Around $4500 + install at last word....there just isn't much experience with people having to do that.
When I bought my Prius in December I specifically asked the salesman who seemed to be a very straight-forward fellow; he claimed to have looked it up and told me $2800 for the parts, plus labor. He "guessed" $500 for the install. Seems like there's lots of conflicting info floating around on this issue.
Ha! I think all the speculation is because they're so rarely replaced. They're also under warranty for a pretty long time.
stock, if you can find a report of someone who needed to buy one outside of warranty (other than to replace one damaged in an accident) we'd love to know about it.
Yup. I know it was something I was mildly concerned/curious about when I bought the car, although I'd been on this site for a couple of weeks lurking and had the impression that it wasn't really much of a problem. Still, I get asked that a lot by people, "What if the battery dies, how much does it cost to replace?" On a motorcycle discussion-board that I frequent, one of the posters solemnly pronounced that "Toyota only warrants the Prius battery for one year, and it costs $5,000 to replace and they typically last only three years." I corrected the record and asked him what he was smokin'.
