Toyota Hybrid cheap fix | Alternative Energy | Forums

Am I the only one bothered by the apparent "one size fits all solution" that he claims Toyota used? I mean he basically cleaned the battery terminals. Also, if this is true, Toyota is being fantastically wasteful and not eco-friendly at all in their method.

KVR said
I would imagine it helps keep production costs down using the same battery pack across several different vehicles. 

Not what I was talking about, nor what the author meant when he said that. Yes, he mentioned the same battery pack across different vehicles, but when he said "one size fits all solution", he was saying that no matter what is wrong with the battery pack, major or minor, that Toyota's solitary solution is replace the whole thing for $4400. His was VERY minor: corroded contacts. He fixed it for a few dollars of vinegar, baking soda, and steel wool, and maybe 6 hours of time (I'm guesstimating to include getting the battery pack out and back in which he did not account for in his time estimates). If Toyota mechanics had done what we expect mechanics to do when we bring a vehicle in to them (fix only the actual problem), it still might have cost $500 - $600 of labor, but that's still far preferable to $4400. I am talking about the waste of trashing a fully operational battery pack because they cannot be bothered to clean the battery terminals and instead rely on the ignorance of the consumer to up-sell to an unneeded replacement battery pack. That's shady business, and trashing a perfectly good battery pack is very eco-unfriendly.

It's like replacing an entire gas tank and dumping the fuel when all that is needed is a new hose or fuel filter. What next? Replacing an entire car because the tire was under-inflated?