Gotta find me a hybrid with a dead battery

[master_shake_]

i pay nothing for them, thinking that the cars are cheap with a dead hybrid battery.

 

[tweakmonkey]

The 5-speed gen 1 Insights drive pretty well with a dead hybrid battery (no auto-stop though) but they're really slow 0-30 without it compared to with it. You can find them for $1500-2000 here sometimes with a dead battery and they still get 50 mpg with a dead battery.

 

[tortillasoup]

Prius is undrivable if the hybrid battery is "dead" fyi. Also as you probably know, the best part about these "dead batteries" is that it's usually one or two cells that are bad, not the whole pack so it can be rebuilt.

 

[Yuriman]

Hondas can be driven with a dead battery, while Toyotas cannot (generally), but you're going to find far fewer Toyotas with dead batteries because the range of charge/discharge is much smaller and therefore the batteries tend to last a lot longer.

I've tried driving my G1 Insight around with the IMA system disabled and it's a bit of a slug around town, but 50MPG is very conservative if you get a 5MT. 60-70MPG is more likely.

Some things to know:

The G1 Insight has a 10 year warranty on the battery. 2006 models can have it replaced for free until 2016, so you're not likely to find any screaming deals on them.

I just built a grid charger for about $30 in parts, which can greatly improve the longevity of the battery, and can be used to recondition a "dead" battery. The hybrid battery is only 1 year old, and I can reasonably expect to get 10-15 years out of it if I take care of it.

Replacement batteries aren't all that expensive, if you get a refurbished one. As tortillasoup said, most times only a few cells are bad and even those can often be revived with special equipment.