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New owner of a 2007 Prius

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by krustacean, Jul 7, 2020.

  1. krustacean

    krustacean New Member

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    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Four
    Hello everyone, new owner of a 2007 here. I bought the car from a private seller a couple of months back. A few days ago while driving I experienced the dreaded christmas tree light show and the HV battery was showing empty on the display. The car drove fine and made it home. After lurking some posts here I went ahead and got set up with the mini VCI + techstream so I could pull codes and get more information. It came back with some usual suspects: P3000, P0A80, P3022, C1259, C1310, B1421.


    I am attaching freeze frame data as I’m not sure which values might be the most important to look at. I'll add that the AC has been pretty marginal since buying the car and seems to have gotten worse in the short time I've been driving it. From what I can tell here it looks like the HV battery is overheating pretty badly @ 140-150F (though this was with AC on and car not moving on a warm california day) and battery block V12 is showing 14.51V when the other blocks are close to 16V. This seems pretty suspect. The cooling fan for the battery runs at 100% and is not dirty at all, ducting looks right as far as I can tell. The battery level indicator on the display seemed to go up and down faster than I would have expected, though since this is my first Prius I don't have a great sense for what is normal charging and discharging behavior. From what I've read the fast charge and drain is one of the signs to look out for when diagnosing a bad HV battery.

    Is there anything else I can check before pulling the trigger on a brand new pack? I'd hate to drop $1600+ only to have the issue persist. If I need to deal with the pack I'd like to only have to take out and work on the battery once, so I'm heavily leaning toward replacing the entire pack of cells rather than going the "whack-a-mole" route. I want this car to be my daily driver for the next 10+ years if possible. I know Toaster's batteries haven't been out very long but everything I've seen about them looks great, and I'm not interested in paying toyota an arm and two legs for a new oem pack.

    Sorry for the bad phone pics of the computer screen, I was in a bit of a rush to record the results as the laptop I was using is somewhat marginal.

    Thanks in advance for any information and help!
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Bobbytwotaps

    Bobbytwotaps Junior Member

    Joined:
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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
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    N/A
    Hey Krust,
    I have a 2006 Prius that my friend gave me and my HV battery had similar issues. I have opened and successfully change out individual cells on this 14 module battery back more than once; with amazing results.
    From the looks of that picture, module 12 is obviously a bad module. It shouldn't be lagging so far behind
    In my eyes you have two choices.
    1. Pay between 1500 to 3500 ( I'm guessing ) and get a new HV battery and be done with it. Probably last 3 to 5 years for a used one.
    2. Open up YouTube and learn how to change out an individual bad cell of your battery for about 20$. This method is EXTREMELY rewarding and time consuming BUT you will learn so much and never ever ever worry if your HV battery goes bad again cause you will know exactly what to do. It's very doable if you have a good amount of time. I can do this job from start to finish in like 2 hours. First time took me a couple days because I moved very slowly and made sure I wasn't messing anything up or shocking myself. Your car has 28 cells that make up 14 modules. One or more of your cells are getting weak. It only takes one of the cells to go bad and the entire battery is going to perform like nice person. Think of it like a chain. A link breaks and it's no longer a battery.

    All you gotta do is change out that link. Good luck. What party of California are you from. I am also in Cali.
     
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    if you want to keep it 10+ years, might as well go ahead and fix everything.

    check around with toyota dealers you'd be willing to drive to. some are as low as $1700. for a new pack.

    service manual at techinfo.toyota.com

    all the best!(y)
     
  4. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Why are remanufactured batteries so bad? | PriusChat

    They stopped punching out G2s over 10 years ago.....which means that they stopped manufacturing the G2 battery packs not long after....so I would lean away from going to the dealership with a bad pack.

    If this car is going to be a daily driver and you only want to do it once, then you're going to have to put NEW cells in your old pack or get a re-manufactured pack with new cells.
    OEM is "new" but what is the shelf-life of NiMH cells? ;)
    Toyota (is SUPPOSED TO) guarantee their replacement hybrid batteries for 3y/36m.
    If your daily drive to work is above average then that three year warranty on the dealer battery might not be much longer than the re-manned average, BUT....as much as I like to heave HATE on Toyota dealers, they at least DO tend to honor their warranties if you call them out on it.

    Most of the Indies lean towards a 2y average warranty - some with no mileage cap.
    Some of these are really good folks while others are just hoping you get to the other side of their warranty before their pack fails.
    Caveat Emptor!

    I'm an ET (Electronics Tech) by trade and I'm not afraid to do a lift and lay with a Toyota battery pack, BUT.....I'd be just as stranded as anybody else if the battery pack failed while I was out of the barn.....so MY approach would be to rebuild the pack myself.
    HOWEVER (comma!) I have spare cars....time....electrical knowledge...etc...which makes me a little LESS LIKELY to rebuild the pack successfully as somebody who KNOWS that they don't know exactly how to rebuild a G2 hybrid battery back. ;)

    I have no experience with actually performing this task but in the interest of being interested in project Priuses....I've seen several of the more popular vids and I have no doubt that the average person can EASILY DIY this themselves in one afternoon.


    So....
    Your call.
    @2k1Toaster is a forum member and @ericbecky is also in the biz.
    They can give guidance, advice, etc..

    Regrets if I've forgotten somebody else.....

    Good Luck!
     
    #4 ETC(SS), Jul 8, 2020
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2020
  5. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
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    Anyone buying a used G2 at who knows what mileage becasue posters refuse to post there mileage on this site I would bet the house its going to need a new hybrid battery asap. Its the #1 reason people get rid of that car or its a huge oil eater thanks to crappy maintenance
    or dealer only oil changes.Nobody and I mean nobody opens there hood anymore. Like its a magic carpet ride. Nothing to see under there please move along.

    That's all we see now is hybrid battery issues. From the just bought.
     
  6. krustacean

    krustacean New Member

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    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    Four
    Trust me when I say I'm kicking myself for not picking one up at a big discount with an already bad battery and just swapping it out myself for the extra $1600.... could have saved myself a chunk of change that way. Anyway, lesson learned. Car has 130k on the engine, doesn't seem to leak or burn any oil. It also had the transaxle replaced by toyota at about 110k. That is why I want to hold onto it. Good service records also came with the car, but without knowing which mechanic worked on it its hard to tell the quality of the maintenance. Kind of a given with any used vehicle. But at least the oil and filter were changed at regular intervals (every 5k if i remember). Other than the battery the car looks almost brand new both inside and under the hood, all fluids are clean as a whistle. Suspension struts have also been replaced.

    I think I will go ahead and order the brand new cylindrical cells as that seems to be the most reliable option for a gen 2 at this point. I could go with toyota oem like others have suggested here and maybe get a similar price to 2k1Toaster but as mentioned gen 2 have been phased out for a while now so there's no way of knowing how long that pack has been sitting on a shelf.

    Thanks for all the feedback guys, I'll update when I fix the pack!
     
  7. krustacean

    krustacean New Member

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    I'm in San Jose
     
  8. SFO

    SFO Senior Member

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    All of the HV batteries being sold by the dealer have decodable date codes, nothing "old" is being stocked or sold.
    @PriusFruit recently performed a new OEM swap by himself, as he couldn't wait for the longer delivery dates on the cylindrical cells.

    There could still be some affordable new over the counter OEM options locally (under 2k), or get on the 2kT list now and wait, or a DIY fix?

    With only 130k on the vehicle do you think the HV battery has ever been touched before?
     
    PriusFruit and Raytheeagle like this.
  9. PriusFruit

    PriusFruit Member

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    My battery gave out 2 weeks ago. But after looking at it with we noticed it was just one bad cell/module.

    If I was you, I would look at my options and see which one works best for me. Do I want reliability? Do I want affordability? Etc.

    Here's my post of the things I learned from the DIY project and some tools other members shared with me.
     
    SFO likes this.