Optima D51 battery - why elearnaid? Seattle area installers?

Well now our other Prius (2006), is showing signs of a bad 12 volt battery.

Not sure if I'm going to purchase another Yellow Top kit from E Learn Aid. I'm not to happy about their recent price increase from $165 to $180, so I may just purchase the Yellow Top from Amazon this time instead.

 

I chose elearnaid because locally, the only option was the dealership, and they wanted $23948093284023.03 to tow and install it, not to mention the disposal fee of the old one. Its not exactly open the box and drop it in, but the instructions were great, it was easier than I thought, and so far, more reliable than both the Toyota one's I've had. Good luck.

 

Just ordered the Yellow Top from Amazon for $160 (free shipping and no state tax), for our other Prius due to yet another battery failure. I wanted to buy another battery and kit from E learn Aid but they raised their price to $180 and I felt that was just to much.

I really don't feel I need the cable kit this time and will be able to make the old connectors work.

 

Interesting thing just happened. I decided to replace the battery in the 2006 Prius with the battery from our 2007 Prius, to hold us over until the Optima arrives. I previously installed an Optima Yellow top in the 2007, so I figured the 2007's battery is in better shape then the 2006's and the reason to use it, I even did a full smart charge on it prior to the install.

Well now the dash is showing a red triangle and the MFD is cut off at the top. I seem to remember when I replaced the battery in the 2007 that it did the same thing for a little bit but ultimately the indicator went away on its own. There are no fault codes showing on a scanner.

I kept a smart charger hooked up the car, so I wouldn't have to reset the radio presets or anything and that did work. I didn't think the red triangle warning indicator would happen again, unless that is because the car would not start prior to replacing the battery. Please don't tell me I have to disconnect the battery to reset the red triangle. I really don't want to have redo the radio presets and drivers window. Any thoughts?


UPDATE: Looks like all it needed was a few cycles of starting up the car to get the indicator to go away. All is good now!

 

Just finished installing the Optima Yellow Top I purchased from Amazon, in the 2006. I had to make some modifications to the Prius battery connectors to make them fit the larger battery posts, but doing so saved me $20 that E Learn Aid wants for their installation kit. Doing the modification is worth it if your handy, if not then I'd recommend buying the kit.

 

Just installed the Optima D51 that I got from eLearnaid tonight. They shipped it overnight, and everything came perfectly with good installation instructions. The cable install kit is well worth it, very nicely made and gets everything done nicely and properly.

I paid $180 and installed it myself. Beats paying the dealer $281 + tax!