Successful Battery Replacement Leaves Prius Owner Happy, Teaches Lessons
By John O'Dell December 8, 2008By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Heather Knowles has just gone through an experience she shares with only a handful of her fellow hybrid car drivers across the country.
She had to have the battery pack in her gas-electric car - a 2002 Toyota Prius - replaced because it would no longer hold a charge.
Her experience wasn't harrowing, given Toyota's determination to keep its hybrid customers happy by providing levels of service the rest of us can only dream about.
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Replacing NiMH battery pack in a first-generation Prius such as the 2002 model pictured should cost under $3,000.
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But it does provide some lessons for other hybrid owners and potential hybrid buyers.
How Long Do They Live?
As the number of hybrids on U.S. roads grows, so to do questions about hybrid battery life and replacement costs.
Toyota, whose best-selling Prius has given it a greater number of older hybrids than any other auto maker, is particularly concerned.
Not many of those first generation Priuses, sold from late 1999 through 2003, have experienced battery problems - the company said earlier this year that it has replaced fewer than 300 Prius battery packs, many because the batteries were damaged in accidents, not because they wore out and would no longer hold a charge.
That's not bad, considering Toyota sold about 60,000 of the gen-1 hybrids, and many are well into six figures on the odometer.
Knowles' car had just clocked 174,000 miles - she has a daily commute of more than 100 miles from her home in the high desert east of Los Angeles to her office in Burbank - when the nickel-metal hydride batteries in her Prius stopped functioning properly.
That's a little early - here are Priuses out there still going strong on the original battery packs after more than 200,000 miles.
But, lesson one, hybrid battery life is dependent on many variables including ambient operating temperature, and temperatures in Knowles' part of Southern California can get broiling in the summer and icy in the winter.
Second Opinions Can Help
Lesson two: always double check price estimates.
The dealer quoted the Knowleses a replacement battery price of $2,751, a few hundred dollars below what had been the retail price of replacement batteries for the Prius.
But Toyota had changed the price just a few days before Knowles' car went into the shop and the new price for a first-generation Prius battery pack now was $2,299 -- $2,588 for 2004 and newer Priuses. (To be fair to the dealership, Toyota hadn't done a stellar job of getting the word out and acknowledges that many dealers probably hadn't been informed of the new pricing when Knowles got her quote.
The prospective bill was much higher than just the replacement battery (right), however. The service manager said a new battery management computer might be needed, at a cost of $1,176. And there was $31 for new electrical cables and $720 for labor. With taxes, the estimate came to $5,785.76.
That knocked Knowles for a loop.
She loved the Prius, especially its fuel economy, but she and her husband figured that a six-year-old car with 174,000 miles on the odo and the hybrid's equivalent of a blown engine wasn't worth what the repair would cost.
Knowles said she couldn't afford a new hybrid and resigned herself to buying a new small fuel-efficient car with a conventional engine even though (remember, gas was up around $3.65 a gallon in Southern California at the time) her fuel bills would soar.
She contacted Edmunds.com for information about cars with fuel economy numbers that that might come close to competing with her Prius, and that's when her case came to our attention.
We thought the quote was a little high - we'd just written about Toyota lowering the replacement battery price, for instance - and having had enough experience with dealerships over the years to know better than to hold our breath waiting for answers, we went straight to the source and contacted Toyota Motors Sales USA.
(Note, we haven't identified the dealership because there's no indication it did anything improper. Additionally, the service manager hasn't yet responded to our request for comment.)
Corporate Help Invaluable
At Toyota corporate, spokeswoman Jana Hartline confirmed the $2,299 battery pack replacement price and suggested that it was unlikely the Knowleses would need to replace the battery management computer.
Hartline, manager of Toyota's environmental communications, also said that the company really wanted to keep Prius customers happy and driving hybrids and was willing to work individually with them if battery replacement was an issue.
So we gave Hartline's contact info to Heather Knowles and suggested she get in touch.
Shortly after that, Knowles e-mailed to let us know that she'd talked to Hartline and then been contacted by a Toyota customer relations agent, who was looking into things.
Lesson three: If at all possible (and apparently it is a lot more possible if you drive a hybrid) get corporate headquarters working for you.
Knowles sent Green Car Advisor an e-mail on Oct. 14, reporting that Toyota had called back.
"They said that the master technician at the dealership wanted to look at the car again because now they were thinking it was just the battery and not the computer and the miscellaneous other parts. They asked us to bring it in again today," she wrote, "and said if it is just the battery, it should take approximately a week to get a new one."
The same dealership two weeks earlier had told the Knowleses that it would likely take at least 45 days to get a replacement battery from Toyota.
That, Hartline told us, was likely because it was taking that long during the summer -Toyota's battery supplier was working at capacity and orders were backing up. "But we've caught up now,: she said, "and that's probably why they got it so fast."
Problem Resolved
"I have to say," Knowles wrote in her Oct. 14 e-mail, "Toyota has been very nice, but the process has been very long and drawn out and I feel like I am stuck in limbo."
We set back a note wishing her the best and asking to be kept posted, and then got busy doing other things and next thing we knew, it was Thanksgiving weekend.
We found ourselves reviewing e-mail files and, noting all the old messages with Knowles' name on them, wondered whether the couple had ended up with anything to be thankful about on the car front.
Turns out they did.
Heather Knowles says that the dealership replaced her Prius' battery pack toward the end of October, charging her the new, lower price of $2,299, plus about $650 in labor. No new computer was needed.
"The whole bill came to just under $3,000," she said.
"We're not sure how exactly they got the battery so quickly after telling us it would take so long, that's never been explained, but we didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth," so she never made it an issue.
As for the car: "It's been running great since."
Knowles said that Toyota's corporate people were great, too. "They were very apologetic and very willing to go the extra mile to get the situation resolved."
Final Lessons
She says she's not angry or feeling ill-served by the dealer, but wishes the whole issue could have been handled there from the start.
"The dealership only seemed to be whipped into shape after corporate started dealing with them. It makes me sad for the people who don't know or don't feel able to call corporate to intercede on their behalf," she said. That's lesson four.
"It also frustrates me that a consumer would have to call corporate to help in the first place. Dealers should be more proactive," she said.
Indeed.
And we can only wish that carmakers, Toyota included, would be so helpful in other situations. But don't get your hopes up.
As Hartline made clear, Toyota really doesn't want any unhappy former Prius owners out there, so the company is willing to work hard to keep them happy and when possible, driving a Prius.
Knowles got an unusually high level of corporate assistance.
But with the world coming down around their ears, perhaps car dealers - and car makers - should take a lesson from the Knowleses' story as well: Customers are happy, and keep coming back, if you treat them like they matter.
LEAVE A COMMENT
Click here to comment on this entry.Toyota does the right thing when the automotive press gets involved? This story may have had a happy ending, but it doesn't make Toyota look good.
Perhaps, the reason they find ways to ramp it up to $6K is because they lose money at $3K.
I drive a 2003 Prius. It became unstable around 90,000 miles. Basically, I would start it, but the internal combustion engine wouldn't start like it should, even when I started driving at speed for example, and I would end up having to stop and restart it several times before it would work right.
I took it to the dealer and they said it was the hybrid controller, but it wasn't covered under my hybrid system warranty and would cost hundreds of dollars. I dispute that it wasn't part of the "hybrid system" covered by the warranty, but we tried swapping out the spark plugs and some other maintenance to see if that would help.
It wasn't a problem for a while, but when it got cold again this winter it flared up again, and now I'm at 115000 miles and out of warranty. I'm noticing that when I start it in the morning (particularly cold mornings) the battery is about half depleted before I even start moving. I'm guessing its not holding a charge as well as it once did.
I have loved the Prius and would definitely get another one. But I feel like Toyota didn't honor the warranty when I was in last year and really stuck it to me.
gwmort, that's a ploy I've had a couple of different dealerships take. They find ways to delay you (cost, parts availability, not covered under warranty, etc) until your car fails out of warranty and they can rack up some huge repair bills. I'm not sure WHY they do this as the warranty is factory-backed and the dealership gets paid anyway. That's why, when I found a dealership I trust, I stuck with them.
Of course, it never hurts to get corporate involved. I've done that before, and it saved me from paying $2,000 to fix the same problem twice.
Isn't it amazing how Toyota was so "willing to go the extra mile" AFTER Edmunds got involved. Hmmmm.......
I'm glad you guys put this story out. I'm looking to buy a new car within the next year, and one of the ones I'm looking at is a Camry Hybrid. I have to deal with a lot of stop-and-go traffic so, in theory, a hybrid makes sense. With all the tax incentives available, it works out to be close in price to the standard car, but you get more toys. But after reading this story, I'll definately think twice about buying any hybrid car.
From the 4 comments above it seems that all are equating the dealer with the manufacturer. As was pointed out several times in the story they are NOT one-in-the-same.
The dealer is the one giving the initial quote and availability on replacement batteries.
It was corporate that pushed for something less expensive and more expeditious.
This is not unusual in any circumstance. When something is really important it's ALWAYS worthwhile to write a letter to the President or Chairman of a company.
For all vehicle makers the manufacturer and the dealer are two separate businesses with two separate perspectives and separate profit goals. Nothing unusual here.
The service departments of dealerships usually charge above MSRP on parts and can pretty much set their own labor rates. Make sure you all do your homework out there first.
I don't think that the President or CEO of Toyota or any other company anywhere near Toyota's size particularly has the time to answer "fan mail." That's what customer service departments are for.
This must be some kind of a joke. Poor Heather is without her car for what looks to be over 1 month (who knows how long it really took), she shells out $3000 to fix a $7000 car, and she is happy about it??? Some one sold her a bill of goods in the first place for her to have purchased the hybrid. Long commutes are NOT what hybrids are for. Basically, all you are doing is carrying around batteries. It takes a lot of stop and go to gain the benefit from the regenerative braking.
If any of my cars reguired a $3000 repair bill and a lot of hastling with the dealer and corporate after 174,000 miles, I would have been honked off beyond description.
You've got to hand it to Toyota though, they do an incredible job of sweeping this kind stuff under the carpet.
the story is EDMUNDS SAVES CONSUMER 4,000.
Not Toyota makes consumer happy. Again Import Bias. Toyota knows they are going to get press, good or bad, figures 4 grand is cheap to buy off edmunds, and does so.
Whats so hard to see about what really solved the problem, oh thats right, all that cash in their pocket
I think a lot of people will be dumping their hybrids when they need battery replacements because they won't be willing to spend 3,000 (or even 2,000) to replace them. And that will hurt their resale value. It will be like selling a car with either a blown engine, or one that needs major work on the drive train. And what's a vehicle worth that can't even perform its basic purpose of transportation? Not much.
And yet the Marxists in Congress want to make the Big 3 build even more of them, whether the market wants them or not. I'm sure not ready to buy one now, and maybe not ever. Sure they do have *some* advantages, but I don't think the premium up front is worth it, nor the likely hit taken later on resale, particularly as the word gets around when more of these situations occur.
174K out of her original battery, what a great product. Great engineering and manufacturing!! Despite what you may read by most of the naysayers on this post, just think, if you owned domestic garbage, you'd've replaced the tranny, what 4-6 times? Figure $1500 to $1800 for a tranny rebuild and compare. Toyota is a great company and their products just continue to impress. No wonder they have cash and are not asking for the government dole!
And the cost will continue to drop as volume continues to increase.
Forward looking company once again that delivers!!
Doesn't that make you one of the naysayers from the opposite end? If this had been a domestic car, the conclusion would have been quite different. It would have just reinforced the "garbage" perception among the naysayers about our own automakers.
Toyota has a lofty reputation, but they're not perfect either. They just don't get raked over the coals for their occasional missteps.
sense1 what is this 1980 where trannys last 30k miles? by that logic my sunfire in my 115k miles of ownership, would have needed 2-3, and all it got was a fluid change
My 2001 Prius had < 17,000 miles when I bought it October 2003 to replace one that I bought new in March 2001 wrecked in October 2003. The car now has over 190,000 miles. I have it serviced every 5,000 miles. The service has been change the oil and rotate the tires and occasionally change the cabin filter. At 120,000 miles service called for changing the engine and inverter coolant. At 185,000 it finally needed new brake pads. I have averaged about 45 mpg (calculated) during the 190,000+. Without doubt it is by far the best vehicle that I have ever owned.
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