The Triangle of Death – Is the Prius hybrid battery talking to you?
The day has finally come. Your dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree – and your Prius or Camry hybrid battery is around 12 years old. You’ve got a sinking feeling that the battery is going – or has gone – bad. “No problem,” you think. “I’ll just head over to my neighborhood Toyota dealer.” And after a diagnostic scan and a P0A80 code, the maintenance department at Toyota suggests you have your Camry HV battery (the BIG one) replaced with a new one. “How much?” you ask. “We can fix that right up for ya – just $4700.” Or – between $3000-$5000. “What the…???” you ask, how that can that possibly be?! “My car is only worth $5000.” Well, they explain, “the price is the price.”
So, yeah, you’re in a bind. Your Prius or Camry isn’t worth the cost to replace the battery – you might as well go get a new car, right? Not so fast! MOST of your Prius or Camry High Voltage (HV) battery could actually be fine. There are between 28-34 individual cells inside your HV battery (depending on the model) – and only a few of them are going bad. They’re losing their ability to retain energy, so their voltage begins dropping. Those drops in voltage trigger a warning system in your car’s Engine Control Unit (ECM) – and that sets off a cornucopia of lights on your dashboard.
Some Good News
If you can fix a couple of these battery cells, your dashboard lights will turn back off and your overall battery will last a lot longer. And that’s one of the options we offer here at Motorcells™ – it’s a little more complicated, but that’s the gist of it.
“But isn’t that just a Band-Aid? Won’t my car be on borrowed time?” Of course, your car is on borrowed time. It’s a CAR – and cars eventually breakdown. With Prius or Camry hybrid batteries, the break down is very predictable because the cells will fail predictably. So the question is, how long do you plan to drive your car? What’s the mileage and condition? Are you wanting to keep it for the next 10 years? And do you think your already 10-year-old car will actually last that long?
Realistically, Toyota Priuses & Camrys have other issues besides the HV batteries that could send them to the junkyard. One issue we’ve seen is a short in the transmission following a P0AA6 code. You start leaking power and it drains both your HV battery and your smaller 12V battery. Transmissions are expensive to replace or repair, so the cost of repair easily exceeds the cost of the vehicle. In term Priuses, we’re talking about $3000+ for vehicles only worth $2000-$3000. That’s just as much as the ~$3200+ for a new HV battery. Either way, do you really want to pay that much to fix your older Prius? Well…it depends! How nice is your car?
The Bottom Line
So, here’s the deal. Your HV battery has gone bad and now want the option to sell or trade-in your car for a higher value, or drive it until it dies for other reasons – the latter of which is likely 3-4 years after you replace your HV battery, realistically. At Motorcells, we offer new, renewed, or repaired Camry & Prius options so you can choose the most appropriate solution for your specific Prius or Camry with an excellent warranty.
If you have a very low mileage Prius that’s in great shape (and might last for 20 total years) – for these Prius and Camry vehicles, we do recommend spending more money and getting a new HV battery. We offer factory new Prius and Camrys typically installed for less than the dealership with a longer lifetime warranty.
But, as mentioned, two batteries could definitely last longer than one Prius. At Motorcells, we protect the customer in two ways:
- Motorcells recommends the appropriate battery for the mileage and condition of your car (it’s not one size fits all) – New, Renewed, or Repaired
- Motorcells includes a battery buyback program (if your car fails for another reason before the hybrid battery fails).
Toyota Priuses and Toyota Camrys are excellent vehicles that last a very long time if you take care of them – in our experience, about 15 years or 250,000 miles. They are amazing cars. However, the hybrid battery has inherent limitations – and you will need to either extend the life of your existing Prius / Camry battery – or buy a new one.
There you go. That’s our two cents after repairing a thousand of these from our shop in Indianapolis, IN.
