Hymotion Out of Warranty Canadian Battery Replacement

Dear Listmates,

I am on the journey to Hymotion Pack replacement., I live near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We bought our 2007 Prius 3rd hand. Originally converted in California in San Francisco in 2009, sold to North Dakota, where we bought it in November 2011. Hymotion warranty was dead by Feb 2012. First item to fail was the gournd pin on the bumper plug, but the system kept working until May 2012 when we started getting no auxillary pack action.

Finally figured out there was a flashing code and it was 11. I spent 2 weeks waiting for hymotion to answer e-mails before they bounced back to me, Got an e-mail address for Jim Strong at A123
but he never responded. Got a phone number for Jim Strong at A123 but he never answers his phone, and after 50 messages I gave up. The Hymotion A123 websites are clearly a kiss off to any former customers. We are out of the business and we don't care at all!!!!

It gets worse, they want you to contact dealers, however most of the dealers listed on their website are out of business, or at least out of the hymtion a123 phev business. There are no more conversions to be done because there are no more kits. The warranty chain on existing product is broken because most of their installations are more than 3 years old. No reason to continue to support the product

I called every dealer listed in Western North America. No one had a replacment L-5 package in stock. Most could not tell me if they could get one anymore. No one could tell me what a replacement package would cost. What a freaking waste of time. \No replacement parts, no costs, no estimates of how long the process would take. and no ability to tell me what the warranty would be on a replacement package.

Somewhere along the line I discovered Sybesmas Electronics Repair in Holland Micigan is supposed to be handling the repair of Hymotion L5 packs. I called them, they only deal with "dealers". I found out that the pack could be rebuilt but it would have to go to a dealer to be removed and sent to Sybesmas. Sybesmas told me the only dealer they had listed in Canada was BMC Motor Works in Vancouver BC. (funny though it is not on the A123 Hymotion website). I tried to confirm it was a dealer with A123 but they never returned calls. I decided to drive the 800 miles to Vancouver and get the process started with BMC.

On Monday July 23 I dropped my car off at BMC, they installed the new Marinco plugs I bought off Amazon.com after Pats Garage had recommended these plugs. They also did an upgrade to the latest software and confirmed my L5 battery pack was out of specification. I was charged $50 for the software upgrade and the new bumper plug installation. BMC shop rate is $100 per hour.
They do great restorations on old Jag XKEs and full electric conversions on brand new Ford Escapes.

Monday afternoon we decided to remove the L-5 unit and pack it an L-5 shipping crate that was sitting in BMC Motor Works garage. For the information of those reading the L-5 pack removed weighs 188 lbs and in the crate weighs 260 lbs. The L-5 crate dimensions are 43 inches by 21 inches by 22 inches. I paid $195 to get the L-5 out of the car and into the shipping crate.

Tuesday night I loaded the crate in the prius turnks and drove it 100 miles to Everett Washngtion and the FedEX ground freight depot for shipment to Michigan. I ordered 6 day freight to Holland Michigan. I took the crate across the border because I have been ripped off too many times by UPS for brokerage fees. Fed Ex gave me an estimated shipping cost of $255 based on 200 lbs of weight but on invoice time the amount had grown to $1055. I have spent the last 6 days negotiating it down to $363. Shipping class is everything with FEDEX and UPS. Heaven knows what the correct code is for this unit. It was shipped as class 60 used auto parts.

Supposedly Sybesmas was going to ship a replacement unit westbound as soon as it had a tracking number on my eastbound unit. David at BMC and I figure that is probably a huge lie and that I will end up getting my unit (repaired) back. We figure if I get one by Labor Day it may be a miracle. If Sybesmas have no decent shipping rate to Vancouver BC I will be asking to pick up the replacement unit at the Sybesmas loading dock in person and then hauling it to Vancouver BC to get it installed.

I have been promised a repaired/rebuilt unit for $1800 US plus taxes and shipping and a $300 installation cost.

I did contact Re-involt about rebuilding the L5 pack but they never responded to either phone or e-mail messages.

At this point to me the best option in general would be a factory depot exchange option. Yyou drive your car to Michigan, or a West of East Coast dealer who has a replacment unit on the shelf, yours goes out and the replacement one goes in. Depending upon feight companies and decent fair shipping fees make the whole repair system a huge crap shoot for the customer.

Through out this whole process I feel the customer is totally not respected and their needs are ignored. I decided to post real numbers. One shop (northwest) I talked to said 1 out of 27 installations failed during warranty, another in the south said 7 out of 10 failed during warranty and one west coast shop said he had a 15% fialure rate on nearly 1000 installations.

In reality if someone had given me a wiring diagram and a trouble shooting manual and access to a couple of sticks of cells I could have probably repaired the unit myself.

I did post a request earlier for alternate repair solutions but received no useful solutions.

Reg [email protected]