06 Prius with repeated HV battery problems, need help!

Sounds like a failed traction battery.

I personally think it is a waste of time to use a "remanufactured" battery based upon used G2 modules considering the average age of the modules is 8 years. If a new battery cannot be afforded, I think it would be better to buy a used G3 battery and move the modules to the G2 traction battery enclosure.

It's not clear to me whether you own this car now, or not.

 

what does the remanufactured say? that's a pretty hefty price tag.

 

You will not get a refund from them, you will get another battery until the warranty period ends. You can ask the owner to complain about the constant problems with the batteries in hopes of getting a discount....but definitely no refund coming.

 

I believe you will have similar problems with all reman GenII batteries, unless they are from GenIII modules. As Patrick has stated above, the average age of GenII modules are 8 years old.

If your 05 pack is original and has not failed before, it would be a good substitute to put in. Reman battery packs usually are rebuilt from failed battery packs.......so their condition is already compromised compared to an original non reman battery pack.

The Dorman is still under warranty, what would you do with it? Surely you would need to get it replaced.

 

DTC C1378 is a separate issue and it points to a problem with the brake capacitor bank mounted next to the 12V battery. Either the bank, or the wiring harness, or the skid control ECU has a problem. See techinfo.toyota.com (subscription website) to obtain factory repair manual info including the troubleshooting tree for this.

 

Interesting situation.
The first two times I chalk up to normal experiences. So I wouldn't count those as strikes.

1st battery. Failed at 105. O.k. I can understand that. Batteries fail. Some earlier than others depending on how they were treated.

2nd battery. Battery sat discharging for TEN MONTHS before it was installed. Totally understandable that it would be sickly and fail when it finally got installed. You don't mention whether the battery was properly re-charged with a high voltage dc charger or balanced it before it was installed. My guess is it wasn't.

3rd battery. This replacement failure is unexpected, I'm sure Dorman will honor the warranty. As part of this install you should have cleaned out the fan, etc, so if you have not done that, go back and do that while the pack is out and the replacement is on the way.

 

I agree with Patrick.
If you are getting remanufactured they only replace the bad cells to get it up to specs again... The other cells may be close to follow.

One of my Gen 2s battery went bad and I located one at a junkyard from a wrecked car "guaranteed I think 90 days", cost me $400 and the dealer was nice and installed it for another $400...its ran perfect the last 45k miles!

Same with Transmissions, engines, anything like that I would rather have original factory oem from a wrecked car than remanufactured.... Too many shade tree mechanics without the knowledge and the sophisticated equipment the factory has....

 

They were my thoughts exactly on reading the opening post Eric. It does however highlight the issue, that although the cells in most rebuilt packs will be functional, they could be well short of new specifications in many respects.

In the situation were the pack sat for 10 months it is quite likely that some of the cells experienced significantly higher leakage than would have new cells, resulting in a horridly out of balance pack that was destined to fail soon after installation.

I agree that the final failure is the only true anomaly here. This one also seems a little unusual in that the battery charge doesn't seem to be fluctuating rapidly like in most cases, and also the presence of other error codes that don't seem to be battery related. I think they should check that everything is good with the wiring back there, and that ecu swap was good, before definitely putting this one down to the battery itself.

 

I agree, if the ecu is allowing the battery to deep discharge or overcharge could stress a weak battery.... There are a lot of cells and to keep them healthy and in balance they must be used... The weakest cell drags the other ones down, especially if it's a short.

If you find a wrecked one, they will have documented what car it came out of, nature of damage, and they need to have charged it periodically... I wouldn't get anything out of original working car over 4-5 months.. And should be guaranteed of course... Even then it's on you for labor charges.

 

The warranty with most rebuilt batteries requires that you clean the fan when installing the battery.