Over the weekend my sister was in a car accident, it was her fault, she was in traffic and rear ended the SUV in front of her. The most important thing is everyone is Okay! Let me give you a little back story on this wonderful 2005 Prius. Years ago my sister had a long highway commute for college and she wanted something that was fuel efficient and "cute".. so she bought this clean, one owner Prius with 130,000 miles. Leather, and HID headlight. I'll be the first to say I never thought twice about hybrid cars and thought they were silly honestly, but she bought one anyway. Boy I'm glad she did! After a few months of her having this car it grew and grew on me. I ended up getting rid of my 2004 Volvo S80 to by a 2005 Prius with 220,000 miles. LOVED that car. Still in the family! Speaking of family all my siblings drive hybrids, little sister has the 2005 (my old one) with almost 300,000 miles, my older sisters had 225,000 on it, and my brother has a 2007 Ford Escape hybrid. I adore the technology and reliability, and fuel savings! The Prius that was wrecked Saturday has been through HELL! My sister drives VERY aggressively, always mashing the accelerator, speeding, passing! She's crazy! I always thought she'd damage the Hybrid battery with all her crazy behavior. The battery is now 12 years old and shows very little capacity loss. She was always draining the battery sitting in parking lots with AC on, flooring the accelerator. This car had dents and scuffs on every corner too! This car was also ran out of gas TWICE! One time it was on a high speed interstate doing 80 mph loaded down with 4 people and a weeks worth of stuff in 110 degree weather and was forced to keep going on the shoulder till a truck stop. My sister did a lot of high speed driving occasionally hitting over 100 MPH. Oh and I forgot to mention, it was also went off road a few times too! The car only got about 40 MPG by the time of its sad death and used a qt of oil every 1500 miles. Sad to see it dead but it served her so well. She really really loved her car and she loves all Prii. So many of our friends have switched because of this one little silver bullet. We had so many great times with this car! Feeling very thankful! P.s this car was on its original hybrid battery and its 12v was probably 8 years old. I changed the Ecvt fluid once, (the only time it was changed) it even had an original water pump, it had original rear shocks, the front got replaced once, I don't really understand how the battery honestly lasted so long with its hard life it lived, always sitting in the hot sun too! My 2005 had a hybrid battery with low capacity so I know what that is like and this wasn't this car. It was a real gem! ❤️
Yeah I would love to see it put in another Prius that has a failed pack. I wouldn't want to see it sold to someone to part out the pack as a rebuilder and put these 12 year old cells in other random packs. Seems like a bad idea in my eyes!
If I was closer to TN, I would make you an offer for that battery. It would be a project for my project cars.
Aw wish you were! It's been a good one. I wish I could find a local Prius with a dead battery and pop this 12 year old battery in and see how long it would last
Have you noticed a lot of 2006 models had battery failures? I've been on here for years and almost always before I click on a thread about battery problems I bet myself it's a 2006. #randomobservation
If you know how to take them battery apart and ship just the 28 modules (2 flat rate priority mail boxes), I'll install them in my 2005 and see how long it'll go.
Well if you decide to do it, please send me a PM. I have a grid charger and I would like to see how long an original pack can be kept alive, with a grid charger.
It does the same thing, but obviously not as nice as the professionally built units sold on here. You would have to remove the seats to access the battery everytime you want to recondition the pack. But my feeling is the battery packs are really reliable, so reconditioning once a year may be the schedule to follow....not so much a big inconvenience. You can build a charger and discharger for under $100.....perfect for someone that does this as a hobby.
Sorry for what happen to your sister and her car... The most important part is that everyone is okay! Now a million dollar question.. Is your sister is getting another Prius?
She's trying her best! She doesn't have any credit, and the Prius was only worth around $2500. Praying for a good co signer!
