A/C Stuck, working but won't change positions

First step is to eliminate or replace cabin air filter... Then once you're certain you have max air pressure start switching between vent settings and temperature settings to exercise the motors/servos that control the valves... You can usually loosen up things that way. As in as cars get older they have a difficult time switching from winter floor heat settings to in your face summer AC settings. Of course you're in Florida, so... Maybe just buy a new car.

 

The door or barrel thing that's in the ductwork is not moving in positioning itself where you want the air to come out I have not looked into this real hard on the Prius but in older other Toyotas this all used to be cable operated it was a physical cable that went from the floor position to the defrost position and to the vents that blow in your face position now in the Prius all of this is electrical etc so you have to get the codes for the AC system by pushing some buttons and then transferring those codes back to your post and it'll tell you basically what's not happening That's the easiest way or you can find Said servo. And clamp it to the position you want it to stay in that may be a thing if you don't want to do the other I'm with you though I'm in North Carolina and it's very hot in the summer funny this year we're kind of going to be late bloomers it looks like for the heat.

 

In fewer words with more punctuation, hold down the steering wheel 'auto' and 'fresh/recirc' buttons while turning the car on, then let us know what two-digit codes show up on the MFD.

 

21 is a distraction. The code just exists so you have a way to tell if the solar sensor on the dash works. In shade, you have code 21, and in full sun, you don't, and that's how you can tell. It doesn't indicate any problem (unless you have it in full sun, or you don't have it in shade ).

B1433 and B1443 are both codes about the actuator that moves the air outlet selector vane. So that goes right along with the behavior you've described. B1443 reports that the sensed position of the vane doesn't seem to be changing when power is sent to the motor to move the vane. That could be something jammed, a bad motor, or a problem with the position sensor or wiring. B1433 is specific to the position sensor or wiring; the signal coming back doesn't seem reasonable.

Looks like somebody uploaded that section of the repair manual here in the past:

https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2020/06/188086_AC_-_Air_Conditioning.pdf

The position sensors in the Gen 1 and Gen 2 actuators get flaky with some regularity, and sometimes are easy to fix, as you can read about in this thread:

No, that wasn't a mouse in the heater | PriusChat

Of the three actuators, the outlet select one isn't the easiest one to get to, but it isn't the hardest one either. (Goldilocks strikes again.)

If you read along in that thread until you learn about yitznewton's nifty screwdriver solution for the hard-to-access screw ... he's talking about the air mix actuator (that's the easiest one), but the outlet select one is just a bit upward from there.

But sometimes motors and vane linkages also can get worn out or jammed up or broken, or mice chew the wires, so it might not always turn out to be the just-clean-the-sensor situation that thread describes.