Ac, Evaporator leaking.

I suggest you get ahold of this PC member (lech auto air conditionin | PriusChat) He is an awesome source of knowledge for us. Are you by chance in the bay area SF?

 

I'm pretty sure the repair manual starts that procedure with "remove instrument panel." So far I've managed to avoid any repair on my car that begins with that step. It reminds me too much of the old elk stew recipe, where step 1 was "dice one elk."

-Chap

 

Lech should be able to let you know what's involved.

 

It's a very big job, no doubt about that.

 

The chance is 100% the repair manual covers it, and in perfectly usable detail. As long as you can follow steps down a page it won't be a challenging job, just a tedious one (IOW, the challenge will be to overcome boredom). You can get the manual on paper from helminc.com (volume 2 is where the R&R instructions are, volume 1 is diagnosis and specs) or you can go straight online at techinfo.toyota.com (I think $15 gets you two days of access).

I guess one place you could run into trouble is brittleness of old plastics. A lot of people have reported busting the central cluster/switches finish panel taking it out for radio access. I'm one of them but I'm pretty sure it was because I had overlooked a couple of nuts (my fault, they were clearly shown in the repair manual in front of me) and not that I couldn't have gotten it out intact. My advice: really, really, gentle. The manual shows illustrations of prying up with taped screwdrivers, but my own experience was that the clips they use will respond perfectly well to gentle pressure with spread fingers, no prying tool needed.

From experience, I can tell you the center finish panel is about $100 if you happen to bust it.

Of course the larger instrument-panel molding is plastic also; I don't know whether it is the same formulation as the center panel, or whether it becomes equally brittle. Haven't seen any reports about it but of course it's less common for people to remove it. I'd go easy on that one too.

-Chap

 

Yes, same problem here on a 2006. Leak detector goes 'cuckoo for cocoa puffs' when the probe is at the vents. Mostly trouble free at 230,000 miles. I have recharged twice and it loses charge every two months. I'm concerned about recharging again as oil is probably being lost too. Came across this post on a Gen II and it was real ugly! I hope lech chimes in regarding the Gen II and verifies if it is really necessary to tear out the entire dashboard.

 

center dash panel closer to $150 than $100
Replacement Center Dash Panel | PriusChat

Be very careful removing it!