my trusty 06' prius with slightly over 70k with no out of ordinary problems just developed the symptoms of a bad HV battery. Heard a couple of pops now back there recently, after doing some checking of things like the fan blower which I've never heard, it gave another loud pop today going 40mph on level ground in the morning when it was relatively cool outside, then heard it sizzling maybe arcing a bit so I rushed home and pulled the safety plug. Am leaning on getting one of these kits and install it. Should give the car an extension in life, and possibly save it from a triangle of death and a tow home..I contacted Nick and he said this week! Anxiously waiting.
     
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  2. Fred_H

    Fred_H Misoversimplifier

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    That reminds me of The battery fires at ECU sense connector thread.

    Before you begin rebuilding the battery, I suggest that you unplug the orange connector that connects the voltage sensor wiring harness to the battery ECU, and inspect it thoroughly. If it shows signs of corrosion or arcing, then you should replace the connector along with the voltage sensor harness and/or Battery ECU.
     
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  3. w2co

    w2co Member

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    Yes I've already disabled the battery and parked the car, as soon as I heard arcing. Actually I pulled the neg. of 12v battery as well, until I get done with this. No sense in letting it go dead too. Hopefully I will receive the kit in time...
     
  4. donbright

    donbright Active Member

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    1500 miles later, MPG is back to 'normal' (high 40s city, low 50s highway). Here's a temperature graph from a recent trip (Torque, BAFX, plotly)
    newplot.png
     
  5. nontoko

    nontoko Junior Member

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    Just ordered Gen2 battery from newpriusbatteries web site for my ‘05 Prius with 250,000 miles. Hopefully it gets here in California soon as I’ll be on vacation next week to work on it.
     
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  6. BlueOfLA

    BlueOfLA Junior Member

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    battery 1.JPG
    (Above is the not fully assembled yet kit. Also, installed backwards.. I touch on this topic later)

    Received the kit, nicely padded packaging. Modules and molding look great. The tabs that protect the terminals are difficult to take off without breaking, so it's nice that some extras were included.

    The car drives a bit smoother. More EV only driving without the ICE kicking in. Only put about 200 miles on it so far and I've heard the ECUs need to re-calibrate themselves for optimum performance.

    My old battery would go to 1-2 bars in the morning/after work, then charge up and rapidly go to green/blue indicating the battery was close to failure. This one does not dip in the morning/evening. Battery stays in the blue/green bars, nothing purple/red.

    Instructions were a bit tricky. These are a newer version kit (Version-3) from the seller. This means that the manual that's already been claimed to be tricky just got trickier. Labels have been revamped/reworded. The batteries now have female connections, you stick a bolt in the module versus the older kit which you would stick a nut on the end of a male bolt head on the module.

    I think the seller could benefit from labeling things a bit clearer in illustration. Such as maybe add a sticker indicating which battery should be closest to the ECU. "ECU Side" or something along these lines. I originally installed my battery with module 14 (close to ecu), module 1 (furthest from ecu) per the outdated manual, however found I had to disassemble the battery and order them from 1 (close to ecu), to module 14 (furthest from the ECU).

    Maybe they could also add note which side the red side of the harness versus the blue side of the harness should face? Here's a little illustration I whipped up with a few minutes in paint of my setup that might be helpful to some! Make sure to install everything in the correct order though to avoid electrocution.

    battery 2.JPG

    Overall enjoying it, nothing negative to report and there are only positive results.
     
    #706 BlueOfLA, Sep 7, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2019
  7. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    Well that is odd.

    I presume the numbering to which you refer is the module serial numbers.

    It seems odd that they should be opposite to what Techstream numbers them. They also seem opposite to your V numbers, whatever they are.

    Also looking at your diagram, the +'s and –'s seem a little odd. Are you sure you got that right?

    Glad it is all together and the car is running well. Congratulations on a job well done.
     
  8. BlueOfLA

    BlueOfLA Junior Member

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    Dolj: Oops! I messed up and put the wrong the voltage on the main wires. (Unfortunately I can't delete the wrong image in my previous post, but its fixed below.) Techstream is fine and not opposite. I was referring to the way the kit's manual is labeled is opposite. Nick sends out an email that explains the changes in the Version-3 kit when you place an order, but I had missed it starting my install.

    battery 2.JPG
     
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  9. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    That may make sense in context of the manual, and I wonder if they have a generic instruction set that covers both Gen 2 and 3, as the Gen 3 battery modules are labelled that way. As far as the way the battery works, it probably doesn't matter whether you stack them 1 – 14 or 14 – 1, unless the caps on 1 and 14 are different.

    However, any diagram that represents a Gen 2 battery (especially presented here on PriusChat) should show the module count as it in Techstream, as per this:
    173657_battery_3.jpg

    Perhaps, you could feed this back to Nick, for his consideration.
     
  10. BlueOfLA

    BlueOfLA Junior Member

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    Oh I see what you are referring to now!

    The black plastic parts of the modules are removable - it's possible they could be swapped around the right way (?) but I didn't look into it that much however and proceeded to just install them in reversed order. It hadn't made sense to me why it was 14-1 until you indicated this is the way the blocks are oriented in the computer.
     
  11. Aegean

    Aegean Active Member

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  12. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I was struggling with what happened in the above picture revisions, made this cheat sheet:

    upload_2019-9-8_18-53-43.png
     
  13. gliderman

    gliderman Active Member

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    So which picture is correct?
     
  14. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Bottom one I think? They're in the same order as posted, descending.
     
  15. Prodigyplace

    Prodigyplace Senior Member

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    Well, many dealers will not sell you the battery without installation. Many more dealers will not ship a battery pack. You need to deal with the core fee that you conveniently omitted. If they actually sell you a pack, it will only have a one year warranty.
    The majority of the $1600 cost for the kit is for shipping. The design with cylindrical cells improves the cooling air flow.
    In my experiences, many Toyota dealer service departments are incompetent when it comes to service g the Prius.
     
  16. Wavefinder

    Wavefinder New Member

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    I installed these batteries in my car last night. This morning noticed my right rear window will no longer move up when I push the button. I’m thinking I must have disconnected something. Any ideas?
     
  17. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Hi dolj,

    Yes the kit is "generic" in that the batteries will work with anything. We could label them A, B, C, D, E, etc but that part doesn't matter. After you install it, the car doesn't know or care what the marking ontop is. The serialization of the modules is for the human only to try to make things easier. You could swap any of the modules if you wanted to. The end caps (plastic bits) snap on and off. We have had some customers do just that because they want it numbered a certain way. They all just snap off, and snap back on. We used to provide kits that were labelled for Gen-2 for both the Gen-2 and Gen-3 (Version 2 kits). Now we sell Version 3 kits, which are labeled for Gen-3 and sold for Gen-2 and Gen-3. Again, it is just a difference during installation. It is to transition now into supporting more and more Gen3's as Gen-2's just retire.

    Exactly. I have attempted to make this more clear than the instructions you received. You basically got the first batch of Version-3 kits. There was a miscommunication with the factory and myself, and this shipment I was expecting to be the last of the Version-2's with the Version-3's arriving September. But I was off a shipment so the Version 3's arrived as a surprise. Different packaging even, so the boxes ordered to ship them out to customers hadn't even arrived yet...

    Hopefully it is better now, and that picture is useful. I may point people towards it. The more data points the better.

    Good luck getting that price. We have a handful of people on the forum who have received that price. Most it is closer to $2k from the parts counter if they will even sell it to you. I had one customer email his experience in trying to buy 2 packs. He tried to buy 1 pack and was told to go away because it was a "safety hazard" to sell the pack to non-mechanics. Got his Toyota certified mechanic buddy to go with him to the dealership the next weekend to buy the pack with the discount, and the dealership refused the discount but did sell him the pack for $2050 + $1350 core charge plus all taxes which were over 8% because the total out the door price was $3675. He did the swap brought the core back, dealer refused to accept the core because a non-certified Toyota technician touched it (he came back without mechanic buddy). He eventually had his mechanic buddy do the core return at his dealership (different) and he received $1350 back... Notice how he did NOT receive $1350 + 8% back, because this was a different dealership. So he paid $2325 for a pack with 3 weekends of hassle to DIY it himself (note you still have to swap all the electronics with the OE pack...). He bought the 2nd pack from me instead of doing that again.

    I hear variations of this all the time. A lot of my contact form submissions start with dealership or refurbished battery horror stories. Internet pricing is rarely honoured and when it is confirmed on the phone that the price is what they will pay, drive 6 hours to get the price, and then are told, nope, that sucks. Dealerships in the US are franchises. You can't blame Toyota when the dealerships act stupidly. And when Toyota release a new MSRP, well it is just that. A "suggested" retail price. Most dealerships were making gravy installing new packs at the old price. Why would they lower the price? Those that buy a new pack pay the same older price to the dealership who makes even more profit per installation. Those that don't want to tend to sell the car for junk value back to the dealership as a trade-in on a brand new or used vehicle and the dealership makes off in profit from the sale of that car plus the sale of the fixed up car once they fix the battery for half the price they quoted the original customer. It is NOT in the best interests of the dealership to replace your battery pack at a low price.
     
  18. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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  19. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Yes. And when you go to pick it up, after having paid, lots of times the dealership will refuse to give it to you for "safety reasons".

    Oh well.

    I am glad that some, a small minority, of dealerships are making the packs available to everyone at a lower price. My goal has always been to keep more Prii on the roads for longer. Toyota is enabling this with lower pricing which is great.
     
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  20. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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    I highly doubt they would refuse to give it to you. They could just say it’s not for sale like Olathe Toyota does. As I say this isn’t going to a dealer with internet price in hand and asking for that price. This is actually buying the part from Toyota with the dealer as the middleman. I think Toyota would have a problem with that. That’s why dealers like Olathe don’t offer it for sale. I’m guessing whoever the Toyota dealer you talk about doesn’t offer it for sale either.
     
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