So today the inevitable happened - a few years ago, I facilitated my mom buying a friend’s used Prius, because her prior car had been held together with duct tape and baling wire for years, and it was a great deal. The Prius is currently in the shop, and her (good) mechanic says it needs a new battery. Supposedly a brand-new replacement costs $2400, and a refurbished battery costs $2100.
The Prius has 125,000 miles on it, and Mom is complaining that she’s bene spending about $1,000 a year on it. My position is that for a 13-year-old car with 125,000 miles on it, that’s to be expected, but I am no professional mechanic.
My gut feeling is that if Mom wants to continue owning a car, and given that she doesn’t have the funds to buy a new car or significantly newer used car, her best bet is to replace the Prius battery (and probably with a new battery rather than refurbished, for peace of mind and given the relatively small cost difference). Mom also said something about some Youtube video she saw that talked about replacing only whichever modules of the battery are dead rather than the whole battery, but even if that’s possible (which I have no idea about), it sounds like something that would be expensive in terms of mechanic time and therefore wouldn’t necessarily save her a whole lot of money anyway.
Just my take on it. I fear that such a car, when it has problems, has expensive problems. The parts are not the ‘standard fare’, but parts that are unique to hybrids and thus developed for them and carry the complicated R&D that went into them. It was redesigning the wheel and the cost of redesign is still with it, and designs have not had the same about of time to get a known level of durability or optimization. As such I don’t think they make good used cars.
In your case I would want to know what would happen if you kept driving it without replacing the battery? And does it make sense to do it? Also consider the value of the car right now, in need of a new battery.
As i understand it a refurbished battery is exactly what you would have if your mechanic rebuilt it. They test each cell and if it’s not good they remove it and replace it with another. So you will still have a bunch of old cells, but everything should test good when you get it, but yes they are old and can fail tomorrow.
If you can keep driving it as is, I would, if you have to replace the battery pack I would consider getting rid of it (selling/junking depending on value), if you decide on replacement of the battery I would search for personal experiences on the internet about how referbs are holding out.
Hmm, my 2004 (First year of the Gen 2) only had the water pump break (of course the standard oil/tire changes) and as far as I know is still running OK (I sold it after 12 years and 150,000+ miles)
Given the price difference, and if a different car is out of the picture, getting a new battery seems the least bad option. (Though I sold mine for about that, though it did have a non trivial dent in a rear door that still opened)
What is she spending a K a year on? My 2008 that I recently sold, with over 200K miles, didn’t have nearly those kinds of issues or costs. Of course, I never lost the traction battery either, like she has. Provided the engine doesn’t burn oil like many—a quart ever 750 miles is not unknown for some, though not mine—it’s difficult to see what could cost her that much.
Me? Everything else fine, I probably replace the battery. Didn’t we have a big thread on used cars recently, where we found prices were still kinda high?
I have no idea what she is spending a K a year on. Things add up - the one item she mentioned to me today was that she had just replaced 3 of the 4 tires. She may not really be calculating what she is spending; I think she sometimes has unrealistic ideas of what things actually cost, especially things that she doesn’t buy very often. It may seem like a lot of money to her when it really isn’t an out-of-whack expense. And it’s entirely possible that, given the way Mom’s mind works, “just” replacing the tires may have been 2 years ago.
I actually know a lot more about this subject than I want to, because I’m keeping my eyes out for a cheap hybrid battery to replace the dead one in my 2001 Honda Insight.
If I weren’t a cheap SOB, I’d just drop $1800 on a new battery from Bumblebee*.
*There are a number of good hybrid suppliers, but they seem to have the best reputation on the many hybrid car sites I frequent.
(You do realize that Mom’s Prius will probably last another 100k, long after she’s tired of it. That’s been our “Toyota Problem” for decades… so it’s worth a new battery)
Yeah, that’s my gut feeling - she should just buy a new battery. I told her that the Prius may well outlast her (she’s 77). But it’s a lot of money for her - she was still substitute teaching at 77 until COVID hit, and I’m sure she wouldn’t be doing that if she didn’t need the money. And it sure doesn’t look like she’s going to be supplementing her income that way anytime soon.
Thanks for the site rec - I will definitely take a look!
Anecdotal only. My roommate’s 2006 Prius, bought used just a few months ago, stopped dead pulling out of the parking space in front of our house. Towed to a good mechanic who has done well by me for 15 years. Diagnosis: needs a new battery. $2900. She did the research, decided to replace the battery. Every reason to think she is going to get another 13+ years out of that battery as was gotten from the original one before it died a predictable death. She just happened to buy it less than a thousand miles before that reasonably predictable death. She bought it as is, for a low price, figures with a new battery, she will get at least another 150,000 miles from the battery cost plus the cost to purchase.
She finds that same Prius owners’ site useful.
I too find it curious what is going into ‘ maintenance ’ yearly that costs a $1000. And I am a 70 year old mother🙃 I finally learned to keep a journal of car expenses, partly so I could future budget, but also so I could tell if I was getting good value from my mechanics. I was. Granted, this ‘journal’ consisted of consistently throwing receipts into the glove box instead of onto the passenger floor, but I could look back and see what I had spent on what and when. Found out I wasn’t spending as much as I thought.
So my Prius is a 2007 that I bought new. It’s hybrid battery died last year and I had it replaced. I was surprised that I was driving it around running errands and all the dash lights lit up but it still let me drive it. Despite that, it scared me enough that I immediately booked an appt with the dealer service dept to find out what was wrong with it (I didn’t suspect the battery).
IMO, it’s worth having the battery replaced, and I would go with a new one, not a refurbished one. My car’s been very reliable, so although things like this are pricey… well, that battery lived for what, 12 years? I expect the new one is good for another 12 (assuming I keep it that long).
Argggh! This thread is reminding me of the huge decision I still have to make: new hybrid battery, refurb battery from reputable place, or refurb battery off ebay. 1600, 1100 or 500 respectively.
(fun fact: my Insight runs without the hybrid battery, as it has for the last few months, so I’m okay for a while)
I would NOT have the dealer do it, but that’s because I don’t trust them as much as our great Car Dude* around the corner or a local Hybrid Repair Specialist*. Oh, and they’re really expensive.
Now, that specialist (after a day of testing mine, and trying everything) said it might just be a couple of bad individual cells. But that finding those specific cells could take $1000 of his time. But if you could find the right Hybrid Battery Guy, a combination of that and/or reconditioning with a grid charger might resurrect the old battery.
Which I might do with my car, but I’d worry about Mom’s battery dying…
…
*(shout out to Budd’s Auto, and EV Power, in Madison, WI)
Digs, how’s the rest of the car holding up? Any big repairs looming in the distance, beyond the battery? Is there a timing belt that has to be changed around that time? (That was my biggest worry, when I had 4-banger Civics and Accords, way back when.)
I’d still be driving the Prius (although I’d have had to fix the brakes, shocks, touchscreen wandering, and other minor annoying issues too) if the air conditioner didn’t crap out and replacement wasn’t three grand or so. Liked that car quite a lot, but LOL at driving in SE Texas sans A/C.
I had that too, not long before the end. Not the traction battery, but the water pump and something else in the hybrid system went wonky. Lights galore on the dash, right as I was at 65 on the highway. Gets your attention, doesn’t it? It was still drivable to the dealer. (My dealership is actually really reasonable on cost, comparable to several different independent mechanics.) 750 bucks later, it was fixed.
Only real problem beyond the a/c that I ever had in five years of ownership. The suspension didn’t like the Third World-equivalent roads prevalent in Houston, but the developing wiggle was tolerable.
I’d replace the battery, after making sure (if that’s possible) that the battery issue isn’t caused by another problem in the car’s electrical system. Easy for me to say, it’s not my 2500 dollars or so.
Still, can that money, and the anticipated near future repair expenses combined, buy an equally reliable car these days? I’m not sure.
Aww, thanks for asking. Rest of the car is great* (except for the mystery problems that’ll pop up right after I invest in a battery)…
*Great, now that I got the A/C fixed. I was all set for a road trip, to go visit Mom (well, to try to talk to her through her window at The Old Folks’ Home). When I fired up the car the day before, the vents were blowing 106º ƒ … luckily, the aforementioned Budd’s Auto fit me in after hours, and gave me a Visiting Mom discount.
Now you’ve got me remembering the previous car, an old Toyota Echo that needed new transmission, brakes, seals, tie rods and a window crank. I was debating all that when an 18-wheeler ran a stop light and compressed it into a cube. Truck driver was wondering why I was so happy…
Sigh…apparently it’s not just the battery - Mom has taken it to 3 different mechanics, and they all told her that the Toyota dealership would have the best chance of diagnosing the problem. And the Toyota dealership is telling her it need another $3 - 4k in repairs besides the battery.
Now, how to decide whether it’s worth it…and how to get Mom to give me the whole story? I think I need to cool off first because she just made me jump to go pick her up from the dealership and as soon as I got there, she decided she could drive it home after all. I REALLY detest fire drills.
You clearly aren’t getting the whole story. ‘Drive it away from the dealership’ /= ‘3-4 grand in repairs, plus the new battery too.’
4500 to over 6 thousand dollars of necessary repairs would have me looking for a new-to-me car. Especially with no guarantee of smooth sailing after that. Weird that the independent mechanics couldn’t diagnose the issue.
I’m sorry you both are going through this.
But glad that @digs is doing much better with her car.
Yeah, it’s always difficult to get the full story from Mom in one shot, especially when it involves any kind of technical issue. I asked her exactly what repairs she was talking about so I have some actual information when I call another friend who is a Prius owner and much more technically inclined, and she waved me off, saying it was 2 pages of stuff with all the diagnostics codes. I think she is going to take the info back to one or more of the independent mechanics she talked to earlier and see if they can do the work cheaper.
If we weren’t in the middle of a f-ing pandemic, I would be more inclined to let her stew in her own juices for a while when she does something like this, but in this case it’s an actual safety issue, and I can’t just tell her to take an Uber home.
My 2005 Prius is closing in on 290,000 miles. About a year and a half ago, I got the Big Red Triangle on the enunciator panel. Bad hybrid battery. The Toyota dealership wanted $3,000 to replace it. Instead I took it to Unlimited Service Downtown in Bellingham. They replaced the bad module, balanced the cells, and installed a lead so that I can take the car in to have the batteries rebalanced whenever. (They recommend every six months – or maybe it’s every year – and it’s free with the repair. Only they need the car for three days to do all of the cycles.) That only cost $1,500. You can probably find someplace that can do the same where you live, or else Unlimited Service Downtown might be able to point you in the right direction if you give them a call.
I feel for Eva and her mom, and hope they can communicate well. And I’m warmed that Random Internetters are happy for me.
But whether my car is doing well is almost a moot point in a pandemic… it’s only going a couple of miles once a week or so.
I had a chance to trade it for a silver minivan. And I honestly thought “For the foreseeable future, what’s important to me is not how much I can load in a vehicle, or what mileage it gets… it’s how it looks sitting in front of the house.”
And a bright red First Hybrid Ever, with those covered rear wheels (that are closer together than the front) sure is cute.
I had a Prius and loved it, until one day it blew its head gasket. You’d think a Toyota engine would not do that. Repairing it would’ve cost about 75% the value of the car, so I sold it for scrap.
