2005 HV Battery Replacement - useful info and question

This is an internal dealer memo. I don't think you will be able to find it. When I pick up the car, they will provide me with a copy. I can scan it and post it here.

 

Ok folks I just picked up my 2005 with a dealer installed new HV battery. A big shout out to Brian in the parts department at Toyota of Danville, IL who gave me a great deal on the battery ($2,200 vs. $2,588.67 list) and John who installed it for $99*. It was Brian who 1st alerted me to the fact that the HV battery warranty was changing Jan 1st from 12 to 36 months. He advised for me to wait until after the start of the new year to have it replaced.

As promised here is the internal dealer memo detailing of the extension of the Toyota HV battery warranty from 12 to 36 months (unlimited mileage!).

The dealer called about a good will warranty extension which was denied. I called Toyota Corporate to ask the reason and the person handling my case was gone for the weekend. He is suppose to call me on Monday. I did learn there are two parts to the goodwill warranty, the dealer piece and the corporate piece. I feel like the dealership did their part (1: selling me the battery for $400 off list 2: installing it for only $99). So I will be pressing Toyota Corporate for them to do something. My battery had 108K miles on it at just shy of 10 years at point of failure. If I lived in CA it would have been covered. For the battery to fail at 108K is a premature failure in my book. I will let you know how it turns out.

* I had to remove the interior 1st to get this good price which I wanted to do any way to clean the battery cooling fan.

 

Here is the data analysis on the new 2005 HV battery vs. the old 2005 HV battery (bad and threw DTCs) and the old 2004 HV battery (still functioning). I tested all three under hard acceleration and braking situations. The bad battery was current limited since the DTCs were set.

Old 2004 HV battery still working (170K miles)
graph: click here
average = 17.2v, standard deviation = 0.9v, min = 14.3v, maximum = 18.3v, delta volts = 4.0v
min = -72.2A, max = 98.0A, delta amps = 170.2A

Bad 2005 HV battery (108K miles - battery block 10 was bad and DTCs were set which limited my testing input and output current)
graph: click here
average = 16.9v, standard deviation = 0.8v, min = 14.7v, max = 18.3v, delta volts = 3.6v
min = -29.2A, max = 14.8A, delta amps = 44.0A

New 2005 HV battery (108K miles)
graph: click here
average = 15.3v, standard deviation = 2.1v, min = 12.7v, max = 18.6v, delta volts = 6.0v
min = -98.8A, max = 149A, delta amps = 247.8A

So obviously the 2005 old HV battery was bad (battery block 10). It is hard to determine the health of the remaining battery modules since battery performance was limited due to the DTCs being set.

I compared the new OEM 2005 HV battery power at peak (26.99 kW at 66.5% state of charge) vs. the old working 2004 HV battery (20.16 kW at 66% state of charge). The old 2004 battery is showing a 41% degradation in power output vs. the new 2005. As long as the 2004 HV battery modules are performing more or less the same on the voltage swings, no DTCs will be set. (I updated this section to more properly compare the batteries based on peak power, not amperage.)

 

Ok I talked with Toyota Corporate today and they still turned me down for goodwill warranty assistance with the battery. I am not feeling too bad about it since I got a great deal on the battery and the installation. Let's hope it lasts for another 10 years!