[Cecil]

Hi all,

I've been considering purchasing a Prius, but I've heard that batteries are expensive to replace and have to be replaced after about 48 months. I didn't think that this was the case. I've been interested in the car since they debuted, but at the time I wasn't in the position to buy a new car.

Have any of you had battery problems, or can you direct me to some hard data on battery life/durability/replacement cost?

 

[Chuck]

May I respectfully suggest you do a search for "battery life" or something similar

here: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/200 ... messages/1

or here: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/toy ... s/messages

or here: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pri ... f/messages

Yes, the traction battery is expensive but in browsing the three forums above I can recall seeing only two(?) threads concerning traction battery problems and one of them concerned a stereo installation where the installer drove a screw into the traction battery!

Lottsa problems with the small twelve volt battery but not the big traction one.

Where did you hear the battery needs replacing after 48 months? AFAIK the battery warranty is 8 years/100,000 miles.

04 Prius wannabe Chuck.

 

[frenchie]

I've heard that batteries are expensive to replace and have to be replaced after about 48 months.

Expensive, yes, but they certainly don't need to be replaced after 48 months !! They're supposed to last as long as the car itself, and there's a 8 year warranty on them (which doesn't mean they can't last longer of course). Concerning the price, I can't give you any information since I'm living in France and the new Prius is still not available here. But if you're considering purchasing a Prius, just ask a Toyota dealer to give you the price of a replacement battery, they MUST know it. And if it's very expensive take it as a positive argument for negociation... :wink:

 

[DAVID]

Here's another link to check out:
http://www.priusonline.com/viewtopic.php?t=712

 

[efusco]

The battery is, currently, expensive. If you somehow damage your battery through your own misuse or something and have to pay to replace it it would likely be costly, just like if you bought a new car and damaged your engine or your tranny or anything else.

But, as mentioned, you have a minimum 8yr/100k mile warranty on the entire hybrid system. With the classic there are multiple reports of the battery lasting beyond 200k miles. The HV battery in the '04 prius is warrantied to 150k miles in California, so there's no reason to expect it to poop out any time before then. Also important to consider is that there will be 47K 2004 prii on the road in the US alone and more than 100k world wide this year alone. Add in the '05, '06, and '07 model years before you even get toward 100k miles (in all likelyhood) and there should be nearly 1/2 million of these on the road, most likely all with the same battery or at least ones that are interchangable. With mass quantity price for the battery will come down, and it's even possilbe that some bright forward thinking 3rd party will produce a replacement battery at a lower cost than Toyota.

I think most of us have accepted that this is unlikely to become an issue during our ownership of the '04 Prius, it may become an issue with resale and used '04s--I don't know. Perhaps Toyota will offer a decent warranty on the sale of used Prius for Toyota Certified used cars?
--evan

 

[Cecil]

Thanks. I did check out the yahoo groups the other night after posting here. I was looking to get as much information as possible.

I knew what the warranty on the battery was, and it seemed that what I was being told for the life of the battery was way too low.