Sounds very frustrating. Sympathies.

 

(1) Try other Honda dealerships.
(2) Try "other than Honda" repair shops. The task can't be THAT complicated.
(3) Try collision repair shops. I bet most of them have had to replace a pack on a Prius or a Civic by now.
(4) Buy a used pack from a wrecked car (at junkyard, etc).

Any or all of these may produce a better total cost.
I owned a Jaguar and still own a Mercedes, and sometimes (often, actually) you don't want to take it anywhere NEAR the dealership for repairs. The costs are just too prohibitive, period. (I can tell you some horror stories.) In this case, Honda (at least your dealership) is just too expensive for this task. I suspect this should cost around $3 installed, with diligent searching. Still **** expensive, I know, but this IS still sort of bleeding-edge technology.

Expecting Honda corporate to help you out is just wishful thinking, IMO.

Good luck, and Tim is right - we may all face this issue/cost someday. Keep us posted.

 

I don't think it's a gimmick - I think it's a start. And it still achieved one noteworthy goal in my opinion - econo-box mileage in a regular sized, reasonably powered car (and I don't count a stripped-down Civic EX 5-speed a close competitor - it's not a car I would have purchased).

I'll agree with your overall point however - if the next generation hybrid isn't a big leap in improvement (like 80-90 mpg) then I'd be hard pressed to justify buying another - but I'm going to be in this one for 4-5 more years anyway so I'm optimistic that will happen.

Also, I think 2K is a big pill to swallow - right on the border in my mind. Big enough to make it very bad press, and make it VERY difficult for us to sell/trade the car if the batteries were original. The "story" I got when I bought it is they thought it would be a $5-600 repair in 2011 when my warranty was up. They'd better get it under 1K or I think we're in trouble.

 

Sorry for your frustration and sorry some have not been more sympathetic.

Before I got my current job I could not afford a new car and drove old junk. The old junk would break pretty much every month and every month I would go to the car dealer and no matter what was broke they wanted $250.00. $250.00/month would have made the payments on a nice new car so I was not about to spend $250 a month on old junk. Since my car was well beyond the warranty I did not expect the car dealer to give me a break and since I couldn't afford the car dealer's prices I found other ways to fix things.

For example: A high pressure steering hose went out one time and the car dealer wanted (you guessed it) $250.00 for a new hose (part only). I took the old hose to a hydraulic equipment repair shop and they told me that they could not help (at first) because of the special fittings used on the ends of the hoses. They did not have any such fittings. There was nothing wrong with the metal fittings on the old hose but they were already crimped on the old hose and the old hose had a hole in it. Hmmmmm what to do??? I ended up cutting the fittings off of the old hose and had a machine shop weld them to modern high pressure fittings. Then I took these hybrid fittings back to the hydraulic shop and had them make a hose using the hybrid fittings. Sure it was a pain in the neck but the whole thing cost less than $100 and the new hose was rated for about 4 times the pressure of the old hose.

Moral of the story is that where there is will there is a way. Your entire pack may be bad because of only a few bad cells. I think the whole "hybrid" thing has people spooked into thinking something about the cars is mystical. It is just a battery! Nothing fancy about it.

Pictured is the Insight pack, the Civic's is similar.


For more info see:

http://www.insightcentral.net/encycl...enbattery.html

 

I don't know, you are forgetting that most cars at 150k miles, has something major to be replaced. So you have to keep that in mind.

 

Dude! I feel where you are coming from. It seems to me that you are just dissapointed in the Mark Up. Its just like when you go to a mechanic and the part cost 20 bucks but the labor is 300. Its like, dude, you know you can cut back on some of that labor to make it more realistic for me to be able to pay for it.

you may be past the warrenty, but i agree that they should be willing to cut back on that markup. unfortunatly companies tend not to be like that, and it sux. I always feel like, why not take my 2800 that i can afford, rather than me not give you anything because i can't afford 4000!!??

what works against us is that there are people are can and will pay that money no prob, so those who can not are looked at as business that isn't needed.

 

It's a bunch of RC battery packed together.

 

Absolutely - that was my rationale for the Hybrid. What car wouldn't need a $600 repair at 150K? That's reasonable to me - even if I know it's a guarantee to happen. I just don't think a $2000 guaranteed repair is reasonable. Think about it - when you go to trade in your HCH with 140K on the original batteries, anyone who has done any amount of research is going to want $2000 knocked off the price. Sold privately - the same thing. It's going to get us all unless it gets better.

 

So you're talking about the law of suppy and demand?

 

in a nutshell!