mmarshall

Well, probably not JUST to find copper parts. He probably didn't know what the problem was until he actually took the battery-pack apart (and, as the article makes clear, one must know what they is doing when they go into some hybrid parts, because if not very careful, one can end up as toast). There have even been cases of some highly-trained fire/rescue people getting injured or killed trying to break into hybrid vehicles to get to occupants inside.


Agreed. Many Internet-sourced articles use hyped-up lines just to try and get one's attention.

RXSF

I think what we should take out of this story is that the price of the battery pack has dropped to only $4000

mmarshall

Depends on the car's mileage......it is less than 8 years old. If under 100K miles, the pack may still be under warranty.

Nextourer

Doesn't that include labour (but not taxes)?

Stormwind

Yeah the only way to figure out his cost is for him to tell us how many hours he spent working on that thing and multiply that by how much he makes an hour, I suspect he would not break even had he just buy a new battery from toyota.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

free time really isnt worth the same amount as your work time

geko29

Even if 4TehNguyen's comment below wasn't absolutely correct (which of course it is), let's do the math for a second. For the sake of argument, let's assume he's relatively well-paid, at $100k/yr, and does so by working only 40 hours a week. That's about $48/hr. $4,456 at that rate amounts to nearly 93 hours. I'd be surprised if the total elapsed time from the first screw coming out until the last one going in was that high, even including the 37 hours of soaking in vinegar and things like sleep. From the pics he posted, I'd guess his actual time spent working on this was in the 4-5 hour range at most.

If that guess is correct, and to use your theory of all time having equivalent value, this guy just paid himself $1,114/hr to do the repair, vs. having the dealer do it.

chikoo

This is BS. Any repair shop will and should check the battery contacts of any battery before calling out to replace the battery, be it your regular 12V or a hybrid battery.

chikoo

Just tell me which dealer you go to. I will make sure never to visit that dealership.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

i am dealer robot, i am programmed to only replace, what is repair, doesnt not compute

chikoo

So they should replace the car. Why only the battery????

LeX2K

I agree it is BS that Toyota didn't even try, but most dealers in my experience are this way. If you have an EGR code they won't troubleshoot anything you will get an estimate to replace all EGR components. If one brake line is rusted out they will say you need them all from the engine bay to the back of the car (personal experience).

Dealers charge incredible amounts of $$$$ for simple repairs I don't understand why people even go to them.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Because it's more profitable for them to replace parts than to spend time taking things apart. If someone comes in with a fried ECU, the dealer isn't going to take it apart, find the blown resistors/caps, run to RadioShack for $5 in parts, replace it for you, and charge $30. They're going to replace the whole darn thing regardless of how simple the fix really is. Plus, they're not trained to do something like that so I wouldn't want them hacking up my parts.

chikoo

because it is standard practice in the electrical world to inspect contacts for corrosion before you go about replacing the whole device.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

That is true, if dealerships were electrical repair shops, but they're not. And suppose they do see corrosion on the terminals, then what? They can't replace them because Toyota does not sell individual contacts (can't even find a P/N on them). Sure they can clean them, but what for? That's not their business. The owner of the Camry could have taken his car to a dedicated battery shop for a 2nd opinion.