2017 Prius Prime Advanced with bad traction battery?

My 2017 Prime turns 7 years old this month, has 129K miles, and shows no signs of any battery aging. I only recently started using charge scheduling, and I don't seem to have suffered from the battery having almost always had 100%.

There is no shortage of original batteries available from junkyards. Prices are all over the place, but nowhere near the $10K-ish price of a new Toyota battery when our cars were new. Most are $500 to $1500. Some are undoubtedly from cars which have lived rougher lives than ours, but sometimes a car in great shape gets totaled out by insurance over a fairly light hit in front. I'm tempted to grab one, but then it becomes a maintenance hassle to keep it in good shape, versus getting one from a car that gets hit just before I need its battery. Basically, some car driving around now, unknowingly headed for an accident whenever (let's say 5 years from now) I end up needing a battery, is doing all that battery maintenance for me. And it would REALLY suck to buy a spare battery, and end up with MY car being the one wrecked. Then I'd have 2 good batteries and no good car to use them in.

So, even though I have fixed/replaced and tinkered with a hybrid battery before (for an ex girlfriend's kid) I am not convinced that having a spare ready makes any sense. People very reliably wreck cars with good batteries, all the time.

There are some nuances of updated part numbers in later model years, but my assumption is that if they're not 100% interchangeable, I can just swap all the cells and keep the rest of my assembly original.

 

It is certainly possible that the battery is bad, and a replacement will cost a fortune unless you can diy it and find salvage at a reasonable price.
Then you’ve got a car worth whatever a prime with 170k on it is worth.
Or, some innocent might buy it, replace the battery, and find the engine is blown because all of the coolant leaked out of the exhaust heat exchanger

 

I'd be much more worried about what else is wrong, than that the price of replacing the battery would be crazy. With even a little patience, I'd be confident of finding an excellent battery for $1000. It's not a job that takes 15 to 90 minutes like the Gen 2 battery I'm familiar with. But I can't imagine not getting the job done in a weekend as a good DIYer. The hardest thing is probably finding a portable engine lift to use to get the battery out.

There may not be many third-party shops with experience doing the job on a Prime, though, so they might want $2500 labor for something that they could charge $1000 for the second or third time they do one. They'd also be crazy to not demand payment up front, due to the chance that even with a fine battery, the car may be dead for other reasons.

There's nothing worse than installing a good battery and finding out that there are still 6 other codes still being thrown by the car. Don't ask how I know.

I think a Prime with 170K is worth plenty, if it's mechanically perfect, and the interior and exterior are looking excellent. Maybe $14K? $12K due to being fixed rather than original? $10K if its history is unknown or CarFax had it in an accident?

 

OEM G9510-47140
Search the Internet for battery prices.
Contact dealers. You may find the battery price at a low price.

Then you can buy the car. The price is good

 

Check the title, the car may have been underwater or head gasket problem due to failed exhaust gas heat exchanger. As far as traction battery issue, there may be a bad/worn-out plug-in connection. You need to go look at it and put your nose in it.
If it was closer to me; I'd take a few hour trip to look at it.

Good Luck.

 

It could be just a bad 12 volt battery you never know. People panic and jump to conclusions.