Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
... and the theory that used cells have become worn and will likely need replacement soon.
Rebuilding a pack with mismatched cells is a recipe for stressing the weakest cells, causing them to degrade faster than if they were closely matched.
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I've tested every module in my Prius with a capacity meter. I've tested some from another Prius for accuracy. All of them had less than half their original capacity. One was dead, and two others still worked but had about half the capacity of the rest of the pack. The rest were pretty close with the worst being in the middle of the battery and the best at the ends. But they were all less than 3Ah! 2.5, 2.7, 2.2, etc, where as the ones off of the Gen 3 were above 5Ah!
So if you buy a remanufactured battery, you're getting a battery with a bunch of two point something AH cells, compared to 6.5 AH with a new OEM battery for roughly the same price.
I'm not saying that matching cells isn't going to give them a couple more years of life, hopefully. What I'm saying is that replacing a 15-year-old high mileage battery with another battery made of 15-year-old high mileage cells for $1,800, plus taxes and labor is completely nuts IMO.