New Owner 2005 185K Miles, neglected for a year

Hi all,

Just wanted to check in and say hey to you other Prius owners and share the journey of bringing my poor neglected ride back to its former glory. TLDR - doing stuff, give me tips on more stuff to do to my 05.

I picked up a 2005 Prius off FB marketplace for cheap from a guy that only had it for a year but here are the problems I've dealt with. I'm looking to compile a comprehensive list of remaining maintenance items or typical problems to check if anyone has any input I would appreciate it.

1) The previous owner had a tire blowout front left, which ripped up the wiring harness.
The first stop, the junkyard, got the section of the harness I needed including the two connectors for the coolant heater reservoir area and wheel speed sensor for 10 bucks, score!

Hook spliced in with leaded solder, heat shrink, and electrical taped for good measure. Dealing with the ripped-up fog light wiring later...

The guy I got it from took it to Walmart for tires after the blowout, looks like they broke one of the rusty wheel hub bolts off, he was riding around with 4 lugs for about 1000 miles...

Replacing the wheel hub was a tough job, I tried using a slide hammer but ended up having to pull the knuckle off the car and beating the ever living crap out of the old bearing to get it out. Probably could have used a torch or press if I had one, but a recent move has my tool collection at its leanest in a while.
Didn't get any pictures of the finished job because frankly I was exhausted after this one.

When I bought it, the guy said it needed brakes, what do you all think?


After putting the knuckle back in I did note the boots on the sway bar links and tie rod end were ripped and sad, so I ordered up some replacement stuff from RockAuto. Nothing special, just doing Moog Inner/Outer tie rods, ball joints, and sway bar links for now. While I was on there I ordered up some new rotors, the old ones are rusty and well etched from the neglected brakes. The serpentine belt also looked overdue so I grabbed that, and a new tensioner pulley because why not?

While I was cleaning out the car I found the only maintenance receipt, which was for the HV battery replaced at 133K miles 5 years ago at a Toyota dealership in Georgia. Score!

I failed to mention it, but when I first checked the oil, it was slightly overfilled, so the first thing I did was change the oil again, 3.5 qts. They had been driving on the 3.9 the Walmart service center put in for about 1k miles, hope the motor doesn't hate me...

I also intend to change the transmission fluid, I have 4 qts of Toyota WS ATF sitting in the garage for the weekend.

Picked up the OEM silver key from Toyota over the Labor Day weekend at discount and using a site found here I got a seed reset code for Techstream and managed to recover SKS functionality, the only key I got with the car was a second-hand used black key cut for a different car. (I have a few spare codes if anyone needs one.)

After clearing the fault codes, the remaining code is for a p0420, I checked out the cat and it's clamped in, and also looks to be a pretty old aftermarket unit. Any suggestions on a decent replacement? I don't need to pass any smog tests in Florida.

You might be able to tell I'm a bit obsessed with this thing!

Cheers,
Andy

 

I'll try this out, thanks!

 

Thanks! Time will tell but I sure hope so!

 

I'll try a couple of the basics but yeah I'll probably just ignore it if it's none of the usual stuff. Probably better off mounting my Techstream setup below the information display

 

I didn't see any water when I checked, I pulled the blower and cleaned the fan blades with some qtips and alcohol, but I didn't think to lubricate it, so back off comes the trim! (I did blow out all the ducting with some compressed air as well, not sure if that'll do anything but why not...)

 

I saw a tip on these forums to register the car in the Toyota owners portal, more good news, the ABS actuator was replaced in 2020... Still, I do notice when I let off the brake it doesn't build back to full pressure immediately (more like 50%.) I will probably start by checking the drums, the parking brake doesn't seem to do much at the moment either, it works but barely.

 

Adding an o2 spacer did work to clear my P0420 DTC, I've run it about 400 miles since without the code returning. Thanks for the tip