Quote:
Originally Posted by hayden55
Thats crazy because batteries are said to be at end of life when they reach 80% capacity. Thats an industry standard by the way. So they are saying that they agree to give you a battery that just barely above end of life. They say that because statistically they start to conk out left and right below that.
(its fine though if its in a battery thats already installed in your car though)
I've heard a lot of crazy talk about batteries on priuses but the OEM batteries aren't that expensive and they really do last so much longer than everyone elses. I would never buy aftermarket or used vs going with a new oem toyota/panasonic battery. Thats the golden combo of reliability.
On black friday i saw a gen 3 battery from toyota online at a certain dealer and it was $1700-2100 (1700-2300 sometimes $2700) plus tax and the core charge was $40 (which is hilarious). For a gen 3 battery. It was mostly just the cells and bus bars though it didn't have most of the case or fan on this P/N. So realistically you could diy a new oem battery for $2500 bucks and it will last another decade +.
Some of the aftermarket companies are literally just slinging questionable second hand batteries that can be basically as bad as what you have, or they are trying to pass off chinese no name cells as their brand of cells which make Sanyo look great.
As far as the car goes if that 2008 Prius is in good shape I would keep that thing and put a good battery in it. They really do last forever. Batteries are more or less affected by age and cycles. So it seems like pretty much everyone makes it to 10-12 years, and its not uncommon to do 15+.
Pull the plug on you battery and take the case off the battery and inspect the bus bars for corrosion as well. Sometimes they corrode and that leads to extra resistance and the heat build up besides cells progressively dying and internally shorting and burning off energy that way as well.
For my gen 3 i noticed 6 years ago if i parked below half soc on the dash the next morning the car would start with 2 bars and get awful gas mileage until it warmed back up and got back over halfway, so I started parking above that and it would hold voltage and get much better gas mileage.
Now at this point I've learned from my scan gauge that the car really prefers to use the battery as little as possible for the best gas mileage. I pretty much just keep the car between 57-62% ish percent the whole time for max gas mileage. I've been doing that for probably 4 years now and i can still get high 50s. I more or less just use the battery to shut the engine off and coast and to keep the engine off at stop lights or scoot up at stop lights.
Also, take your brakes apart and clean the sliding pin holes out with a drill brush and brake cleaner, clean and lube your sliding pins with silicone lube. I use sli-glyde and replaced the bushing and bellows on them as well since they were old. If your pins are rusty replace them.
I do this once a year for great gas mileage. The big problem with priuses is most owners run around with partially seized sliding pins since the brake pads don't really wear out... until your brakes start seizing up and wear out.
Oh i thought it was interesting above. I turned off my reverse beep and seat belt chime with my iphone and dr prius.
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I reached out to my local Toyota dealer and got a quote for a new battery for $1990. This doesn't include labor as I would have to reach out to their shop separately. So this seems like a no brainer to me, unless the shop is wanting $2000 for install. I'll happily pay $3000 when the times comes to get a Toyota battery in there.
I just did a fresh battery health test on dr prius and I'm still at 40%.
Reading more reviews regarding green bean or other reconditioned batteries just seems like such a gamble.