Dual zone climate controls(Europe)

I remember someone linking a European feature list that included dual zone climate for the European Prime. Just wanted to confirm that info. A photo on the Toyota France website clearly shows a dual zone head unit. It will be interesting to see how involved it would be to retrofit one into a NA model, and if the head unit is able to be configured for F instead of C.

Just thought some here might be interesting in the info.

https://scene7.toyota.eu/is/image/toyotaeurope/MY24_PRIUS_WP_12-2:Large-Portrait?ts=19459&resMode=sharp2&op_usm=1.75,0.3,2,0

 

Welp, I spent a day or three researching into the idea of retrofitting dual zone climate controls and Nano-X ionization to a North American HEV. To no one's surprise, it's either impossible or lives next door to impossible. At the start, it was looking expensive, but not insanely so. Maybe just cracking four figures in parts. But then I dug down the the heart of the problem: the entire air conditioner radiator assembly would have to be replaced.

The worst part is that most of the expensive bits of the assembly could be reused, but you need the different plastic shell and Toyota doesn't appear to sell that by itself. So that's a $2000 part all by itself. And to get at it, you need to recover the A/C refrigerant before you start, then completely gut the front half of the interior. The assembly is behind that major brace that the dash bolts onto, so the brace has to come out too. When I gave up, the optimistic total was approaching $3k in parts and necessary services(refrigerant recovery and recharge, maybe some work reprogramming ECU).

The final nail in the coffin came when I finally remembered that the Prime comes with a heat pump. Since the only way to do this conversion is to use parts from the European Prius, and since all of those are Primes, I don't believe there's a way to make it work without the car throwing massive amounts of error codes. Some of the parts from the European Prime would be looking for a heat pump that isn't there. And if you go insane and try to add a heat pump as well, the HEV's ECUs wouldn't know what to do with it because they're not programmed to look for it. I guess trying the conversion on a Prime might be more technically possible, but you'd still be looking at tearing the dash apart and $3k in new parts.



I always knew this was the longest of long shots, so I'm not very disappointed. Plus the real reason to explore the project was just to get more proficient using Toyota's parts and repair software before trying any of the real projects like the mirror conversions and some mild OEM lighting upgrades. And for that, mission accomplished. Prior to digging into this, there's no way I could have helped that other user with the deer damage.

 

Sync is the button to link the dual zone climate controls back to the drivers side. I had to look it up a while back because it confused me.

Supposedly the ionic generator from the European Prime is currently being used in the US Lexus RX. That's what the parts website tells me. But I don't see it anywhere on the options list for the RX. But Lexus's main website is hot garbage, so there's that.

 

Pretty sure Denso's done the same thing again.


It's mildly amusing that the only duct the ionized air comes out of is the passenger dash vent closest to the door.

 

Okay, never mind. There's an error in the parts schematics. The ionic generator is actually attached to dash vent closest to the DRIVER'S door, not the passenger's(there's a minor foul up in the schematics related to LHD vs. RHD). While I still think it would be better to attach it to the air intake rather than a vent, the vent they chose is the best one for most cases.