Bought a HCH 2008 for Uber. Was planning to use it as an income source while finishing psychology masters/phd/whatever. Thinking I'd save gas money by buying hybrid which I could put towards the cost of maintaining the vehicle.

Didn't work out that way.

The car has 126k miles. HCH2 wasn't my first choice but the 2nd gen Prius had an atrocious seat that couldn't be height adjusted and made long drives painful. The 3rd gen Prius is a spaceship that I found difficult to maneuver in. I found the HCH2 at a dealership for $5,600. Thought it would be a good deal. I noticed the car accelerated slowly but I thought that might just be a part of it being a hybrid. The dealer would only meet late so I didn't test drive it very much... only gave me 10 minutes to drive the car, long enough to check that the breaks worked. Took another drive before buying it with my mom in the car, she didn't see anything untoward about it in the short distance she drove it. We never suspected it had a problem. The CarFax was clean and I figured from reports of hybrid batteries having long lives that 125k. Priuses were priced similarly for the same year and I never suspected that performance itself would degrade as the battery did....

Long story short the thing can barely get up Southwest Ohio's modest hills and it only averages 25 miles a gallon. Has enormous difficulty accelerating which makes merging onto highways dangerous. Recalibrations are frequent and the charge bars appear most of the times I try to accelerate... the "assist", though it appears on the display, seems not to be present.

I figure it has to be the hybrid battery. I saw a chart by one user which showed their battery declined steadily over 8 years and their MPGs with it. The light doesn't come on but it's pretty clear to me the battery has problems. The air conditioner is barely running (75 degrees). My 2002 Corolla, for all its engine problems, accelerates at twice the rate and gets 5 more MPG.

I understand the choices are Bumblebee and Greentec. Both companies offer 6.5ah packs and 8ah packs. What is the practical difference between these packs? Based on the reading rebuilt packs are an exercise in futility, so not interested. I've also read that the HCH2 packs have heating problems. Is there something I could install, some fix I could make, that would relieve the heat?

 

You started a thread. I responded. Never heard back. Now you've started another.

You've answered some of those questions here, but did you really need a new thread?

 

Forgot I made the other...

 

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