How often to Prius inverters need to be replaced?

inverter 2009 Toyota Prius in Charging & Starting Systems | eBay

 

First things first.....

I'm on mobile, so I cannot see your vehicle information, but since you're in the Gen III forum, I'm assuming you have a gen III.
Have you had the most recent recall done? The most recent recall is supposed to help prevent premature inverter failure.

You may want to check with the dealer if you haven't had this recall done. It may be too late for your inverter, but it may not be too late to possibly get assistance from Toyota like others have received.

Depending on your state, the hybrid system has a longer warranty period - CARB states are up to 150k miles full warranty.

 

In your profile, you show a 2009 Prius which is a second generation Prius. Unless MN is a CARB state, the inverter should be covered under warranty unless your car has more than 100,000 miles on it.

You can pick up used inverters from junk yards and also find them online on Ebay. Beware though a used part may or may not work. You won't know until you get it all hooked up. There is a lot of work in swapping the inverter, plus you have to bleed all of the air out of the system to get the coolant system working again. Otherwise the new inverter will burn up.

Inverter's don't go out very often, but it has been known to happen. Check with Autobeyours in Indiana. He might have a good working inverter that you can get from him. Not sure how far you are from there, you might consider shipping your car to him and then fly over there and pick it up once he fixes it. They are one of the best when it comes to rebuilding Prius.

Prius hybrids sales and service Scottsburg Indiana

Best of luck to you!

Ron (dorunron)

 

How did you arrive at the point of knowing that your inverter was bad? It is rare that they go out. It is true that a plausible way it might be damaged is by repeated overheating due to the inverter coolant pump failing.

The infinitely repeated canard about the danger of high voltage in the Prius is a result of our litigious society, not sane technical advice. Once you have waited 5 minutes for the inverter capacitors to drain after the car is off, the inverter is just as inert as any other bolt on piece. So it can be changed DIY if you just follow procedure.

 

Lol... "these black cylinders"... are you sure you want to pull the inverter apart. They're high farade capacitors. I suspect the bottom rig has the board mounted type which are rectangular.

 

Won't an attempted cross-polarity jump start toast your inverter? Seems like that was the cause in most of the inverter failure stories I've read.

On second thought, I think the cross-jump toasts the DC-DC inverter portion, which requires of course the replacement of the entire unit.

 

Yes there are different types for the different models of Prius. The one you require is the Gen2 type (2004 to 2009) which I believe is the one shown in the first of those two pics.

BTW, the "black cylinders" are the electrolytic capacitors. These store charge a little bit like a battery - a lot less overall charge than the battery, but they can supply and absorb it much more rapidly. The other inverter pictured also has electrolytic capacitors (they're a vital part of an inverter), but they've been replaced by a capacitor module (the large black plastic thing marked "Panasonic") instead of individual components.

Not all that often actually. This is good news for you as it means that good condition secondhand units should be readily available.

There are only two known ways that I know of that are likely to lead to inverter failure.

1. Failed jump start attempts (typically reverse polarity).

2. Repeated overheating after a failed inverter coolant pump.

As with anything though, there can always be other random failures that seem to occur for no particular reason. That type of failure seems to be pretty rare for the Prius inverter however.