Long Time & Need Your Help!

Its good you are looking at the options but you may easily get three years out of the existing battery. No codes and decent mpg, you are ok. Running the AC on high directly discharges the hv battery quick. Normal. The average mpg will drop about four mpg when the battery is weaker. Even if the battery were to code, you can still drive.

Certainly do not get a used, refurbed, reconditioned and or repainted replacement. Most likely your battery is equal or better than those options. Save a little over the next couple years and buy a new Toyota battery, if you need it, for $1700 - $2250 depending on your market and your ability to shop. Otherwise wait and do the newpriusbatteries thing, paying a local shop to do it. Or, by then the lithium replacement option may have a track record.

The fact of the matter is, unless it pings when accelerating on a low hv battery the car is doing its job. Pinging would mean excessive carbon buildup under slightly higher load. Carbon is an engine based problem caused by oil burning and resulting blowby. If you are not burning a lot of oil, concentrate on frequent oil changes and maybe an egr cooler cleanup. Not a cheap job to outsource which is why the diy crowd here does it themselves.

HV batteries do get weaker but weak is not dead. Generate a major maintenance fund but see what the car demands first. A Brake booster, inverter or head gasket could surprise your wallet before the hv battery.

 

You could get the Prolong charger/discharger that is suppose to revive the battery and make it last longer.
From the reports I've seen people have said it works and they are satisfied.
I had originally planned on getting the Prolongs system. But I might just go with new cells from newpriusbatterys.
Mine has 241+ thousand miles with no problems other than normal wear and tear.

Installing the harness is something YOU can do yourself. Then it's just plugging it in and letting it run it's course.
The Prolong system is about 40% the cost of a new battery, and even less if you have to have someone install the battery.

 

what happened to...get the dr prius app to estimate life of hv pack before spending a few grand.

and probably a bad flywheel.

 

Now you are just being technical!!!!

 

Finding an honest mechanic to hire to put a brand new pack in is the way to go... If you lived near me I'd charge you 2 hours at $40 an hour to install. The Toyota Stealership on the other hand will charge you for 6 hours at more than $100 an hour even though it only takes them 2 hours to install. #criminals

New Prius Batteries is just as good as OEM and even better than both of those is this: Toyota hybrid battery upgrade; NexPower Energy

 

pulease, you forgot solid state battery. That’s what I’ll get, lithium will be a thing from the past.

that happened to me when I left my parking lights on for half a day. When I started up the car, my hv battery went from 60% to mid 40% within 2 minutes. The hv pack was charging the 12v battery. It has happened twice due to low 12v battery, and I get 67 mpg to the tank so hv pack is still good.

 

My battery has been in service since 24 July 2009, and is still going strong.
So the new prius battery should last at least half of that, most likely longer, and I'm happy with that.
The other places, I've not seem very possitive reviews.
If Toyotat sold only the actually battery pieces, (24 of them), brand new, for close to the $1600, I've buy them.
I'm antique, I don't imagine I'll be around in another 12 years, so it will be someone elses problem...

 

being technical can save a few grand.

 

If you are tired of the car and want something else, sell it. But not because of the hv battery. It won't die quick. Other issues listed earlier can be more significant but you are not really exhibiting symptoms. 109k is relatively low for an eleven year old car. Remember the ac discharges the hv battery faster at idle and long idle with engine restarts quickly reduces mpg. Selling the car now can get you a premium but new car dealers have little to no stock and other used cars are selling at a premium.

 

If you have a friend who loves to nerd out on Lithium battery stuff... This project will make that person eager to do that work for you... It's the latest in Lithium advancement they'd get to play with.

 

When you start the vehicle, have you been running the AC right away?

The Air conditioner compressor will drain the battery quickly.

It creates is the biggest power draw on the Hybrid Battery, nearly more than doubling all other electronics combined (Headlights, Wipers, etc.).

The extreme heat of Arizona can cause a Hybrid Battery to degrade faster than it would in other climates. It could be on it's way out but I'd leave your Prius on in READY without the AC, headlights, or wipers on and see if you still experience the same rapid drain first.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I think the site has scared you and every little creak may sound like the one thing that will empty your wallet. But you asked so...

If the brake booster is running every minute or so, thats a $$$ problem that could happen soon or could last a year. The inverter usually has no warning signs and could either leave you stranded or in limp home mode. If the car had the inverter software update recall from years ago, this is less of a concern. A head gasket issue creates an occasional startup rattle that sounds like metal to metal damage in the engine but is actually a leak of coolant into a cylinder that clears in five or ten seconds. This one is a big time warning, $$$ all the way from the head gasket to an engine. Any of these are much more significant and potentially sudden than a hv battery that has yet to throw codes. Each has codes although the head gasket masquerades as misfires misleading owners at first. With all that said, try reducing "idle/waiting" states with the ac on high and don't worry about the above bogeymen just because they sound bad.

If you were asking about buying this 2010 Prius because you were on a budget, I might recommend a conventional Toyota or Honda. But I assume you own it which makes it an entirely different proposition, one in which is exactly my case. If you could afford a new car and want it, go for it, you get new car safety features and reliability for a price. I bought a new Honda a few years ago and still have my gen3 at 250k miles and original brakes. Speculating about what "might" happen to an older car is almost always going to be wrong.

 

This raises a good question. Is the consensus that hybrid battery fail is gradual over a period of time with warning signals? Or is it more common that you get surprised with a dead hybrid without warning?

I often felt that many used Prii are put up for sale because of a weakening or nearly dead hybrid battery. Then the new owner gets a very unpleasant surprise. But that's just my opinion.

 

hang out here long enough you’ll see most new members posting new to me prius with engine knocking.