The Prius
 

My wife bought a Prius new in 2006. Drove it to 170,000 until she wanted something newer a couple years ago. Her 20 year old son needed a car so she sold it to him. He drives to crap out of it to 220K until last week when codes showed up and the brakes started acting up. Takes it to dealer - brake actuator @ $2100 and they show the battery pack bad too @ $3800. So the kid without any research decides his best option is to go to a tote the note lot and buy some POS.

I start doing a little googling and find a company in Houston called Hometown Hybrids. They have a guy in Dallas(where I am) that can do the battery pack, but they can only do the brake actuator on Houston. Total for a 2 year warranty battery pack and the brake actuator is $2100!!! So I start thinking about trailering the car to Houston. Ten minutes later, the owner of the company emails back and said for an extra $300 her tech will drive to Dallas this weekend and do the work. Bam!

Jose gets to my house @ 7:45 this morn and reads the codes. Turns out he's a factory trained Toyota tech doing jobs for Hometown on weekends. The inverter water pump is bad too but he happens to have that part with him. I saw the code so know it's real. He calls Jessica and she calls back and tells me they will do it at cost - $175. Bam! Jose gets out a medium size tool bag and starts in like a bumble bee. I left him alone for an hour and the battery pack is done and he is halfway through the rest of it. He knocks on the door at 10:30 and asks if I'll help bleed the brakes. 15 minutes later, he has the car all back together, tests it out, tools packed and credit card charged.

This is truly the best experience I've ever had with a mechanic! And the kid has a good car for another couple of years...

I need to do some homework!

Well done.

Competence is pretty wonderful. Good job!

Love a story with a happy ending...

The owner - Jessica has all positive reviews and makes it a point to hire veterans. Impressive young lady

Great story!

Stuff like that makes me want to move back to Texas.

A Prius pick-up truck...never seen one ;). My niece bought a used Prius years ago (the first one...'04?), and the battery pack went bad about a year after the warranty expired.....Toyota replaced it ($4K) at no charge....better than bad PR. It's now been one of my parents' cars for years now.....they all three LOVE it. Me....I despise to drive it....never felt so disconnected ('cause you are :() in a car in all my life....particularly the brakes...takes me a day or so to get used to it. Dad's already talking about replacing the battery when it goes...been trying to discourage that....but...

Will Jose drive to NC :)? That's just simply awesome service...he'd have been tipped well....above and beyond awesome!

My power plant manager bought a used Prius, knowing it would need a battery pack at some point. He just replaced it, $2400 installed. Not bad, when you consider that everyone (including me!) thought the replacement would be around $8K. It must be that the price of the Lithium batteries are down so much.

Inverter pump is a factory recall. Dealer paid for towing and all when I had one with near the same miles. The combination meter also can default, but it's just a 10mm nut, remove terminal and the reset is complete.

I'll pay $175 not to involve a dealer any day.

A reconditioned battery with 2 year warranty was $1050 through these guys.

Here's a story on her.

Meet Jessica Nachtegaele of Hometown Hybrids - Voyage Houston Magazine | Houston City Guide

I would agree fully, except that one time with the Prius. They did me right.

Mike is in Boise, so it would be tough...

Good point!

I think most prius have nimh batteries not li, unless they are the plug in variety.

You're right. They used NiMH until 2015

I have a 2012 Prius plug-in. I love my Prius with my carpool sticker. I am dreading the day the battery goes out.

There is a big expensive drive battery underneath and a smaller starter/accessory battery in the trunk .

Mom's 2015 starter battery failed after 3.5 years. Just after the 3 year warranty expired.
$250 at the stealership.
Toyota did everything possible wrong with that year. Everything is unfriendly.

It looks like there is a viable aftermarket for the drive batteries though.
$1100 for the NiH and $1800 for the LiON