Finding Shops OTHER than Toyota for Service

I almost replied to that one, but thought it was too easy and must be a trick question. I don't think it would be good to mix inverter coolant and transmission oil. Bacon and chocolate, on the other hand ...

 

You need to start opening your own Prius shop and do these easy maintenance lol

 

Yeah I did it last fall when swapping to snow tires. There was a lot of follow up questions regarding the use of vacuum pump in that thread. It's maybe nice, but not mandatory. I just used a tube with bleed bolt connector pushed on the end, and a kilo size mayo jar to catch it.

And for basting out the reservoir a big syringe, with short length of tube. There's one gotcha with the reservoir: it has an internal "basket" with just a narrow slit. To get a tube down near the bottom it has to be very skinny. I realized this just as I got into it, so pushed a thin vacuum tip on the end of my tubing, you can see in the pic. But a long thin tube would be better.

When doing the fronts, watch @NutzAboutBolts video carefully. The assistant pushing the brake pedal will drop the pedal to the floor pretty quick. When you're cracking open the bleed bolt it should be very quick open/shut bursts.

With the rears it's easier, assistant steps on brake and a pump continuously pumps fluid.

 

OTOH, the quote for brake fluid change is pretty reasonable. If you go that route, caution them to test drive the vehicle afterwards, and check that they haven't lost any bleed bolt caps.

Our last "pro" brake fluid change, on a Honda, was a bit of a gong show. Finally got it sorted, but they royally screwed up first time around: left the vehicle with one rear brake non-functional.

 

Yup, brain fart.

 

I think the term in polite company is "cranial flatulence." But I'm sure "brain fart" is fine here.

 

When we do mine at month end, we will not be using a vacuum system. It will be plastic tubing with a catch can at the end.

No need for a vacuum system. An assistant helps though.

 

They claim it is "lifetime" fluid.

 

Just latch onto that towing interval? Still, I'd do an early change, say at one year mark, regardless of mileage, judging from mine: it's the dirtiest in appearance.

No. Some sort of baster, with a very slim tube to fit through the slit in the reservoir internals, is the only time you need suction.

 

yeah, you don't need a vacuum bleeder to do the brake flush.

 

Can understand why you would want to change the ATF, based on all the info from this forum, but I never read a post here about changing the Inverter coolant at 50K....do that at the recommended 100K miles and save yourself the hundred bucks or two.

 

Congrats on getting all that done.

This attachment has the part numbers. I've had our engine shield off (for oil change, and/or transaxle fluid change) maybe 11 times now? To the best of my recollection I've yet to lose or break any of those plastic fasteners. I think the more often you remove them, and do it carefully, and wash them out thoroughly, the less likely it is they'll break. Also, if you've had pros working under there, chances are the fasteners have been abused: they're in a rush.

The regular size clips and larger (grey head) ones are items 3 and 5 respectively, in the attachment. Parts numbers:

Regular: 90467-07201 (item 3)
Larger, grey head: 90467-09227 (item 5)

 

Yeah I noticed the smaller ones in particular (...07201) are a good price, a 30-pack IIRC. The larger, grey-headed (...09227) a little pricier, through Dorman.

 

$7.88 for a pack of 20 for the smaller ones. Will be getting them for this weekend just in case .