dandreye

Update: just passed my HHC at Twickenham Lexus, paid £59 incl VAT. Apparently there's no way to lose hybrid battery warranty completely within the 15-year timeframe: it's just put on hold until another HHC is done. That's handy as ours was due back in March.

Indeed 😀 Btw one of those HHC reports dated March 2020 was enclosed with the car docs when we bought it last August, so I'll be expecting a similar one this time.

I now feel perhaps Twickenham Lexus tried playing the same game. I'm just back from their office and eventually after some initial misunderstanding they did admit that the HHC for £59 does the needed (and will carry on doing so for another 4-5yrs until the battery is >15yrs old). Or perhaps I just wasn't persistent enough on the phone yesterday as they somehow seem to have full warranty and service burnt in their mind 🙂 Thanks @bukem909 for mentioning their Hayes workshop: will keep it in mind for the future.

Yes that's the one I'm referring to as well: when I tried booking the car in for the HHC alone they said it won't help get the hybrid battery warranty above 10yrs, hence wondering if that's the case nationwide or perhaps their servicemen just have no idea what they're talking about. That one we had to swap earlier this year when the car won't start during the cold weather. I retained the old one and it looks like it's still OKish based on the discharge rate measured daily, so I'll keep it as a spare one for some time before it dies. Those Yuasa batteries are great: never seen a battery last that long before.

ColinBarber: Twickenham Lexus (Services) say to get that 15yrs extended warranty I'd have to bring the car for the whole (i.e. full and not just hybrid) and so doing the hybrid service alone won't help here. I believe that's the case across the country then... or not? Update: nothing whatsoever is said about the need in a full service even here: https://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/servicing-and-maintenance/hybrid-health-check/#health-check

That helps: thank you! Will get it done then.

Spacewagon52: Thanks for your reply. Afaik that hybrid battery warranty can't be renewed like that forever and ours is just out of the timeframe allowed (I think it was ~10yrs). Maintenance is another story though - and what about any other breakdown cases, if any? I do realize these cars rarely break down but it's still a car after all, so can't imagine not a single one break down for a reason other than its hybrid battery death.. Of course I'd love to be wrong on that.

Hi All, Are there any decent hybrid repair garages (or at least those to be avoided) in the London Heathrow airport area and along the route from there to Brighton (M25/M23) and to Christchurch (M3/M27)? Are those recommended by the AA any good? Fortunately no need in any of them right now, my spouse is just renewing her 2011 CT200h breakdown insurance and I suggested doing some research first in case she opts out of the nationwide recovery (i.e. no restrictions on the towing distance). Any personal experiences with your CT200h or perhaps any other hybrid make/model getting taken to a breakdown insurer recommended garage and getting repaired there would be great. Many thanks in anticipation!

Same here noticed on a brand-new Yuasa battery that just went in. Haven't noticed any pools though. Still got surprised as I recall reading somewhere how well it's ventilated around the hybrid system battery to prevent it from overheating and thought that'd mean no sweating in the whole boot anymore... apparently that's not the case.

Apparently there's a sticker atop it with the manufacture date in DDMMYY format. After a week of monitoring the self discharge rate of mine following a full charge (also 10yrs old) I can see it stabilize at ~0.01-0.015V a day, which is 0.08-0.12%. Assuming it's more or less healthy is there an easy way to measure its residual capacity now? E.g. is attaching a load with a known amp draw and watching how long it lasts on it going to stress the battery too bad?

Many thanks ColinBarber! Wow that's great: looks like it's done almost 10yrs of service.

You're right but there's also the other side of it: the higher the charging current the worse it is for the battery long term. Even though the current "equal" to 10% of the battery capacity is generally considered OK, using a fraction of that current is even better (time permitting of course). So it looks to me like too long charging time is the only real downside of those small chargers vs those like 5.0. Fortunately I'm in no rush to charge my backup battery. In fact I bought that charger for a very different purpose: I keep it permanently connected to my boat battery for about half a year if not more when it's not in use. All that time it "trickle charges" the battery, hardly letting it lose any charge at all. IIRC I even saw such use case called something like "maintenance charging" mentioned in its manual. Reportedly some "really smart" chargers are able to achieve much faster charging times w/o sacrificing battery life by means of pushing that current during the main charging phase (up to ~80%) in some special form that I'm unable to word properly because of limited b/g in this stuff (basically a complex shape of that current). One guy in Ukraine mocks all those C-TEK and YCX chargers alike calling them boilers and blaming their makers of masterminding worldwide conspiracy to profit from extra battery sales and claims to be at the leading edge of the industry with his unique self designed/made charger implementing that kind of charging logic, promising to double battery life. I would've tried it but there are lots of buyer complaints that it dies upon the very first AC spikes/troughs and he won't fix its design saying it'll otherwise go up in price and lose market share. That reason alone was enough to choose a different one, which the maker claims also modulates the current in a similar way speeding up the charging but has no such critical design flaws. Sadly it's in a different country and so I can't give it a try because of all those travel complications. Anyway, my backup battery is now fully charged and is measuring 12.95V. We'll see how good it is at keeping that charge now. Does anyone know if there's a way to figure out when it was made by the numbers on it in the picture, at least the year?

I guess yet another company actually makes them all (both C-TEK MXS and Yuasa YCX) and just brands them differently 🙂 Meanwhile my old HJ-S46B24R battery has spent >24hrs on YCX0.8 so far, almost all of those hours with just 2 LEDs on, hence at the full current (0.8A), so it must've eaten ~20Ah multiplied by some absorption % by now. Didn't expect it to be that discharged as 12.3V is ~70% charged... will keep watching it further.

Poundy: that's a Yuasa charger's comfort lead judging by the photo, isn't it? Exactly same looking one came with mine (YCX 0.8) and it was only recently that I discovered the benefit of these comfort leads. Might use it here too: good idea.

Herbie: I'll then blow into one of them to be sure. Barry14UK: It'll be nice to check 12v battery charging history but I don't know how to yet: will look for it with TechStream next time. Meanwhile I'm charging the old one at home and unless it loses charge again quickly afterwards as it recently did during the cold weather I'll keep it as backup and connect in parallel to the new one to aid it whenever going away, effectively doubling capacity.