Hello and welcome to another chapter of Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude is always the theme at the beginning of my week in writing, which for today is for “Best Hybrid Batteries”, a company who helped to extend the life of my 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid.
How “Best Hybrid Batteries” entered my life all began a few weeks ago as I was leaving an evening meeting when suddenly all the lights on my car’s dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. A message immediately displayed itself in front of me indicating to “Check Hybrid System”. Ironically, I really didn’t have to, as I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was. You see, most cars who use hybrid batteries have a 10-year/100,000 miles guarantee on the battery itself, yet I’ve owned mine for over 13 years now and gone 258,000 miles! So, it was a pretty safe bet that all my car’s abrupt issues were related to that. Sure enough, my gut feeling was validated the next morning when my car received service at the local repair shop I’ve taken it to for a number of years now. The hybrid battery had indeed died.
I had always said that if and when my hybrid battery died it might be time to purchase a new vehicle, mostly because I was always told that a hybrid battery isn’t cheap. When I got the quotes from this repair shop, as well as from Toyota, that hunch got confirmed, as the estimates were between $3900 and $5800. I knew there was no way I could justify any of them, given the age and mileage of my car. It would be of much better interest to just trade it in and use any amount I’d spend on a repair as a down payment instead. But, before making that decision, I opted to do a quick google search, just to see if there might be any other options available to me and that’s when I discovered the company “Best Hybrid Batteries” who are located near Chicago, Illinois. They went into business back in 2010 for this very reason, to compete against the high cost repair shops and car dealers who tend to charge far higher than what’s needed for hybrid battery replacements. I spoke to the company owner who handles all the phone calls himself, and has been doing so since he began operations. He was quite friendly and spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with me, answering anything I asked him, reassuring me that this indeed would be a cost-effective option for me. He said the price to replace my hybrid battery, including sending one of his installers to my driveway where the work would be done, would only be $1948! That was a far cry from all the estimates I received everywhere else I called. Even better they were going to give me a 3-year warranty, which was two more than any of the local places were willing to give.
In light of that, I opted to have “Best Hybrid Batteries” do the install, and two days later, his employee arrived quite promptly from the Chicago area. It took the employee about 30 minutes to do the entire repair, which I found somewhat interesting given all the local repair shops had told me it would take between 2.5 and 3.6 hours to do and were going to charge me for all of those hours, even if it took much less time. Even better, the installer went out for a 20-minute drive with me, just to make sure everything was back to normal, which thankfully it appeared so. He then charged my credit card the $1948 and headed back onto the highway towards home, a mere one hour from the time he arrived.
Such a painless process, and one that I was made to believe by car dealers and repair shops alike that when a hybrid battery goes, so will the car or your wallet. I’m thankful that wasn’t the case and that the life of my car has been extended. While $1948 is still a considerable amount of money, I’m truly grateful that “Best Hybrid Batteries” gave me renewed life on my old vehicle and am praying now that this will extend the life of my car for a few more years!
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
