Replacement Hybrid battery

[Garybt]

Hi everyone. I own a 2018 NX300h and am approaching 100k miles. I've read various articles about what might happen as and when the hybrid Battery gets too low. Can anyone clarify a few things.

1. Will there be a warning that the Battery is low or will the car just stop?

2. Has anyone replaced the Battery on the mild hybrid and how much did it cost?

3. Is hybrid Battery failure catastrophic?

Many thanks in anticipation for your input.

[Scotlex]

Good to see your NX getting "well used". Perhaps that will help the Battery last longer. "Normal 12v batteries" normally last longer when they are regularly used and charged.

Hopefully you get some good answers.

[Serguei]

I am not an expert, but I would assume it would simply stop switching the engine off as the Battery degrades.

I remember seen on YouTube someone driving Prius with a degraded Battery (before replacing it). 

[Spock66]

12 hours ago, Garybt said:

I own a 2018 NX300h and am approaching 100k miles. I've read various articles about what might happen as and when the hybrid battery gets too low. Can anyone clarify a few things.

If the service history / hybrid health check is maintained you will have an unlimited mileage warranty up to 15-years.

The hybrid system will not allow the hybrid Battery to fall below a certain level, so the only way the Battery would get flat is either due to a fault or left unused for a very substantial period.

[Al D-Much]

4 hours ago, Spock66 said:

If the service history / hybrid health check is maintained you will have an unlimited mileage warranty up to 15-years.

The hybrid system will not allow the hybrid battery to fall below a certain level, so the only way the battery would get flat is either due to a fault or left unused for a very substantial period.

Not completely correct I'm afraid.
It's only 10 years not 15 years, and 100k miles not unlimited.

From the Lexus UK website:
At Lexus, we strive to create the finest customer experience and this extends to servicing your car. When you choose Lexus to service your vehicle, we’ll reward your loyalty. Once your service is due, all you need to do is bring your Lexus in for a service. The Lexus warranty is a 12 month service activated warranty available on vehicles after expiry of the original manufacturer’s warranty up to 10 years old / 100,000 miles when serviced at an official Lexus Centre.

This additional warranty is made up of the 3 years manufacturer warranty plus 7 years’ service activated warranty.

[Spock66]

26 minutes ago, Al D-Much said:

Not completely correct I'm afraid.
It's only 10 years not 15 years, and 100k miles not unlimited.

The Hybrid Battery is 15-years / unlimited mileage (subject to the Hybrid Health Check being up to date), below extract from the Lexus website, this should also be stated in your service history booklet.

For hybrid vehicles, the service will include a Hybrid Health Check to extend the hybrid component and Battery warranty cover. If the vehicle is eligible for the hybrid components and Battery cover will be included in the same Lexus Warranty contract until 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever is soonest. You can then independently extend the hybrid component and Battery warranty cover for up to 15 years and unlimited mileage by having a Hybrid Health Check.

[Al D-Much]

33 minutes ago, Spock66 said:

The Hybrid battery is 15-years / unlimited mileage (subject to the Hybrid Health Check being up to date), below extract from the Lexus website, this should also be stated in your service history booklet.

For hybrid vehicles, the service will include a Hybrid Health Check to extend the hybrid component and battery warranty cover. If the vehicle is eligible for the hybrid components and battery cover will be included in the same Lexus Warranty contract until 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever is soonest. You can then independently extend the hybrid component and battery warranty cover for up to 15 years and unlimited mileage by having a Hybrid Health Check.

Ahh got ya!
That's good to know.

[andrew-amazing]

Guys, I checked the residual capacity of my hybrid Battery via OBD port and it’s 57%.
 

The warranty program says a traction Battery with residual capacity below 66% must be replaced with a newer one or a reconditioned Battery.

I showed it to my local dealership and they said Lexus has not an instrument to check and determine the residual Battery capacity..

That is stunning in my opinion, has anyone successfully replaced the Battery under warranty?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[ColinBarber]

Are you sure you aren’t just reading State of Charge? I don’t believe there is a simple health figure you can read from OBD for NiMH Battery hybrid vehicles, it’s part of the reason the hybrid health check takes time whilst they perform several tests.

I’m also not aware of any specific figure the pack has to be replaced at, certainly nothing in the UK warranty, unlike the EVs with Lithium Ion batteries. 
 

No one here that I recall has had a Battery replaced on any Lexus hybrid that wasn’t producing a hard error. 

[andrew-amazing]

16 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

Are you sure you aren’t just reading State of Charge? I don’t believe there is a simple health figure you can read from OBD for NiMH battery hybrid vehicles, it’s part of the reason the hybrid health check takes time whilst they perform several tests.

I’m also not aware of any specific figure the pack has to be replaced at, certainly nothing in the UK warranty, unlike the EVs with Lithium Ion batteries. 
 

No one here that I recall has had a battery replaced on any Lexus hybrid that wasn’t producing a hard error. 

Interesting!
 

I’ll check the system in different moments to see if the reader reports always the same value (confirming it’s the residual Battery pack capacity) or if it changes (meaning it’s in reality the status of charge)

 

Let you know! Thanks 🙏 

[Spock66]

If the Battery capacity has dropped that much I would expect there also to be an impact on fuel economy as the vehicle will be using EV mode much less.

[andrew-amazing]

58 minutes ago, Spock66 said:

If the battery capacity has dropped that much I would expect there also to be an impact on fuel economy as the vehicle will be using EV mode much less.

Yes indeed! I’m around 12.6 km/L, so 28 mpg on my NX 300h 2018.

 

What's your average ?

[Ken R]

1 hour ago, andrew-amazing said:

Yes indeed! I’m around 12.6 km/L, so 28 mpg on my NX 300h 2018.

 

What's your average ?

That's very low. When I had my NX300H I averaged c41 mpg over a 4 year period and 32k miles. I recorded fuel consumption at every fill (brim to brim) from day 1 and never was as low as 28. I got mid tolow 30's in the winter months and as high as mid 40's in summer. I would get this checked.

[andrew-amazing]

15 minutes ago, Ken R said:

That's very low. When I had my NX300H I averaged c41 mpg over a 4 year period and 32k miles. I recorded fuel consumption at every fill (brim to brim) from day 1 and never was as low as 28. I got mid tolow 30's in the winter months and as high as mid 40's in summer. I would get this checked.

I recently bought the nx, she has already 7 years so the Battery has probably a reduced capacity.

 

I’m not able therefore to know the consumption in the earlier stages of her life 

[wharfhouse]

3 hours ago, andrew-amazing said:

I recently bought the nx, she has already 7 years so the battery has probably a reduced capacity.

 

I’m not able therefore to know the consumption in the earlier stages of her life 

IIRC there was a thread on here a few years back along similar lines with the upshot that the techniques you are using cannot check the health of the hybrid Battery. TBH best best is to get Lexus to do the hybrid healthcheck every 12 months / 10k miles (whichever comes first) - free with a Lexus service or about £60 if you pay for it separately - and then they will warranty the Battery for 15 years with unlimited mileage - which seems like a good deal to me. I have a 2014 IS 300h (so basically same drive train as NX 300h and I've now done 143k miles with no issues whatsoever with the hybrid system to date. There is at least one other member who I think is on around 250k miles in their IS 300h with the original hybrid Battery and another member with an IS 300h who did have a hybrid Battery fault at 190k or so miles and had been using the hybrid health check and so had the hybrid Battery replaced under warranty. Also the tech is basically the same as the Prius of which there are many thousands of cars happily running with no hybrid problems having covered hundred of thousands of miles. IMHO if you are concerned best to get Lexus to do the hybrid health check and if it passes then don't worry about it (but get the check done on schedule to keep the hybrid Battery warranty in place). 

[andrew-amazing]

21 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

IIRC there was a thread on here a few years back along similar lines with the upshot that the techniques you are using cannot check the health of the hybrid battery. TBH best best is to get Lexus to do the hybrid healthcheck every 12 months / 10k miles (whichever comes first) - free with a Lexus service or about £60 if you pay for it separately - and then they will warranty the battery for 15 years with unlimited mileage - which seems like a good deal to me. I have a 2014 IS 300h (so basically same drive train as NX 300h and I've now done 143k miles with no issues whatsoever with the hybrid system to date. There is at least one other member who I think is on around 250k miles in their IS 300h with the original hybrid battery and another member with an IS 300h who did have a hybrid battery fault at 190k or so miles and had been using the hybrid health check and so had the hybrid battery replaced under warranty. Also the tech is basically the same as the Prius of which there are many thousands of cars happily running with no hybrid problems having covered hundred of thousands of miles. IMHO if you are concerned best to get Lexus to do the hybrid health check and if it passes then don't worry about it (but get the check done on schedule to keep the hybrid battery warranty in place). 

Yes I did it this week and all is fine, Lexus said they’ve no idea on how to check the residual capacity of the traction Battery.. 

 

So I think even if in the warranty contract for used Lexus, there is the possibility to replace the Battery if the capacity is below 66%, in the real world they’ll never do it until the hybrid health check will say something is wrong..

 

Btw I find the consumption still high for an hybrid ..  

[wharfhouse]

46 minutes ago, andrew-amazing said:

Yes I did it this week and all is fine, Lexus said they’ve no idea on how to check the residual capacity of the traction battery.. 

 

So I think even if in the warranty contract for used Lexus, there is the possibility to replace the battery if the capacity is below 66%, in the real world they’ll never do it until the hybrid health check will say something is wrong..

 

Btw I find the consumption still high for an hybrid ..  

I think the hybrid system would raise a fault code if there was a problem - certainly all those on this forum across all cars have either had no issues or a fault code - so long as its had the hybrid health check at the specified interval then it would be a warranty replacement of the Battery if a fault code indicates a failure that can't be fixed any other way - to my knowledge Lexus do not have any threshold (at least published) for the hybrid Battery capacity and nothing in the warranty about being below any threshold. 

[andrew-amazing]

1 hour ago, wharfhouse said:

I think the hybrid system would raise a fault code if there was a problem - certainly all those on this forum across all cars have either had no issues or a fault code - so long as its had the hybrid health check at the specified interval then it would be a warranty replacement of the battery if a fault code indicates a failure that can't be fixed any other way - to my knowledge Lexus do not have any threshold (at least published) for the hybrid battery capacity and nothing in the warranty about being below any threshold. 

See the paragraph extracted by Lexus extended preference warranty for French used car sales, showing the threshold of 66%

[wharfhouse]

5 minutes ago, andrew-amazing said:

See the paragraph extracted by Lexus extended preference warranty for French used car sales, showing the threshold of 66%

I think that is just for BEVs (maybe PHEVs?) but not the normal hybrids like IS 300h, NX 300h, ES 300h, UX 250h etc.?

[andrew-amazing]

1 hour ago, wharfhouse said:

I think that is just for BEVs (maybe PHEVs?) but not the normal hybrids like IS 300h, NX 300h, ES 300h, UX 250h etc.?

Aaahhh.. that's why! Yes i believe you're correct on this! It's for BEVs or also PHEVs..

Well so for hybrids cars, therefore the pnly important fact is that the hybrid health check is fine

[wharfhouse]

23 minutes ago, andrew-amazing said:

Aaahhh.. that's why! Yes i believe you're correct on this! It's for BEVs or also PHEVs..

Well so for hybrids cars, therefore the pnly important fact is that the hybrid health check is fine

Yes the hybrid health check being done as per the schedule will keep extending the hybrid Battery warranty. 

[Barry14UK]

Fuel consumption will be worse in winter and if you do short runs or at high speed.

[Spacewagon52]

On 2/4/2024 at 11:38 AM, andrew-amazing said:

Yes indeed! I’m around 12.6 km/L, so 28 mpg on my NX 300h 2018.

 

What's your average ?

I am getting 27 mpg - it is winter and I am doing very short journeys. So I would not worry too much. Take it on a long run and see what you get. Last summer I averaged 45 mpg on holiday with a roof box.

[andrew-amazing]

7 hours ago, Spacewagon52 said:

I am getting 27 mpg - it is winter and I am doing very short journeys. So I would not worry too much. Take it on a long run and see what you get. Last summer I averaged 45 mpg on holiday with a roof box.

Oke thanks for you feedback!

 

why in winter the engine consumes more?

 

normally the efficiency should be better due to lower temperatures

[Ken R]

Basically hybrid batteries don't like cold weather and therefore the ICE is being called upon more regularly to transmit power.