2014 Toyota Tundra Sr5 on 2040-cars

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How to fix a $4,000 hybrid battery problem with vinegar and baking soda

This is one of those 'Don't try this at home if you don't know what you're doing' DIY tales. Two weeks after imgur user "scoodidabop" bought a used Toyota Camry Hybrid with no warranty, he got the Christmas Tree dash display with warnings like "Check VSC System," "Check Hybrid System," and the Check Engine light. After some Internet sleuthing he figured it could be a faulty brake actuator, assuming the hybrid system warning was a false alarm. But it wasn't the actuator, it was the battery, a Toyota dealer telling him that his battery had "gone bad," and he'd need $4,457 to replace it. Then he had a brainstorm: it could be one of the cells that's gone bad, not the whole battery. Scoodidabop has some experience as an electrician, so he figured he could test it and replace any bad cells for about $45 apiece. He removed the battery unit from the trunk and over the course of two hours tested all 68 cells four times. He found nothing wrong. So he devised another type of test and checked every cell again. He couldn't find a problem with any of them. Turns out the problem wasn't in the cells, but with the dirty and corroded copper connectors at the ends of the high-voltage cables. He pulled the 34 connectors and their steel nuts, soaked them in vinegar, gave them a light steel wool scrub, soaked them in baking soda and water to counteract the vinegar, applied an anticorrosive and reinstalled them. That took an hour. When he replaced the battery, the warning lights had all gone out and the battery worked perfectly. Skill level: experience. Cost: less than $10. Perhaps it's time for hybrids to be able to test their own cells individually. Dealers, too.

Bronco, Yukon, Hummer and a CES recap | Autoblog Podcast #610

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski and Assistant Editor Zac Palmer. They kick things off by talking about recent news, including the revival of the Hummer name as an electric pickup, revealing Ford Bronco spy shots and the unveiling of the 2021 GMC Yukon. Then Zac tells about his time in Las Vegas attending CES 2020. They talk about the cars they've been driving: a JCW-tuned Mini Clubman, the long-term Subaru Forester with its new gold wheels, a Volvo S60 PHEV that's been added to the long-term fleet, and a Camry Hybrid. Last, but not least, they help a listener decide how to spend his money on a sports car. Autoblog Podcast #610 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Hummer returning as an electric GMC pickup The latest on the Ford Bronco 2021 GMC Yukon CES 2020 recap Cars we're driving:2020 John Cooper Works Mini Clubman 2020 Subaru Forester long-termer (now with gold wheels!) 2020 Volvo S60 T8 Inscription 2019 Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE Spend My Money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

2015 Toyota Camry set to circle NASCAR track near you

Toyota recently introduced the all-new 2015 Camry for the street, so it follows that it should want to promote its new bread-and-butter sedan by putting it out on the racetrack as well. And that's just what it's done here with the release of the new Toyota Camry for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
The new Camry represents the first reskin of the standard stock car chassis since the Gen-6 model was introduced in 2012. Toyota's Calty Design studio worked closely with series organizers to determine which parts could be redesigned to more closely resemble the new production model, and what you see here is the result. Since it is based on the same control chassis as all the others, the Camry's skin is applied over a steel tube frame and powered by an old-school 5.86-liter pushrod V8 mated to a four-speed manual gearbox.
Although the idea of a Japanese automaker in American stock car racing didn't initially get the warmest reception from some of the good ol' boys when it first entered the series back in 2007, it has by now become a staple of the NASCAR circuit. After all, it's hard for even the most patriotic of racing fans to argue with the US-built Camry's ranking as one of the most American cars by content on the market.