Tow truck coming in the morning

Reconditioned means used with several of the 28 modules replaced for better used modules. You get a better price with lower reliability. Most of the pack will still be real old while some modules will be slightly newer.

When my pack was going bad six years ago I went new and have not had to think about it since.

Lots of folks here take pride in doing everything diy with low cost first and foremost. Some active members will actually browbeat someone for putting reliability first and cost second. Sometimes economics force compromise.

With that in mind, the diy approach is well documented in the thread below by a budget guy with documentation skills and an EE professor with good knowledge. The first three pages is enough to get the idea.

Gen II Prius Individual Battery Module Replacement | PriusChat

Today there are a few “reconditioned” vendors who sell at almost new prices and promise a long warranty. The issue is the inconvenience of putting it back in the shop again and again as old modules fail.

 

The Prius pack consists of two parts. On the driver's side there is a small section where the electronics and most of the wiring lives. It is under its own cover. On the passenger's side of that there is a big cover under which all the modules live. When you buy an OEM battery from the dealer they give you everything under that larger cover (except for some rubber ventilation tubes), but it is not completely assembled. So you get all new modules, all preassembled (with bus bars and such), plus new wires. I think they don't put the wires on for you because they could/would be damaged in transit. A "new" complete pack is made by combining the electronics and rubber tubes from the old pack with the new modules and wires from the dealer.

I think they do it this way because in most cases there is no reason to replace the electronics section. However, as noted previously, in some cars the battery control unit may have become corroded, in which case it needs to be replaced.

In a way it is analogous to changing the bag on a vacuum cleaner. One uses a vacuum cleaner until it "fails" because the bag is full. Then it is opened up, the "bad" bag discarded, and a new one installed, and now it works. No reason to replace the whole vacuum cleaner.

That said, one could make a very good argument that Toyota should ship a complete pack (plug and play, no assembly required, pretested) and they should do the assembly/recycling of electronics at the factory. They might have to charge a little more, but it would remove most of the labor cost for installing one (at the dealer) and make it much faster for an owner or independent mechanic too.

 

So he did, and in that case, that's a good deal, IMO. @16 yrs & counting should jump on that deal if Carall will stretch to her location and the deal is still available.

 

ask him how much for the computer if it needs it, shouldn't be over $100.

 

it is possible. usually, it is corroded connectors on the pc board and wire harness

 

All they were doing was preparing you for the worse case. It is unlikely they did more than hook up Techstream to it.

The Prius will throw extraneous codes when something serious happens. Usually you save them and reset to get the real story.

Be sure you get a one year parts and labor warranty on the used hv battery. Hopefully a guy 2 hours away does not ghost you if something happens. Which is one of many reasons you need to find a local hybrid shop for now and the future.

 

if you paid them, they should give you the codes

 

all the best!

 

he just happened to post it a few days after you. i don't know him of course, but i hope it all works out.
you roly don't spend much time here, but one of our mantra's for the last 20 years has been to clean the cooling fan, especially if you have pets.
toyota makes no mention of it unfortunately, though they did add a filter to the intake grill in 2013 or something, so they certainly caught on to the problem at some point.
some dealers will recommend it, but of course, their prices are outrageous.

 

Here are the trouble codes that were present at the time of scanning that Prius.
After starting it several times, I could hear that there was a misfire as soon as the engine started, then the misfires seemed to go away.

 

And this is the condition of the battery from this Prius.
The block 7 (mod. 14) and the block 9 (mod. 18) have failed.

And this is what the voltage was 10 hours after removing the battery from the car.
The right column is the weight of each module.


The heaviest Panasonic module I've ever seen weighed 1043 grams. A module that weighs 1030 grams or less is already junk. Such modules can still work, but will lose capacity very quickly. After 18 months the capacity can be ~2000 mAh, but sometimes they begin to leak.
2004 batteries with over 150k miles weigh ~1030 grams and this battery is further proof of that.

I took 4 modules with the highest and the lowest voltages and checked their capacity.

Module voltages before discharge-charge cycle:
Module 2: 8.42v
Module 3: 8.39v
Module 15: 8.39v
Module 22: 8.35v

The capacity of these 4 modules
Module 2: 637 mAh
Module 3: 490 mAh
Module 15: 508 mAh
Module 22: 527 mAh

The next step will be the application of Hybrid Automotive equipment.

 

Glad I could help. Enjoy your Prius!
I hope you won't see those "loss communication" trouble codes.

 

The HV battery can't cause the P0016 code from the ECM.

Best case is that the VVT (variable valve timing) solenoid on the engine is sticking - easy to replace.

Worse case is that there's problems with the engine timing chain.

Keep us posted on what happens

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