It was electric, and the traction battery had had it. Which is not something you can tell outwardly, only by reading the codes or looking at the battery voltages with an OBD tool over a charge/discharge cycle.
(I must price up the replacement, because it might be useful negotiating ammunition. It might have been worth it if I'd got a price that compensated for the repair cost)
"SAFETY WARNING It is important to understand that there is no cheap alternative. Changing battery packs is a very dangerous & complicated procedure which should not under any circumstances be carried out by those who are not electrically qualified to High Voltage standards & have experience of vehicle diagnostics ? the Lexus packs can supply a lethal shock of 28.8 Kilowatts! ? Equivalent to 10 x 3 bar electric fires, ? the current these packs supply is Direct Current or DC which will tend to hold you there!"
- shocks measured in kilowatts?
The process is basically 'unscrew all the trim and unplug it':
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Anyway, I called up Toyota to find out the cost of a new battery - with bringing in the old one the price is GBP931+VAT. Which isn't bad considering it's good for 150K-250K miles. (I should have said, this is a Prius hybrid - not fully electric)
There are some lower cost bodges that involve replacing individual cells and rebalancing (which is what the above mechanic is doing - eminently DIY-able), so I don't think it's fully necessary to have a new battery
- but basically a 1200 quid replacement is the worst case.
(The vehicle in question was a bit far away, so there would have been a risk driving it home on a dead battery)
The Prius battery packs contain sodium hydroxide and run at quite a high temperature. Changing them (by Toyota) requires the tech to wear an NBC suit of the sort used by the military when dealing with depleted uranium contamination.
PS What is a 'lethal shock of 28 Kilowatts' ???. Surely a lethal shock of not much more than 30 milliAmps is enough.
If you already have one, fine. But because of the demand from taxi drivers, they are poor value used. And that's before you consider people thinking you're a cab. ;-)
I buy my cars around a year old from a dealer, ex demo cars. These have low mileage, have not been thrashed and there is an upper limit on price. Typically they are 25% less than new. And there is often manufacturers guarantee on them. My last car had done just over 300 miles when I bought it.
field in Lincolnshire, but an Italian masterpiece built to order.
It's a rapidly deteriorating, overpriced, Eyty rot box. Which you have paid far too much for. The brain dead and their money are easy parted. Ten seconds Googling:-
The one I am interested in is around £44k new, and even £33k as ex-demo is well outside my intended price range.
About 3 times my price range, roughly.
So new or nearly new is not an option.
In the past we have bought top specification at 3-4 years old, because the major depreciation has already happened and you don't pay a premium for all the optional extras.
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