Lithium Hybrid Battery

[Aldino]

I have a Yaris Cross with a Lithium hybrid Battery. I want to keep this car for a long time because it is very economical.My question is, can only one cell of a lithium hybrid Battery be replaced if it no longer works, or does the entire Battery have to be replaced?

[FROSTYBALLS]

Topic moved to the Yaris Cross forum.

[Red_Corolla]

I believe it's possible to do that if just one cell fails prematurely and the rest are in good condition. Whether it would be approved by Toyota to do that or not, I'm not so sure.

If it happens at the point that the car is several years old and/or the pack as a whole is nearing the end of it's useful life, full replacement is the only strategy that makes sense, IMO.

[TonyHSD]

Red Corolla is totally right. 
These cars usually has long 15 years warranty on the Battery. If you drive a lot and business use and out of warranty you may need a new Battery pass these 10-13 years or more so at that point the whole Battery will be aged and only one cell or two replacement it’s not a good idea at all. Plus Toyota does not offer new cells individually but only new battery packs.
These aren’t so expensive or so mush difficult to replace either son I need to worry about that right now. Just do your maintenance on time and you won’t have any issues. 

[MikeSh]

2 hours ago, Aldino said:

I have a Yaris Cross with a Lithium hybrid battery. I want to keep this car for a long time because it is very economical.My question is, can only one cell of a lithium hybrid battery be replaced if it no longer works, or does the entire battery have to be replaced?

As inferred by others there are two possibilities.

A cell fails prematurely (<10 years) in which case it will likely be fixed under warranty - probably by replacing the whole Battery, but if it's only a year or two I suppose they might replace a cell.

The other is a cell failing at >10 years in which case the rest will be well into their life span and putting one new cell in would be pretty daft. (In a much bigger and more costly EV Battery it might be considered to eke out a bit more life, but for a fairly low cost self-charging hybrid Battery it wouldn't make sense.)

[hind]

There are companies who refurb hybrid batteries by replacing ALL cells so they are equal in terms of wear. I agree that it doesn't make sense to replace just the single cell in used Battery and the new one would be replaced as a whole unit. 

If you want to prolong the life of the Yaris, I'd invest in a decent corrosion protection. Battery is easily replaceable while the fixing rust can get very expensive if you want it to be done properly so better act when it's new

[forkingabout]

It's extremely rare for a Toyota hybrid Battery to fail - keep the cooling fan filter clean.

Keep the vehicle main dealer serviced which includes the hybrid health check to extend the warranty on the Battery.

 

[jthspace]

Extended "warranty" with servicing and Battery check is 10 years but I believe an annual Battery check after 10 years gets you a 15 year Battery warranty.

[TonyHSD]

All these warranties applies to private use cars , 100k miles total and exclude business use - taxi, fleet, rentals, police, delivery etc 

Battery indeed easily replaced, individual cells are only available used not new, which is pointless. New cells available from independent suppliers non original, upgraded versions which are also not ideal. Just buy new Toyota Battery from Toyota dealer although these are also re manufactured units but what that means is new cells, new bus bars, new sensors and plugs, only old casing. Couldn’t be better. 
For the rust protection again from personal experience best way to protect your Toyota is frequent car washes , thorough washes underneath and engine bay, avoid unnecessary winter drives when salt been thrown and wash asap after if you have to use your car. 
Do not apply any corrosion protection or sound proofing - these only worsen the things. No offence , just personal preference and experience. 

[jthspace]

15 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Do not apply any corrosion protection or sound proofing - these only worsen the things. No offence , just personal preference and experience. 

I'm sure I've read somewhere on here that Toyota told someone (*) that if they got the car undersealed, it would affect the bodywork warranty - cannot find the post though.

(*) A bit like my sister's yoga instructor was told by her friend that their boyfriend's brother's school mate had an uncle that was once told that Toyota said  . . . . .  🤣😂

[Bob110023]

Hi. I cannot see Toyota changing just one or two individual cells as this would probably put the whole Battery out of balance and would therefore interfere with the correct charging procedure. 

[hind]

28 minutes ago, jthspace said:

Toyota told someone (*) that if they got the car undersealed, it would affect the bodywork warranty

That's why mine was done by the Toyota dealer 😄 but according to one of the workshops specialising in rust proofing toyota and lexus cars, despite them taking apart almost everything from the underside of the car, nobody ever got their warranty revoked (or at least nobody came with the complaint). They use official service manuals so not the shady garage who just covers everything in tar and there you go. They run the YouTube channel commenting on the built quality and their work, here is the link if you are interested (not sure if you can enable English subtitles or not as audio is in Polish unfortunately) https://youtube.com/@stacja.konserwacja?si=b6UP2krChmQCqXy7

[TonyHSD]

5 hours ago, Bob110023 said:

Hi. I cannot see Toyota changing just one or two individual cells as this would probably put the whole battery out of balance and would therefore interfere with the correct charging procedure. 

That’s actually what happens when the original Battery gets old and one or more cells get weak, Battery pack out of balance and the car goes wild. 
Charge and discharge cycles one after the other and sometimes engine stays on for over 30 minutes or until shutdown by the driver. Also Battery when full actually will be not at 80% soc but around 60-65% . These guys electricians that re condition batteries use old cells but they do charge them slowly with different charges and outside the battery pack to try to rejuvenate them ans bring them back to life. The reality is that once battery chemistry aged there is no way you can make it new again. Perhaps they can fix the car to sell it but long run you will get a bad battery again

[RickyC]

I think that there's a totally different architecture between Ni-Mh and Li Battery packs.  Ni-Mh packs are composed by many of six cell modules connected in series.

From the what I've seen from some videos, Li packs are composed by only 2 or 3 big modules with many cells each.   So to fix Battery you should remanufature the full big module and not just swap or replace a small one.