2017 Prius Prime with $15,000 rodent damage!?!

Electrical wire insulation used to be poison to rodents. The EPA forced the industry to make insulation rodent food now. So rodents are drawn to it, to eat it.

Your car is totaled.

Get your insurance to give you what they can, and buy a new one.

 

Before I’d accept this situation, especially if you’d have to pay the repair cost or a substantial part of it, I’d suggest asking the dealer to open a case with Toyota’s Technical Assistance System (TAS), the dealer-only support line, to confirm their identification of the wiring involved, and to make certain that the wire harness isn’t sold separately and can’t be repaired. If not, both you and the dealer should ask Toyota if the wire harness could be established as a service part, especially if the HV battery assembly isn’t even available.

According to catalog Figure 82-01, Battery & Battery Cable, one of the HV battery wire harnesses—the No. 1 Hybrid Battery Pack Wire, part number G92X1-47031, shown in the first image with part name code G92X1—is available as a service part, but the second image shows a second harness with note N03, “This part is not supplied as an individual part because it is difficult to keep the function/quality of part assembled.”

Could you share any photos of the damaged area?

[Edited to add:]

It’s true that Toyota writes in the Electrical Wiring Diagram (more info) that “repairs are not possible” for orange “high voltage” wiring, and bulletin T-SB-0003-22, “Wire Harness Repair or Replacement Guide” (PDF), January 28, 2022, recommends against such repairs, but I’m not sure where the dealer got “1200 volts.” New Car Features says the maximum system voltage is 600 V, and that’s for MG1, MG2, and the inverter, up in the engine compartment; for the HV battery itself, the nominal voltage is 351.5 V.

 

Prius Prime battery does not cost $15k. It is $5k tops.

 

Have you tried luring the mice out with some non-binary cheese?

 

It might be unavailable due to supply-chain problems. Toyota probably wants to assemble all new batteries they have into new cars.

https://parts.culvercitytoyota.com/productdetails.aspx?makeName=toyota&modelYear=2022&modelName=prius-prime&stockNumber=g92800r012we&ukey_product=94382663&referer=parts.toyota.com&machineIDT1=miafqxkgfslcr2hmg3syqk4i

You can also get a used one from eBay or a junkyard for about $1,000.

 

The linked part number (G9280-0R012) is for a RAV4 EV, not for any Prius model. The service part number for the HV supply battery assembly for all Prius Prime cars is G9510-47180 (which superseded G9510-47140 for model years 2017–2018), as shown in Figure 82-01, Battery & Battery Cable.

On parts.toyota.com, that part is listed as “Product Not Available,” which might or might not be true. Several dealers’ catalogs say the list price is $9,980, but that just comes from Toyota’s price file; it doesn’t imply that those dealers, or any others, would be able to fill an order for one within a reasonable time or at all.

You’re welcome, and thanks for the photos.

The most reliable repair would be to replace any damaged wire harnesses with new ones, and I’d still suggest escalating with the dealer and with Toyota, as described above.

If that isn’t fruitful, before you take a substantial loss, consider used wire harnesses. Point out to the insurance adjuster that a little effort might greatly reduce their loss; perhaps their company has just taken salvage on a similar vehicle, or their network of junkyards and repair shops might be able to locate one, from which the needed harnesses could be extracted in good condition. You’d want any used harness to come from a car on which the HV battery case hadn’t been breached, flooded, or contaminated with firefighting agents or other substances, and the harness should be inspected visually and, as practicable, using a megohmmeter.

From the damage seen in your photos, it’s also not clear to me that the existing harnesses are beyond careful repair. I don’t mean to suggest just putting on a few wraps of Super 33+ and calling it done—although I’ve seen worse, at higher voltages—but if the damage is limited to the corrugated tubing, or to bite indentations that didn’t pierce the insulation or damage the inner, metallic conductors, it might well be feasible to apply methods used in industry for repair of 480-volt wiring. I haven’t seen the damage firsthand, so I can’t make a specific recommendation, but just as an example, look at 3M’s wide array of heat-shrink tubing.

 

It is $4.3k at Amayama, but I don't know how much they would charge for shipping.

https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/g951047180

$10k sounds too high. MSRP could be more than twice the dealer's invoice.

 

This looks like an insurance claim to me.

 

Ca Ching; looks like a dealer payday to me. As stated by others earlier, an entire used battery pack may be purchased for <$1K and the necessary parts ripped out of it to repair your pack - leaving you a bunch of spare parts and batteries. While not new, it's the quickest way to get you back on the road again. Wires don't fail, unless damaged.
Those pictures looks like scratches on the wire; did they actually get all the way down to the copper wire itself? Your talking to a person that used to actually dug dead rats/mice out of backup UPS units. Body touching the case and tooth still embedded in the wire where they bit through the insulation. We're talking about giant floor safe size UPS that use group 27 automotive batteries in a computer controlled parallel/serial configuration, depending on power demands. Their front and rear paws touching the wrong two points and they become toast.
Perhaps the mechanic there what's you to buy him a free spare pack??

 

There’s this too. And who knows where else; the dash for instance.

That number may go up.

 

See if there's a shop in your area that sells rebuilt battery packs. They might be able to repair your pack for a reasonable price.

By the way, AFAIK, there's no 1200 volts anywhere in the PP. The batteries are ~ 350V, which will still kill you really fast, but to me it's a red flag when a service goon uses that kind of exaggeration. It makes me wonder whether they're exaggerating about other things.

Ed

 

As an aside, be sure to check elsewhere in this forum for rodent precautions to avert a recurrence.

 

to to move on to a less rodent friendly car

 

Block with 1/4" mesh galvanized steel (rodent mesh):

Cabin Air Intake
Engine Air Intake
Hybrid Battery Air Exits (two, at the rear corners in hatch area, below floor

 

Insurers will negotiate the bill with the dealers. They will not pay any bill that comes to them like regular customers like us do. The dealers typically charge less than 1/3 the labor to insurers than they do to regular customers.

 

In these parts it's sold as "hardware cloth"

Also:


'Sup, guys?