Prius Battery Replacement Kit (GenII/GenIII) with NEW custom cells

Thanks everyone for mentioning my post.

Yeah the wires from the battery to the safety switch just did not lineup well at all. Or maybe I just got them backwards lol.

I looked at them for a while and realized a modification of the angle of the connectors would make them reach/fit the battery's much better so I did just that I bent offsets into the 2 connectors of the wires at the battery's so they met the battery connector more squarely and it worked great.

I had a picture of the connector angles I made but it has disappeared from my picture files. The issue is the closeness of the wires block the connectors ability to lay flush on the battery bolt. And the wires themselves in there stock configuration are very hard to bend to fit the new battery's so I used 2K's tip with a hair dryer to warm them up and bend the wires then bent offsets in both wire lugs where they attach to the battery. The covers did not go on without bending the connector but it was very easy no big deal.

I did those 2 wires last and was getting pretty tired so some work around's happened lol.

Still not sure if I got it right but did my best.

But she fit good and was a beauty all bolted up.

 

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like you also used Dielectric grease and buffed up your terminal bus bars as well. Nice work.

 

Thank you yes Redline CV-2 grease and the buss bars are new they come with the kit. I started cleaning all my old buss bars to later find the kit comes with new bars lol...

CV-2 grease is the best stuff on the market 100% synthetic. Really good gun grease too. I put some in every electrical connector I run across on my cars. Stops corrosion and water ingress.

 

I ended up removing the side cover to rearrange the wires. Sticking my hand in there with everything place was losing me too much skin and didn't leave much room to move things around. Fortunately you don't have to remove too much trim to get at those bolts. I relaxed the bends a little, although there's just not enough space there to avoid some sharp bends. I did stick some adhesive weather stripping to the sharp edges, but if I had it to do over again I'd go with the approach in ed and Toaster's pictures and just modify the safety cover (which is not in place on either of those pictures) to let the cables come out the top. I'm planning to pull the tray out at some point and just see how the cables are holding up after putting some miles on it. If it looks like there's wear I can always pull it back out and reroute, but I'm trying to avoid having to open the whole thing back up.

Aside from that, the battery is looking good. I've only put a few hundred miles on so far and it seems like the ECU is still adjusting, but watching the Torque gauges I can see it using the battery much more than it was. It will let me drive with the engine off a lot more than it used to and it's no longer trying to hold the battery at 65% SOC on the highway like it did when my old battery started to go. The average SOC has been creeping back toward 60 like it was when I first got the car. I assume that was the ECU trying to ensure the old battery didn't run out of charge unexpectedly.

MPG already seems noticeably better, although I've only filled up once where I had an actual mileage to calculate it (I didn't realize I was going to lose my trip odometer when I disconnected the 12v). First tank was around 49, but we'll see if that holds up over time since as we all know the bladder gas tank can result in some weird single tank mileages. It does seems like the engine is having to rev less now that it's getting battery assist again though so I'm inclined to think MPG will stay improved. If I can keep getting near 50 in below freezing temps that would be spectacular!

For reference, it ended up taking me around 6 hours total to do the replacement. That did include some not-strictly-necessary things like testing each module voltage just to make sure I didn't spend hours installing everything only to find out there was a problem I could have caught right away. Obviously everything was fine, but I'm glad I did it anyway. I also spent some time cleaning nasty stuff out from under the seats since I had access to that area. You can tell the previous owners had kids. I have three Lego people sitting in my garage now that I pulled out of that area.

I also made a few mistakes, mostly things that were my fault for not reading directions carefully enough and not reading the whole directions before starting. I could have saved myself some re-work if I had known what subsequent steps were going to be. In particular I had to reroute some of the sensors wires because I didn't realize how that wiring harness fits in with the safety covers.

Anyway, so far so good. We'll see how everything holds up over time, but based on what everyone has said previously I'm optimistic.

 

I thought I updated all the post that talked about my situation with Newpriusbatteries. Guess I missed this one. I have not been on Priuschat lately.
Drone13, thank you for your post. You said it better than I could.

Thought this was over...take a deep breath.

1. My point to bringing this public (spamming as he called it) was to get Nicks attention to my situation. l got NO RESPONSE to multiple request for a very long time. NO EXCUSES. He blames it all on my VPN. I called and left voice messages too. I sent personal messages here. I know he got my order because I did get ONE email from Nick, stating that "it would be another month". This was already pushing 90 days! I got no communication beyond that. He now talks about how quickly he responds to customers.

2. What if I operated like Nick and had no proof that I purchased a $1600 dollar item? Do you think Nick would have heard my complaint? It is foolish to not have some kind of tracking to CYA.
I am offended that he STILL thinks that my battery was stolen. Never his fault. No records....but stolen. Do not make that accusation unless you can prove that the battery was delivered! HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU LOST MONEY IF YOU HAVE NO RECORD FOR THE TRANSACTION? How much did you pay for shipping? Do you know you can write it off on your taxes? For the record, I live in a very rural area, with virtually no crime, on the end of a gravel road. Never had a single issue with items not being delivered.

3. Nick said the order shows "delivered" but, when I logged in to my account on HIS website, the order said "awaiting fulfillment" last I checked January26ish?. I took a snapshot just in case. Where is the disconnect there?

4. I never bashed Nick or his business. Where did I say to Nick "how I and my batteries are horrible"? I presented "Just the facts, ma'am". I have copies of every claim that I made. Even to the end I told everyone here to read the post and decide for yourself if you want to do business with this company? Surprisingly, I was still thinking of taking delivery of the battery. Its a good price...but what if something went wrong? That will never happen, right? (Sarcasm)

5. I will end with this, Nick did refund my money "voluntarily" and this situation was "not something we did wrong." His words not mine.