Another Bad Experience with Hybrid-battery-repair

[Calpod]

Ron,
You may want to chime in.... Most of us here are potential customers and are following this thread, I had a bad experience when I purchased my extra wheels late last year and will not buy from that vendor again..... customer service is #1 priority.

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

LC, I thought your battery went out this week. As of Monday, testing was scheduled to finish Tuesday. I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by kccode1

My wife has been calling every day for the last week leaving messages with every line at the place.

There are only four, and I can tell you I never got a call.

Originally Posted by kccode1

No one ever returned her call and she finally got thru to someone in repair yesterday and he said that she needed to talk with Diane? who handles the warranties. We will see if she calls her back. I don't know why the repair guy wouldn't know where our battery is in the process.

She reached the receptionist. He probably answered the phone "Hybrid Battery Repair". The "repair" people don't have phones and happen to be women (not men).

Diane coordinates all repairs (both new and warranty) and testing of donor packs to get the sticks to fix the packs. It's a large job because there are many, many steps that are interlocked and there is no way of knowing how many cells will be needed by a pack or how many cells can be recovered from a donor pack, or even if the donor sticks can be matched with the repair batteries.

I can tell you that she went home sick yesterday and is out today. Someone else should be answering her messages today for her, so don't expect a call directly from her.

[IneritedInsight]

Originally Posted by IneritedInsight

Thanks for checking on this Ron. I emailed with you several times but once my battery was in your shop started calling instead.

I've spoken with Brian and Diane personally more than several times.

I've left many voice mails at 718-554-7899.

The last time I called I got the new voice mail tree and navigated through until I reached Diane's voice mail - left a message there again.

I'd really appreciate getting my battery back. It has been a very long time.

Ron, I still haven't had any info on my battery since you said you'd check on it on 1-26-12 in this thread.
I've left messages on Diane's voice mail since then.

Original date you received my battery in your shop for warranty repair was July 13, 2011. So it's just a few days short of 7 months for my battery which failed within your warranty period.

Here's a question: If I understand this correctly, letting the battery sit without frequent use is one of the major causes of battery failure.

Wouldn't ALL the cells in the battery I sent in for repair be completely unusable now, due to lack of use? If they are all charged up and shipped back to me now, it seems like I'd be able to drive the car for only a few days before they'd all fail again since they've been discharged for so long. Am I understanding this correctly?

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

Originally Posted by talonmike

If Ron don't have the battery cells in stock, why he don't ask us to keep our battery until he got the replacement cells in stock? I don't understand the 6 months waiting time. He should plan jobs instead of accepting all the battery.

Because we don't know what cells are needed nor how many if we don't have the battery here. After identifying the bad cells, we need to match good ones to them.

And it's physically been here three months, not six. It SHOULD have been done in two, but all testing was restarted in December.

[talonmike]

Originally Posted by Hybrid-Battery-Repair

Because we don't know what cells are needed nor how many if we don't have the battery here. After identifying the bad cells, we need to match good ones to them.

And it's physically been here three months, not six. It SHOULD have been done in two, but all testing was restarted in December.

I am talking about betterbattery. It still taking many months to install new cells.

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

Originally Posted by IneritedInsight

Ron, I still haven't had any info on my battery

It is shipping tomorrow. It was assembled this morning and has been charging (waiting on line to charge because one charger is down for repairs).


*CORRECTION*
BB, I thought I was replying to kccode1. HIS battery is shipping tomorrow. Yours isn't done yet.

Originally Posted by IneritedInsight

Here's a question: If I understand this correctly, letting the battery sit without frequent use is one of the major causes of battery failure.

Wouldn't ALL the cells in the battery I sent in for repair be completely unusable now, due to lack of use? If they are all charged up and shipped back to me now, it seems like I'd be able to drive the car for only a few days before they'd all fail again since they've been discharged for so long. Am I understanding this correctly?

No. Using the battery after it has sat is a cause for failure if the battery is not rebalanced before use. It is the discharging of the unbalanced pack that causes damage. Actual sitting doesn't hurt the cells in the slightest. It is the unified discharge of the mixed level cells that damages them. Your battery will be totally balanced when you receive it, so there is no problem.

Also, you seem to be under the impression that all the batteries are just sitting in the shop. That is not true. During any given day 10-16 battery packs are discharge tested and roughly the same number are charged up. Many times that many sit on shelves for a specific number of days so that we can test their leakage rates. About a dozen donor packs a week are dismantled and have some sticks put into stock for repair packs and the rest of the sticks stripped of their PTC strips and put into storage to be tested at a cell level later. Nothing is just "sitting there".

After a repair pack is tested, the bad sticks are removed and the mismatched ones are put into stock. The "good sticks" (the largest group of sticks that are good and match each other) stay in that pack and the pack is either populated immediately with matching good sticks, or if there aren't enough in stock it is put to the side to wait for enough to come out of donor packs.

In November, we revamped our testing procedures because some sticks weren't matching their test results. After developing corrected tests and thoroughly vetting the new tests (including testing in cars), we scrapped all October/November results and retested everything. This is the third time we have had to do this since 2008 and each time it has been because new types of cell failures have started to emerge.

The people here on Insightcentral who test their batteries are checking for one parameter. We perform that test on two different packs in the space of two hours. We currently run eight separate, different discharge tests for each and every pack. It takes a long time, and it seems like every time we figure out a way to speed things up, along comes a new test that has to be added.

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

Originally Posted by talonmike

I am talking about betterbattery. It still taking many months to install new cells.

No, it takes about two hours to attach PTC strips to the new sticks, put new heat shrink tubing on and then assemble a pack. Add another two hours or so to charge and pack up the battery for shipment and it's done.

It takes weeks to get them built at the manufacturer and shipped here. Currently it's about 6-8 weeks from the day an order is placed to the day we have the cells in house and built and ready to ship.

[racer1]

Holy crap.....Enough Is enough.........I know I'm going to take flack for this, but I'm going to say this anyway anyway. I have been following alot of different threads relating to this battery business. I have been in business for 23 years. And If I treated my customers the way Ron does, I would be out of business. I see post after post, how it is always someone else's fault that their battery isn't done yet. That is unexceptable...... period!........When you run a business, Its YOUR job to get things done. And not make excuses...If your too busy, Then DON"T take on more work. Stop making promises you CAN"T keep. And Stop blaming the customer, because your email is F"ed up or your employees didn't take a message properly. THEY work for YOU. That means its YOUR problem! not the customers.
It sounds like the business grew too fast to keep up and now people are getting screwed...

I know.......Alot of people like Ron and stick up for him, But there's no excuse for making customers wait so long, and then blame them for it....Like I said, I have been in business for 23 yrs and know what it takes to run a successful business. 90% of my business is repeat customers and referrals from them. So I know how to take care of my customers.
Flame on, but it's over 2 decades of experience talking....
....Jim

[jime]

Originally Posted by Hybrid-Battery-Repair

The assembly time is only a couple of days. The problem is that we can't afford to buy the cells in advance without deposits to pay for part of them. The time involved is the delivery time from the factory.

This is from post #52 way back up the thread. HBR apparently can't invest enough capitol to keep a set of the batteries is stock. It would seem to me that it would be great for their business to get a set or two into stock. I'm sure it would improve their turn around time and their customer relations. JMHO.

[racer1]

Yeah.......Robbing Peter to pay Paul, is not a proper way to run a business. And then admitting it in public......Really a dumb move.......doesn't inspire the customer at ALL.....JUST SAYIN