If your hybrid battery is acting strange, the check engine light is on and the red triangle of doom is rearing its ugly head. You may be experiencing high voltage battery failure.
Check engine light, red triangle, lack of power and constant running of the ICE on your hybrid can all lead down the road to the same thing: High Voltage hybrid battery pack degradation. Ugh, that dreaded time in the life span of your hybrid when it now becomes a thought in your mind, “was the hybrid really worth it?”
Well wonder no more. In this article we are going to cover 3 solid options when it comes to figuring out what to do if you end up in this boat.
Option 1 – Remanufactured Hybrid Battery Replacement
While this is certainly an option, it must be noted here that not all remanufactured batteries are created equal. Even though companies such as Dorman Products are selling “replacement” units they are not always the better option. Dorman has a reputation with many of their clients for having terrible reliability and poor warranty as well.
Typically, from what I have seen even though a Dorman has a 12 month warranty, a customer is likely to experience a failure before then, and have to have another unit installed. Not only is this poor on the part of Dorman, but it sucks for you as the consumer. I do not think I can put any name in my mind of a person who wants to keep taking their car into the shop every few months for warranty work.
There are however other remanufactured batteries from companies like, Bumble Bee, and Green Bean which offer warranty of up to five years. Remanufactured batteries are a good option if available.
Option 2 – Dealership Replacement
For dealership, you can only get new hybrid batteries. This means that this option will be the most expensive of the three options we are discussing today. With a replacement from a dealership, the hybrid battery should run and act like it was when new.
Different dealers have their own warranty and can take care of you in the most expensive way. Usually they are also the most trusted to work on them as well. I would not ever tell anyone to not use a dealer especially if your other option is a mechanic who “knows cars” but doesn’t understand hybrids.
Option 3 – Do-it-yourself Hybrid Battery Reconditioning and Repair
This is by far our favorite option. Why? We are Techies, we fix things and learn to do it for cheap. Some of our team members have bought used hybrids with degraded hybrid battery. It wouldn’t make financial sense to buy a hybrid battery at a higher price than the cost of the vehicle.
To be able to recondition the degraded hybrid battery, we studied hard to learn all we could about the technology. We learned several cool things about the NiMH hybrid battery.
- NiMH batteries are susceptible to “memory” wear. Meaning that they lose the ability to store the energy that is needed to aid in driving the car. It would be like having a really small gas tank in your car. You would fill it up super quick and also use it pretty fast too. Your hybrid battery loses that ability over time and that can lead to the DTC code we all hate.
- The “memory” is most of the time fixable. The reconditioning allows us to get more bang for our buck. One company we fell in love with is Hybrid Automotive and its patented Prolong battery reconditioning system. We bought the system and it is what we use to recondition hybrid batteries. The results are always amazing.
- Cleaning and nickel plating your bus bars. This is mainly done on the remanufactured batteries where they nickel plate the copper bus bars to help prevent corrosion. We recommend replacing them with new ones if they have rusted.
Conclusion
The results we have been getting from the hybrid battery reconditioning process have been off the hook amazing. We encourage people to learn this do it yourself method. You can get a cheaper battery charger and rechargers. You do not need to invest in a prolong reconditioning system like us. However, if you think it is not worth the time and money, and your hybrid battery has started to degrade, engage us.
With that said, we hope that you have found some options to help replace your degraded battery and that the thought of your battery dying will never cause sleepless nights to you.
Remember to check out our other article on Why Toyota Prius Hybrids are so durable. See you in the next story where we are highlighting 3 Reasons why Taxi Drivers oversees prefer the Toyota Prius. Also don’t miss our latest guide, where we are sharing a checklist to guide you when inspecting a used car.