



Toyota Prius III (Photo credit: Wikipedia)




Sticker Shock





Saving The Prius

I did some research online and found posts in forums from other Prius owners about reconditioned batteries, and replacing individual battery cells. You can go on eBay .com and find used and reconditioned batteries available.

The problem would be finding a local mechanic willing to do it, who also has the knowledge and skill to swap it out. Our mechanic refused to deal with reconditioned parts, and would only agree to install it if I bought a brand new battery.

I was contemplating buying a reconditioned battery online and attempting to install it myself when I found Prius Battery Repair of Houston (now called Hometown Hybrids). Their website is filled with useful information about the Prius hybrid battery pack in general, and these guys will replace your failing hybrid battery pack with a reconditioned one for $800. Total. That’s about how much my mechanic and the Toyota dealer wanted to charge me just for the labor, and Prius Battery Repair of Houston came to my house to do the repair right in my driveway.

The reconditioned battery is good for an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 additional miles, and Prius Battery of Houston backs it up with a one-year warranty.

I scheduled a time for Prius Battery Repair of Houston to come to my house. The mechanic—who also happens to be the owner of the company—showed up on time, and was very courteous. He completed the job of removing the failing hybrid battery pack, and installing the “new” reconditioned one in about an hour and a half.

Just like that the Prius is fully functional again, and it cost only a fifth of what we were originally quoted.

Breaking Down The Math

Looking at the numbers, this seems like a no-brainer. Even if the reconditioned battery literally lasts only for the year that it’s covered by the warranty, that’s OK.

That $800 breaks down to only $67 per month for a dependable car. Try finding a reliable vehicle for $67 per month. In addition, that $800 means that my son will also get better-than-average mileage for the 10,000 miles he’ll drive during that year. Based on the average price of gas around here, he’ll save about $350 in gas as well, so the net investment is only about $450. That makes it less than $40 per month for the repair even if this reconditioned battery dies the day after the warranty expires.

Now, assume it actually makes it 50,000 to 70,000 miles. We’ll split the difference and call it 60,000. That’s about six years worth of driving for an $800 repair. Over the course of 60,000 miles, he’ll also save more than that $800 in gas, so repairing the Prius will essentially be free compared with going out and replacing it with another car.

Get With It, Toyota

I don’t want to steal business from Prius Battery Repair of Houston, but this really is a service Toyota should offer. Toyota sold over 100,000 Prii during the 2005 model year in the United States alone, and every year since then. The hybrid battery pack in 2004 and later Prius models is warranted for only eight years or 100,000 miles (10 years or 150,000 miles in states that have adopted the stricter California emissions control standards), which means there are hundreds of thousands of Prii on the street that are out of warranty and will need the hybrid battery pack replaced.

Because of the warranty, the only people who need to pay out of their pocket to replace the hybrid battery pack are customers with cars that are relatively old, and have over 100,000 or 150,000 miles already. Nobody in their right mind is going to pay Toyota half the value of their used car to replace the hybrid battery pack.

The reality is that there are 28 separate cells in the hybrid battery pack. When the unit starts to fail, only a handful of the individual cells are bad. What Prius Battery Repair of Houston does, and Toyota could do if it wanted to, is replace the bad hybrid battery pack with a reconditioned one to get the customer back on the road. Then, determine which cells are bad, and simply replace the bad battery cells, recondition the battery, and sell it to the next customer.

The individual cells are only about $25 each on the street. If there are four bad cells to replace, it only costs about $100, plus the time to recondition the battery pack, then you turn around and sell it at a $700 profit. I assume the cost of the cells is less for Toyota itself, and there are other costs to factor in like paying the mechanic to swap out the battery, but overall it’s not a bad business model.

Instead of alienating customers by telling them it will cost $3,000-plus to fix the Prius they love, Toyota should be hooking those customers up with reconditioned batteries for $800. With hundreds of thousands of Prii needing the hybrid battery pack replaced each year, we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars of revenue for the Toyota service department.

In the meantime, though, if you’re in Texas and your Prius needs the hybrid battery pack replaced, call Hometown Hybrids (formerly Prius Battery Repair of Houston). You won’t regret it.

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