As for battery packs dying? I will point you to the taxi cab companies.

Yellow cab in Seattle has 15 Prius' with over SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND miles on them and the original battery pack.


I drive my 2008 TCH for Uber in Seattle. 350 miles a day, 6 days a week. The ignition is off maybe 15 minutes the entire day for me to pee. 207,000 miles and going like new. The gasoline engine is the only thing giving me problems, I need to replace the VVTi solenoid. Other than that, I've had most customers get in my car and ask if it was a 2014 it's still that nice.

 

You are citing outliers.

Since my previous post...

Last year I tested a 2012 Camry Hybrid battery that failed. The battery was so far gone, it would not respond to reconditioning.

I've personally seen multiple failures of Prius batteries in the low 100K miles. The lowest is 90K miles. The highest has been 235K miles on an '09 (guy drives like mad - telecom service), with all others under 185K. I'm working with a data set of about 50 failures. Average is around 150K.

 

Prius is followed by the Toyota Camry Hybrid, with 345,640 units sold since 2006,

About 50, you were saying? 0.6%?

 

What are you getting at?

 

This is never going to be black and white. The gas savings help, but in my case I picked up the TCH option because I wanted better gas mileage on a car that is actually somewhat nice. I just can't take things like a Prius or Volt seriously. And any other hybrid car is just...made by manufacturers that cannot be trusted, such as Ford or Hyundai. Hondas are nice but even more expensive than Toyota.

Anyways, the point is there are a wider range of factors than meets the eye and it doesn't just come down to savings on gas or the potential of the hybrid battery going out. You potentially save money on brakes because of the regenerative braking system. You shut down the ICE when it's not needed, reducing wear and tear on several parts, in theory. Maybe this frequent transitioning causes it's own wear and tear, again reducing the savings of a hybrid. Some people like me wanted to save on gas and have a nicer car than a Prius. I just got a good deal on it (my brother in law works for a dealership) and that's why I took it.

That being said, I'm curious myself how this all works out in the long run and whether I make my goal of 300,000 miles or not but based on what I know and what others are telling me they know at the dealership and mechanics etc. it does seem that the hybrid system is usually not the first concern - in fact it's the parts we've had a century to refine that are still giving us issues o.O

 

I agree. When I bought my 2013 THC I calculated around 6 years for me to recover extra costs from the fuel savings and that was at close to 4 bucks a gallon. Gas is cheaper now so my projections will be more than 6 years.

I do love my TCH but in 4 years it lost an axel, 2 air fans, 4 door actuators - all paid by my Toyota extended warranty. I think I got a partial lemon. Hopefully things wont get worse later on...

 

I've got 285,000 miles on my 2007 Hybrid, purchased in January of 2007. So far I've bought two used replacement hybrid batteries and replaced the center console when the DVD player died. $4200 in repairs beyond tires, oil, etc. - unscheduled maintenance in other words. I'm pretty impressed with Toyota overall.

At the time I bought mine, there was a glut in California and I paid ~27K which was close to the usual XLE price. About a year or 18 months later Edwards said the car was worth >$30K, but that only lasted until gas fell below $4/gallon.

 

Yes over all Camry's are very good. My 1993 lasted 20 years and sold it still running. My current 2013 Hybrid has had a few too many small issues for being so new, so time will tell.

What exactly did you pay and how much were the battery replacements? How were you able to tell the used battery were ok?

 

I used GreenTec Auto in Sacramento. First used replacement was ~ $1900 second was $1500. I have no way to know if the replacement was good, but the company has 100% honored their warranty; twice now actually.

Each time I've bought refurbished rather than new, its been because I expected to replace the car and didnt think the extra cost was worth it. But literally the battery is the only thing failing.