Hybrid Battery replacement Roll-Call
 

Hey everyone....

I've got a 2007 (built around Sept '07) GS450h fully loaded with APSSS and PCS with ~68K miles on it. Last Wed evening I start up my car and I get the dreaded Check Hybrid System warning on my dashboard. I've seen it once before when I rode through a car wash several months ago with my car in neutral and my AC running full blast draining the hybrid battery down a little too far. I just presumed it was because the car couldn't charge the battery while in neutral.

After the most recent warning, I drove home and parked the car for the night. The next morning I started the car and got the Check Hybrid System warning as well as the Check VSC and Check ECB warnings. Off to the dealer I go. Now it seemed as if my car was in some sort of "limp home" mode whereas the engine was constantly running and my hybrid system display was not showing any "energy" flow between the battery/engine/wheels. The car was driving a little funny in terms of acceleration, but it was more than capable of getting on the highway. I also noticed that while the energy display wasn't showing any flow, the battery was charging and discharging.

I am working in another city (Austin, TX) so I rolled into the local Lexus dealership without making an appointment and I must say I was impressed at how they quickly responded without question and even got me into a loaner car with short notice. The next day, they told me that it was indeed the battery and that it was ordered and might take a couple of days to receive (so please enjoy the fully loaded 2012 RX350 with Navigation ;)).

SO, while I'm still under a CPO extended warranty (to something like 140K miles) and not terribly worried about the battery issues from a future cost problem, I wanted to start a thread to see how many people with 3rd gen GS450h's have had to have a battery replacement. I'm really curious as to what part of the country you live in (in regards to the average temperatures and how they affect the battery's longevity) and I'm really interested in your post battery replacement experience.

I've read in some threads that after a battery replacement they "recalibrate" the ECU and hybrid control system so that performance is possibly reduced somewhat. I know this is hard to determine anecdotally, but I am really curious if perchance the original battery discharge rate which achieves the performance we all know and love is perhaps too much for the battery pack and they've reduced it to increase the lifespan of the battery (as compared to the MPG focused Prius where battery replacements don't seem to be as big of a problem).

In regards to the climate and heat issues I have noticed that down here in Texas, where it can get really hot, that the brake regen for the battery seems to be less aggressive (meaning the needle only drops slightly into the "blue")when the car has been driven for a while (especially aggressively) whereas when first starting in the morning I can see the regen needle dip very deeply and the battery charge much faster. This might simply have been an issue with my car that was culminating into my battery replacement, so I'm curious if anyone has observed this type of behavior before. I've tested this with the AC both off and on in case it's simply diverting the regen into the AC compressor.

Anyways, here's to kicking off a roll call:

2007 GS450H, 68K at replacement, San Antonio, TX

My uncle's had one or two of his cells changed out on his battery array..... If you're ever out of warranty, a lot of the Prius owners use Optima batteries as a replacement to the Lexus Hybrid batteries. Just some food for thought :)

Optima....you mean like 12v dry cell optima.

My GS450h had batteries replaced under warranty.
Car is now 165000km and dealer told me it was replaced at 110-115000km
And they said its also the only one that dealer had heard being replaced in australia. unsure of this.
Also they replace the 12V battery and the inverter at the same time, something about wanting to take it back and analyse them together.
Regarding batteries a friend has worked on prius batteries and said they are very easy, just one of the cells within one of the batterys fails, replacing this fixes that bank of batterys.
I think you should check if the inverter is also replaced because thats big piece of kit and takes all the load.

I read in the Lexus manual, never leave the car in Neutral running for any amount of time. I could find the page again if you like. Has to be in Park or Drive while running, this could have caused the failure as it cannot recharge in N and was overheating.
Also very hot here in Sydney during summer, i notice on hot days runs less regen, but i put the rear shade up in heat and crank the AC up, alowing AC air to pass to rear parcel shelf directly and it goes back to normal even when its hot. Also read you need to vacuum the rear parcel shelf to keep the hybrid cooling vents clean, this actually helped my car a bit, i do it now everytime i vacuum the car.

Add me to the list 2007 95km. First thing I noticed about 2 days before the Christmas lights came on was the regenerative braking was not working. Soon then I left my car not driven for 2 days and immediately once I drove it noticed the power had a lag and acceleration was down, about 15 mins passes all warning lights came on.

That was 3 days ago and today went for my appointment and diagnosed battery dead waiting about a week for part come in across Canada.

You've nailed it. Staying in "N" doesn't allow the car to charge. You'll notice that when your battery runs too low (about 1-2 bars remaining) the Hybrid system will forcibly take over and idle the car to charge the battery pack up to a minimum of 3 bars, even if the car is fully warmed up.

Good advice on cleaning the parcel shelf vents. The dealers should be doing this as a value-added (although it's probably not in their best interest).

Just bought a 2007 GS450h with 115k and the previous owner had the battery replaced about two months ago. I have the detailed RO I can post up if anyone is interested. It seems he paid cash out of pocket for the whole thing ($6000+ because he also had the 115k service done).

I'd like to see...

my battery is not keeping up the charge as it used to.

Here ya go.

Glad it wasn't me who payed for this.

Battery being replaced
 

So I picked up a 2007 GS450h with 68k Miles on it and within two days I got the "Check Hybrid System" alert. Took it in to my local dealer and they said they needed to replace the battery. They did give me a RX350 to accommodate me in the mean time. I took it in Thursday hopefully I get it back sometime this week.

I'm late, but yessir, the 12v dry cell. Does the GSh's use a 14-16v batt system or something? Sorry if it was a bad suggestion, it was what I saw a few Prius owners use. :thumbup:

I just took mine in today with a bad battery. I'm a former Toyota Master diagnostic technician so I ran by a Toyota dealer and sure enough, one block is bad. This entire summer it had been driving weird by hesitating badly and frequently showing the single purple bar

How many miles do you have? I don't want to be the first out of warranty guy to try and get a battery covered by Toyota.