Battery replacement cost

I have almost 70K miles on my Civic and is as good as the day it rolled off the lot.

What about the cost of replacing other items in a hybrid? Will the parts that capture energy from braking and coasting last forever? I don't think so. Then there's the electric motor. Last forever? I don't think so. That's what has me hesitant about getting a hybrid. I keep my vehicles over a decade. I don't like the idea of having to replace at a dealer - at dealer labor rates and dealer parts rates - what costs 3000 or more to add to a car at the factory. It's scary to think what they dealer would charge to replace all of your hybrid components.

Rob, the hybrid components are warrantied out the wazoo.... 10years/150K miles in green states, and something like 8yrs/100K miles everywhere else.

When you guys get broadsided by a full size Surburban the cost of your batteries nor you warranties will matter, you'll be dead!

Anonymous your probably right.I'm sure youle be better off filling up your gas burner @ $4.00+ per
gallon for the next,what was it you said...o yes i remember,decad.Good luck.

Don't be fooled - Gas is going to $5.

I checked the price on the battery for the Insight. It is 1787 retail, and the place I checked sells them for 1394.60. I don't know why you would need new control modules??? But they are 1787 each and this place sells them for 1394 too. And that's a honda dealer. Oh and the parts break down only shows the need for 1 battery module, there is a control module motor and it is 812.37 retail. But again if it's not bad why would you replace it? Sounds like you got ripped to me.

Tim

The Honda BCM ( Battery Control Module ) has limited ability to perform regular maintenance on its batteries.

120 cells in series eventually over time will eventually need to be reconditioned and rebalanced.

Since the BCM has no way of doing this it gives a code saying the battery is bad.

Since Honda does not want to train or equip its technicians to take a 144V 120 cell battery apart to recondition or rebalance it... Honda Technicians are told to just replace the batteries... even if they do not need replaced.

Although the 144V can be dangerous... if proper care is taken it can be handled safely... more safely than dealing with the 220+V system people have for electric ovens and driers.

the Insight 120 cell battery pack is configured in 20 subpacks of 6 cells each... each of these 20, 6 cell sub-packs can be reconditioned and balanced with off the shelf battery analyzers like the Triton used for RC batteries.... the pack would have to be opened up to gain access to the sub-pack level... It took me about 1 week to do this whole sequence in my spare time.

Even if one of the 6 cell welded together subpacks turns out to be bad it can be replaced with a 6 cell subpack from any other model year of Insight and the 6 cell subpacks are also a direct replacement from HEV Civic before the 2006 battery change.... other HEV batteries would require significantly more work to safely function in the Insight.

In 2007 I bought 2 HEV Civic battery packs from salvage yards ... each was only $250 from a totaled HEV Civic.

Also the Honda Insight with its 12V system including a 12V starter and DC-DC converter... can be converted for under $20 to run without the 120 cell 144V battery at all... this would cause it to loose the Auto stop feature , regenerative braking and ... electric assist... but would still run as a 12V system power just gasoline car... The only catch is that after the conversion alternator function from the DC-DC system will stop while the engine RPMs are over 4,000.... but will then restart as soon as the engine RPMs drop under 4,000 again... so a nice strong 12V battery under the hood would be a good idea if you decide to remove the HEV 144V 120 cell battery from the rear.

Oh Wow! I can't believe that price! I knew replacements were expensive but, holy cow, that's a crime.

So we get duped into buying an electric hybrid for PC purposes, thinking we're doing a good thing and thinking we're going to be saving loads of gas, just to find out that a battery pack replacement costs over $6000!

It just confirms my suspicions that Water Hybrids are THE only practical solution to the energy crisis today.

Our most expensive Hydrogen Generator kits are only $800 and come with absolutely everything needed to convert your car into a water hybrid, including connectors, wires, control modules, everything. You will immediately see a 20%-50% increase in mileage, some even more ( one guy put 2 generators in his car and went from 10 MPG to over 23.8 MPG and that was a BIG one ton van with a 5.7 liter motor).

For people on a budget we help by offering a do it yourself manual where you learn everything you need to know about this incredible industry, including how to build them from parts available locally for a few hundred bucks.

This IS the industry that is growing like wildfire (under the radar because very little press is given to it) around the world.

It's cheap, it's efficient, and it's great for the environment.

Sell the lead bricks, go for Water Powered Hybrids - that's my recommendation.

Bob
Transitional Technology, LLC
Increase Gas Mileage-Use Water4Gas

GaryT,
I certainly hope your son never has to rescue someone from a regular car. Those things explode and kill people all the time.
If you are really concerned for your son. Just tell him (as he should have learned at fire fighting school) not to cut an orange cable.
Those air bags are not restricted to hybrids. They are a danger in all new cars.
Pure electrics are the safest because they don't have any high explosives onboard at all.

Robert DeVaughn,
I recommend you post in the Hondic Civic section. There are a lot of folks who are well up on HCH problems and issues. I don't have time to follow that section so I don't know if this has been addressed already.
I do know, that we've had an '03 HCH and the battery is working fine. My suspicion is that its just a cell or two but your dealer finds it cheaper to charge you for a whole new pack instead of a partial one. I don't know what options you may have though since battery replacement is a fairly rare occurrence.

your replacement battery was $23,000???? Please say you have too many zeros! I have 75,000 miles on my prius and know the warranty expires at 100,000 miles.
Thanks, Kathi

Well truthfully hun,
The orange wire isn't the concern. The entire car acts as a ground. So all of the car is flowing with electricity. And also, Hybrid cars are not completely illusive to having some fuel to them, there is also still oil that is needed in the vehicle. As well as brake fluid. All of which are highly flammable and explosive. You may be a hybrid lover, but they are still not the "safest" vehicles on the round :(.

I have a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid with 61,000 miles. I expect the car may be 10 yrs old by the time the batteries need replacement. Is there some written material available on how to disconnect the hybrid battery feature that you discussed?

Sorry still driving my 1981 Mercedes 240 diesel, 453000 miles 30 mpg, 30 year old technology, we are so far behind the automotive curve here compared to the Europeans it hurts. New diesels? Toyota makes a diesel Yaris gets about 60 mpg, will they bring it to USA? Not when they have people duped into buying the Prius at $13,000 more with 13 mpg less. What matters is how much oil did you burn to travel X miles, oh, that's kilometers in the advanced world

what is that supposed to mean??

sorry and the vehicle year is 2003 hybrid civic.

I recently wet to an Infinity dealership to look at the new M35H, which has 360 hp and was supposed to get 27-32 mpg. This set of data is what attracted me in the first place. One of the dealership salesman told me the lithium-ion battery costs (now) $8,000 to replace (after 8 years?). I need some input on the correctness of his statement? after a long time a battery replacement may be cost more than the residual value of the car.

Wow. The amount of misinformation about the safety of the HV system on these vehicles is astounding. I'm truly bothered that firefighters would have so little training on this topic.

1) The orange cables on every hybrid I've ever seen run under the body of the vehicle, usually towards the center. Why the JOL would need to be cutting anything there is beyond me.

2) Even assuming that the cable was in a location in danger of being cut, it doesn't matter because the battery system opens contactors within the battery and removes the voltage from the cables under a lot of circumstances (any significant crash, normal vehicle shutdown, damage to the orange cable, etc).

3) It is true that the sheetmetal is the ground plane for the 12V system. It is NOT true that the sheetmetal is the ground plane for the HV system. The positive and negative are housed within the cables and it is a closed system. As noted above, if something intrudes on this system and the battery detects that something isn't right with the current flow it opens the contactors.

4) All hybrid batteries that I've seen have a disconnect switch right on the battery as a failsafe that completely isolates the HV battery contents from the vehicle electrical system.

Ask yourself this: In the ~12 years that hybrids have been out, have you heard of a single person being electrocuted by the HV system? I just did a quick Google search and the first couple of pages turn up lots of HV safety articles and not one news story.

idk

can anyone tell me the total cost of using this type of energy? A rough estimate for a year.

and also what are the pros and cons of using this resource?

are you a dealer or rep?