HV battery repair options advice?

What business model? What does it say

 

Well I'm not surprised by the fact Toyota do not offer that given the cost, effort and reliability issues around trying to match crappy modules with equally crappy modules. The only reasonable business model option, from a Toyota perspective, is to replace all modules with new ones, which is what they do.

Whether the price for that is congruent with the service is a question for market forces.

I wonder how many people who have gone down the rebuilt route to have regretted that and wished they had just replaced the battery with a "Toyota new" in the first place.

 

You are correct, a difference of 1.2 V or more would point to a failed cell.

Given the voltage spread, I'd say you have a greater than even chance to just use a grid charger to do the 3 cycle reconditioning.

The fact that you have thrown the DTCs does mean that the Delta V under load is going outside of spec. You may be one of the lucky ones to have caught it in time.

 

My Radio Shack Multi Meter read 7 VDC on every cell except one 6 VDC.
For me a charging cycle is driving up 4144 ft , Tejon Pass elevation, with cruse control at 70 mph and air conditioned to 71 degrees (drains the battery and keeps battery cool ) I then recharge down the other side of the hill shifting to B mode when the battery is full.


iPhone ?

 

It's really like holiday lights, one bad cell and the entire bank doesn't function. Remove the the cell creating the resistance in the series and the entire bank is restored. Batteries in a series perform like a chain the weakest link will fail first. I think with thermal imaging you could easily see which link/cell was going to fail, as it would generate more heat. Keep using the chain and eventually every link will be so warn it's time to replace it, though with my Prius at 430,000 miles I'm going to go down the rebuild road this time and let you know how it goes. I was scared about it, though since I had a spare battery from a 2005 Prius of known 80 K mileage I decided to try it. I had originally replaced the battery pack at 290,000 miles with a $3000.00 Exchange from Toyota, thinking I was gonna drive the car forever! Then at 390,000 miles the engine wore out. $1000 got me a salvaged 2006 with 100,000 miles. The engine and transaxle swap was a joy to do in my own garage. Upon start up it threw out all kinds of codes and I ended up taking out my $3000 battery and using the salvaged battery. It turned out the codes were caused by a damaged throttle body not a bad battery. I swapped it out with the older one and all the codes cleared up. Months later, I Sold my $3000 battery for $1500 installed, getting a 2005 80K battery in exchange, which supplied me with the spare cells to do my rebuild.


iPhone ?

 

Doug, another option would be to buy the Prolong unit, and to recover your cost, offer to condition other Prius owner's batteries at $150. That would pay for a new battery, if need be, in no time.

Dan, 3rd gen from the sun

 

Battery conditioning via grid charging is a periodic maintenance process usually monthly but even more frequent for really weak batteries.