My wife's 2005 Prius (180,000 miles) made some grinding noises and all the dash lights lit up so she pulled over and had it towed to the local dealership. The service department ran a diagnostic and told her it needs a new electric motor at a price of $3200. I have not spoken to them yet but I'm assuming they are talking about replacing the transaxle (this is where the electric motors are located correct?). I will be calling the dealership in the morning and trying to get the codes that showed and asking which electric motor they are talking about. I'm toying with the idea of purchasing a manual and doing this myself. What manual is recommended and any tutorials or helpful links and advice?
The best manual by far is from a company called Toyota and can be seen online at techinfo.toyota.com or, if you prefer actual bound paper books, purchased from helminc.com for your model year. There's also a lot of information about transaxle issues and replacements to be found in threads here at PriusChat, and I highly recommend looking up related articles at the web sites of Arts Automotive and also Luscious Garage (both in the Bay Area). If you were given any list of the trouble codes retrieved from your car, you might get useful advice from other PriusChatters if you post them here. Cheers, -Chap
The dealership says it's the battery pack and it will cost $3200 to replace it with a new one. I'm thinking about pulling the pack and replacing any bad cells myself. I have not had time to research the codes but here are the ones the tech gave me: P3000; C1259; C1310; D1421; C2318 then in the history it had P0A80 and T3016. Any website recommendations, or links to tutorials etc. would be appreciated.
You can try to find a used battery pack either online or phone some wreckers. Apparently the job isn't as difficult as many would think. Just be sure to invest in some heavy duty rubber gloves and do your research. Here's a guy on the 'tube that gave it a go...
