Prius Mechanic in Seattle area? - P0A80, P3000 (and P0420)

I've got a 2004 with 330K on it, never replaced the traction battery or the cat.

Last two days the battery was suspiciously low charge on startup, and the motor had to run more than normal to get going. Today P0A80 and P3000 came on, so looks like it's finally gonna need a replacement battery. Unfortunately, I'm not down the road from Luscious Garage!

The P0420 has been turning on and off for about 6 weeks, but the car still passes emissions so I hadn't been ready to replace the catalytic converter or the sensors yet (at this age it's probably *not* just a bad sensor).

I'm looking for a Prius mechanic in the Seattle / Shoreline / Lynnwood Washington area if you know one that's done a battery replacement before and didn't try to rip you off! I feel like the ideal would be someone who can find bad cells instead of replacing the whole thing, but I haven't seen a lot about that on the forum.

Any advice appreciated!

 

Good question. My answer would of course be "as long as it's worth repairing" . . . but I don't know what's really reasonable to expect before other things start going wrong. I'd like to get another year / 20k miles out of it, possibly two. If it doesn't become an emissions problem, then the cost of a battery would be reasonable for that time period. No clue what I could get for the parts when it finally does bite the dust.

The optimist in me says "try to get another 50K out of it".

 

Right. So . . . know a mechanic in the area?

 

I've never even looked at that - mostly assumed that doing anything more than the most basic repairs would need more space than the one parking space I have would fit. Is there a guide on here about that? I'm not immediately finding a stickied thread on it, and I read up on other P0A80 threads before I posted but I don't even know what the reconditioning kit actually is!

 

Looking around a bit it looks like I'd need high voltage gear and a much better workspace to replace those modules myself. Though it's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to do. I'll call around for a mechanic who can do individual module replacement.

Is there a reconditioning kit you'd recommend?

 

Thanks everyone for advice on this.

The consensus of mechanics around here is that they won't replace individual cells (this would probably be bad for me anyways as I'd likely pay labor on the next cells that die soon since the whole battery is old). Mechanics around here also won't work with remanufactured batteries because the overwhelming chance is that they're gonna replace it on warranty, possibly multiple times.

So to keep the car running I'd be paying $4000+, on a car that will need more maintenance and get a lower MPG than a newer hybrid over the same period of time. Amortized full price on even a new Prius is less than $2000/year if cared for correctly I figure, less for a used Prius, and I doubt I'll be getting more than 2 years life out of this one before the engine eats it or the cat needs replacement.

Looks like it's time to cut losses and buy something else! If you happen to know a great deal on a used Prius in the north Seattle area, give a shout out.