Replacement EV battery dilemas... Spark and Leaf

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

Would you actually buy a new $2000 OEM block for your $500 Prius? I know I wouldn't. I would either scrap the car if it cracked the block or buy a complete junkyard engine as I have done with other old cars.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Agreed. Any vehicle 15+ years old needing major work is worth scrap. Perhaps the difference being if someone has the time and inclination, they can rebuild an engine for not much cost. There's no getting around the high cost of battery replacement since it's the "part" that is so expensive.

The junkyard might be the best option IMO.

The question is: How much do you get for that scrapped car, in addition to the $2,000 + misc parts and time for the engine (or $700 used, $1,000 if that needs to be shipped) and what car can you buy for that (even without COVID prices)?

Junk car: $250-$500 at scrap yard

Savings from not buying engine: $1,770 (OEM new long block) + $254 (complete engine gasket kit) + Misc ($300-$500) + time (depends on how you value it). (Prices quoted from nearest dealer to me, only 200 miles away so fuel will also be a cost).

Or $700 (used engine) + $254 (complete engine gasket kit) + Misc ($300-$500) + time.

So you have a 15 year old car. You can scrap it and get a couple hundred for it, maybe more. If you part it out you might get even more, of course that costs time and possibly shipping. the other $1,000 to $2,500 you save from not replairing the engine can also be put towards a newer car. At best you're $3,000 ahead (well, more if you include your time). What car can you buy for $3,000 that's better than a 15 year old car with a new engine?

Originally Posted by JSH

BEVs are no different than ICE when it comes to major repairs when they are 15 - 20 years old. VERY few people are going to spend more fixing the car than it is worth.

Originally Posted by JSH

You can crack open the battery and look for the cause of failure. Most likely a failed connection or a handful of weak cells. This is no different than how fixing / rebuilding an engine is way less expensive than buying a new crate engine.

Rebuilding a battery requires different tools and knowledge than a mechanical engine but it is well within the capabilities of someone that wants to learn how to do it.

Yes and no. From what I can tell, you rarely get a batch of weak cells. When EV or hybrid cells start to go bad, pretty much all of them are going to be in need of replacing. Generally if one cell is at 70%, then the rest are almost there themselves. And once one goes bad, replacing it becomes what Prius owner's call the game of "whack-a-mole." Either you figure on testing and replacing random cells for the rest of the vehicle's life, or you go get a new battery.

This is why rebuilt hybrid batteries give terrible results. A year, two, or at best three years from the time you put in a rebuilt it fails because all the cells were from weak packs that they just pulled all the dead cells from and make one good one. Even with strenuous testing and cell matching you still end up with an old battery that really should be replaced.

This is also why you don't see EV battery rebuilding, because if you harvest cells from dozens of weak packs all you end up with are hundreds or thousands of weak cells. Taking all the best cells from each pack and making just one battery with them will still give you a weak battery.

Originally Posted by Drifter

Market value and utility value rarely correlate on unpopularly aged vehicles (i.e. before they become "classic"). Unless you've got major rust/body issues or can only pay dealership labor rates for service, maintaining a quality older economy car almost always results in the lowest operating costs/total cost of ownership.

take a completely worn out 2005 prius. Let's say it was used as a taxi and has 500,000 miles and all the wear items are worn. You can install a rebuilt engine, new battery pack, low mileage inverter, all new suspension bushings/shocks, all new brakes, new tires, and swap in a complete junkyard interior from a nice higher trim - all for around $10,000. Add new/rebuilt air conditioning & a modern carplay/adroid auto radio and you're probably at $12,000 (paying an independent mechanic to do the work).

There is no way you could resell your almost entirely rebuilt 500,000 mile prius for $12,000. But you also could not buy a car for $12,000 that will be as cheap to operate over the next 5-10 years - especially when you factor in the higher insurance, registration, and depreciation on a newer car. So that rebuilt 500,000 mile prius has more than $12,000 worth of utility.

This is a good point.

Originally Posted by JSH

True but you would still be driving a 17 year old Prius. Not to mention that that $12K of work would need to be paid out of pocket while a different car can be financed at low rates.

But would the old Prius need all $12,000 of work done to it at once? The pros and cons are that as parts fail and need replacing, that can happen over a period of time, much like payments. And much like payments, if you don't pay you may have to stop driving. But with the old car, if you don't have the money for the repair you don't have to pay. You just stop driving for a while. With the new car if you don't pay you lose everything you've invested in it.

Originally Posted by JSH

Also if that 2005 was totaled in a wreck you wouldn't get anywhere near $12K from the insurance company to replace it.

This is the big one here! By doing what "normal" people do you keep yourself in a safer spot financially. Sure, you have to go buy a newer car every time yours gets to the point it needs a new engine or something. Financially it's more expensive in the long run, but at least you don't pop a new $2,000 California compliant catalytic converter only to have it robbed and the insurance company come back and say "your car was only worth $500, so here's a check, thanks for the car."

Originally Posted by JSH

Most people would spend that money on something newer. Maybe something like these:

2014 Toyota Camry LE $12,489
2014 Toyota Prius One $11,990

Most people, yes. But if we go with the $2,000 engine block, $12,000 costs way more. It also means you're forced to make payments for the next several years. $2,000 spread out over the year is the same amount I pay for the Avalon per year, and it was similar in cost to those cars. The Prius is still driveable. I can drive it and save up the money for the replacment, or decide then if it's still worth it. But it will need at least a battery some time in the future, which is another $2,000.

There are times when I feel like I'll never again get a car loan like I did with the Avalon and be stuck with a car payment. 5 Years feel like an eternity to pay off. It's not a lot of money per month, but it still bugs me.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by Drifter

Most people would rather have those newer half-worn cars, but I'd rather have the refreshed older car. They're paying $12,000 hoping to get another ~150,000 miles with normal maintenance vs me paying $12,000 hoping to get another 350,000-400,000 miles with normal maintenance.

Truthfully I wouldn't put $12,000 into an old car all at once unless it was a restoration or something. For a beater/driver, I just treat it like the Ship of Theseus and replace things along the way even if some rare repairs cost more than the market value of the car (e.g. rebuilt engine).

Exactly!

I remember once my brother way paying $300 per month for a used pickup along with another $300 per month for insurance. I was paying some $50 per month for liability on the Mazda 323 that had cost me $250. I figured if I invested the other $550 per month into the car I was saving compared to his situation, after a couple years I'd basically have a new car. But with my brother, when his truck broke he didn't have money to fix it. There were several months it just sat there with him paying for it.

With a semi-used car you have to make room in your budget for potential repairs. With an older car that may go up, depending on the treatment it got. A lot of what happens afterwards depends on the driver. The reason I'm looking at buying another engine for the Prius is that the previous owners thought they could do yearly oil changes instead of every 5,000 miles like they should. At every 5,000 miles the engine should last 400k or 500k miles, not 150k-200k.

[Isaac Zachary]

Another thing to is this is Ecomodder. Any mods you make to a car are generally non-transferable.

For an example, I usually buy another set of rims for every car I get and a set of winter tires to go with it. Yes, I can always sell the rims and tires, but usually I can't get enough to just go buy another set for my next car. Plus that throws a bunch of things to pay for at the same time, down payment, taxes and now wheels, all within the same year.

[JSH]

Yes, it is almost always cheaper to keep an old car running unless it has major body damage from a collision or rust. (Or course you can continue the repair argument that you can just fix it yourself. Most body work is a lot of time and little material)

However, it isn't just about what is the absolute cheapest. If you keep a decades old car running it is still a decades old car. It doesn't have the features - convenience or safety - of a new car. Wrenching on a car takes time - and cars often break at inconvenient times. The last thing I want to do after working a 50 hour week is spend hours (sometimes days) wrenching on a car instead of spending time doing fun stuff with family. The older the car - the more frequent the repairs and eventually you will be continually chasing failed wire harness issues and sensors through a mile of wire connecting dozens of computers.

The cause of battery failures depends on how and when they fail. An early battery failure is likely a single cell or some sort of wiring failure. If you have driven a car for decades and the battery is just at useful life after cycle after cycle then it is likely all the cells are shot. (Toyota Prius batteries are very reliable and the vast majority of failures are high mileage / high year vehicles.) At that point replacing cells is pretty pointless and you either need to replace the battery with a new one, replace all the cells with new cells, or build a new custom battery. Or just find a new car because once you have worn out a battery with hundreds of thousands of miles of use the rest of the car is likely pretty worn too.

I'm not personally a fan of car loans either and since my 2003 TDI I have just kept saving that original payment after the loan is paid off so that by the time I need a car I have the money for the car. However, right now I have two car loans - why? Because with inflation at 7% and a used car loan at 3% the real rate is negative. The bank is paying me to use their money so I'll keep mine invested.

I'm curious about the circumstances that led someone to pay $300 a month ($3600 a year) for insurance on a used truck outside of the state of Michigan. Of course paying monthly costs more - usually 10 - 20% more but that can't explain $300 a month. I'm in the Portland metro and insurance here is the most expensive I've seen in 4 states I've lived (outside of Michigan). My last auto insurance bill was $539 for 6 months on 3 cars. (2004 Astro, 2011 Acura Sportwagon, 2017 Chevy Bolt) That is full coverage with 500K single limit, $100 comprehensive deductible, and $250 collision deductible.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

Yes, it is almost always cheaper to keep an old car running unless it has major body damage from a collision or rust. (Or course you can continue the repair argument that you can just fix it yourself. Most body work is a lot of time and little material)

However, it isn't just about what is the absolute cheapest. If you keep a decades old car running it is still a decades old car. It doesn't have the features - convenience or safety - of a new car. Wrenching on a car takes time - and cars often break at inconvenient times. The last thing I want to do after working a 50 hour week is spend hours (sometimes days) wrenching on a car instead of spending time doing fun stuff with family. The older the car - the more frequent the repairs and eventually you will be continually chasing failed wire harness issues and sensors through a mile of wire connecting dozens of computers.

That can depend on how necessary the car is: for an example if there's a second car, or if work and stores are close enough to walk.

But it is true that generally a new or newer car is more convenient as it is less likely to break down.

Originally Posted by JSH

The cause of battery failures depends on how and when they fail. An early battery failure is likely a single cell or some sort of wiring failure. If you have driven a car for decades and the battery is just at useful life after cycle after cycle then it is likely all the cells are shot. (Toyota Prius batteries are very reliable and the vast majority of failures are high mileage / high year vehicles.) At that point replacing cells is pretty pointless and you either need to replace the battery with a new one, replace all the cells with new cells, or build a new custom battery. Or just find a new car because once you have worn out a battery with hundreds of thousands of miles of use the rest of the car is likely pretty worn too.

With battery waranties these days I would think a rather new battery with just one bad cell or bad wiring would not be very common to have to fix. I guess if you got it replaced under waranty near the end of the coverage period and a couple years later it had a failure like that.

One thing I've noticed is that besides repair, there is treating the vehicle nicely so things will last. It seems batteries are the oposite of engines. If you need to go long distances you can squeeze many more miles out of an engine with long distance drives. But batteries prefer to be kept cool and around 50% charge with as few charging cycles as possible.

Originally Posted by JSH

I'm not personally a fan of car loans either and since my 2003 TDI I have just kept saving that original payment after the loan is paid off so that by the time I need a car I have the money for the car. However, right now I have two car loans - why? Because with inflation at 7% and a used car loan at 3% the real rate is negative. The bank is paying me to use their money so I'll keep mine invested.

Interesting. I don't know how that all works or how I'd save money that way. I'd have to think about it for a while.

All I know is that total transportation shouldn't be more than 20% of my income, which after taxes is about $500. I was spending around $200 a month for fuel and $150 for insurance before COVID. I've shopped around and gotten my insurance down to $120, but that still only leaves $170 for car, maintenance and repairs.

Originally Posted by JSH

I'm curious about the circumstances that led someone to pay $300 a month ($3600 a year) for insurance on a used truck outside of the state of Michigan. Of course paying monthly costs more - usually 10 - 20% more but that can't explain $300 a month. I'm in the Portland metro and insurance here is the most expensive I've seen in 4 states I've lived (outside of Michigan). My last auto insurance bill was $539 for 6 months on 3 cars. (2004 Astro, 2011 Acura Sportwagon, 2017 Chevy Bolt) That is full coverage with 500K single limit, $100 comprehensive deductible, and $250 collision deductible.

When I first went and asked what just liability would be 25 years ago I distinctly remember being quoted $600 per month! Of course I ended up on my parent's insurance as a result. But my brother was still a 20 something at the time, needed full coverage, and had a few tickets under his belt. Even today, I pay $120 per month for full coverage on one vehicle at 40 years old with only one ticket in my whole life, some 6 or 7 years ago, that was only one point.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

That can depend on how necessary the car is: for an example if there's a second car, or if work and stores are close enough to walk.

Whether or not that is feasible depends a lot on where you live. Some friends of mine live in an apartment and parking is $100 a month. That pretty much kills any savings from keeping an extra car around. Of course they also aren't allowed to do any work on a car on the apartment property and all cars must be licensed and running. So any work on the car is going to take place at a mechanic for $100 to $150 per hour.

Plenty of areas have city ordinances or HOAs that don't allow non-running cars or cars parked anywhere except for in the driveway. (No street parking / no parking on the grass). Plenty also don't allow any work to be done in view of the public so if you are going to work on your car you need a garage.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

With battery waranties these days I would think a rather new battery with just one bad cell or bad wiring would not be very common to have to fix. I guess if you got it replaced under waranty near the end of the coverage period and a couple years later it had a failure like that.

That is the rare but possible scenario. A sudden battery failure just outside of warranty. Otherwise batteries generally slowly degrade with time and usage.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

One thing I've noticed is that besides repair, there is treating the vehicle nicely so things will last. It seems batteries are the oposite of engines. If you need to go long distances you can squeeze many more miles out of an engine with long distance drives. But batteries prefer to be kept cool and around 50% charge with as few charging cycles as possible.

Yes, how someone treats their battery makes a big difference. The same way that some people can kill a cell phone battery within 2 years and others have batteries that last 5 years or more.

What batteries like depends on the chemistry but pretty much any battery used in a car benefits from frequent small discharge cycles instead a smaller number of deep discharges. It is far better to charge a car from 60% to 80% every day than to discharge to 0% and then charge to 100% every 5 days.

One of the reasons that Prius batteries last so long is that Toyota only allowed the battery to operate between 40% and 80% SOC. Ford took it even farther with the Escape hybrid. Early Escapes (up to 2008) only used 40 - 53% SOC. In 2009 Ford expanded that to 40-60%.

EV batteries that fail early generally have been abused. Either someone with a PHEV that completely cycles the battery twice a day on their commute or a EV owner that does deep discharges and then DC Fast Charges.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Interesting. I don't know how that all works or how I'd save money that way. I'd have to think about it for a while.

Say you borrow $10,000 @ 3% for 5 years. You will pay $152 a month for 72 months and pay a total of $10,939. However, if inflation was 7% per year you need $14,025 to buy the same amount in 5 years as that original $10,000. The bank lost 28% on the loan.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

When I first went and asked what just liability would be 25 years ago I distinctly remember being quoted $600 per month! Of course I ended up on my parent's insurance as a result. But my brother was still a 20 something at the time, needed full coverage, and had a few tickets under his belt. Even today, I pay $120 per month for full coverage on one vehicle at 40 years old with only one ticket in my whole life, some 6 or 7 years ago, that was only one point.

That explains it. I paid stupid high insurance rates when I was young and dumb too. Then I got married, grew up, and saw my insurance rates drop.

When I was 23 I paid $2500 a year for insurance on a $6000 motorcycle!

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

Whether or not that is feasible depends a lot on where you live. Some friends of mine live in an apartment and parking is $100 a month. That pretty much kills any savings from keeping an extra car around. Of course they also aren't allowed to do any work on a car on the apartment property and all cars must be licensed and running. So any work on the car is going to take place at a mechanic for $100 to $150 per hour.

Plenty of areas have city ordinances or HOAs that don't allow non-running cars or cars parked anywhere except for in the driveway. (No street parking / no parking on the grass). Plenty also don't allow any work to be done in view of the public so if you are going to work on your car you need a garage.

My brother-in-law once simply opened his hood to check his oil level and the landlord pulled up like a swat team thinking he was working on his car.

If I had to live in a place like that I would seriously consider not owning a car. Bus service is hardly existant here except for the ski areas. But in places where that kind of thing is more prevalent so are bus routes. At $100 per month per adult that can be a lot cheaper than driving a car.

The main factor I think is income. If I made $10,000 per month, owning a car would be a no-brainer. When you're limited on what you can spend you have to direct it to what makes the most sense. A $2,000 apartment in a city with rules against owning an older vehicle would definitely mean no car for me unless there were better paying work there.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

My brother-in-law once simply opened his hood to check his oil level and the landlord pulled up like a swat team thinking he was working on his car.

If I had to live in a place like that I would seriously consider not owning a car. Bus service is hardly existant here except for the ski areas. But in places where that kind of thing is more prevalent so are bus routes. At $100 per month per adult that can be a lot cheaper than driving a car.

The main factor I think is income. If I made $10,000 per month, owning a car would be a no-brainer. When you're limited on what you can spend you have to direct it to what makes the most sense. A $2,000 apartment in a city with rules against owning an older vehicle would definitely mean no car for me unless there were better paying work there.

Portland has the best public transportation of anyplace I've lived. Even then it would take me 2 hours to take transit to work when driving is 35 minutes today and was 55 minutes pre-pandemic. (I'm about a mile from the train station on each end of my commute) So yes, it is technically possible to live without a car but it makes your life much more stressful. Transit works great for going downtown for a game, show, or dinner but doesn't work well at all for going across town.

There are no rules against owning an old vehicle - you just can't work on vehicles in an apartment garage or parking lot. Doesn't matter if the vehicle is new or old. Which means maintaining an old car gets expensive. Very similar to the thread on JDM engines and why the average Japanese car gets taken out of service at 14 years old.

Yes, cities generally have better job prospects than rural areas - that is why people move to the city. A better job is why my wife and I have made every move.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

Yes, cities generally have better job prospects than rural areas - that is why people move to the city. A better job is why my wife and I have made every move.

I guess I personally don't have a "growth" way of thinking, or whatever it's called. I don't have enough incentive to try to move to a city. Being told I can't work on my own car there makes for even less incentive. I'm sure there's probably a job and a place to live out there somewhere that would be way better than what I have now, but I haven't even tried to find such a thing, at least not recently. The last time I tried to move to a big city was perhaps the worst experience of my working life. For one, you can show me 100 jobs there, but the last time I applied for 100 jobs in a city I got rejected at all but the single absolute worst of them, making nearly half minimum wage at night living in a shared basement.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

You can crack open the battery and look for the cause of failure. Most likely a failed connection or a handful of weak cells. This is no different than how fixing / rebuilding an engine is way less expensive than buying a new crate engine.

Rebuilding a battery requires different tools and knowledge than a mechanical engine but it is well within the capabilities of someone that wants to learn how to do it.

It is different because a properly rebuilt engine will last as long as the original. Replacing a few weak cells in a battery gives a very limited extended use. I've read about people replacing weak Prius cells only to have other cells frequently failing. When one goes, it's often an indication the rest are weak. If a car makes it through the 10 year battery warranty without any failed cells, you can fairly well assume they are reasonably well matched and will degrade at roughly the same rate.

All that said, the only EV with a decade old battery is the Leaf, so we won't know for a while how long a Tesla or Bolt pack will last, for instance.