Instructions for Door Edge Guards PT936-47230-11?

They should be adhesive lined and just pushed on. Match the curve to the curve in the door. That's about it.

To assure good adhesion, I'd clean the door edges with denatured alcohol first.

 

+1 for Georgina's instructions.
Should be simple, yet I can understand awaiting a co-member with an instruction copy.

 

Ask and ye shall blah blah blah.

 

I've never seen "Toyota" instructions before. I must say they complicate what should be a very easy process. Apparently they have been infiltrated by IKEA.

 

Toyota has a reason for every step in the instructions. It probably isn’t necessary to follow them perfectly unless someone is a perfectionist like whoever wrote the instructions.
When I did my front license bracket I would have drilled two pilot holes in the factory placed dimples for the screws. No, do not drill pilot holes the instructions said, reading my mind. It must be the more deformed holes in the bumper plastic retains the screws better. Attention to detail I guess it is.

 

Aren't a lot of these accessories covered by warranty if fitted by dealers? I suspect the detailed instructions are Toyota's way of not being left on the hook if they fail due to bad installation - they can say to the dealer "you clearly didn't follow the instructions"...

 

I think the detailed instructions look like they do for the same reason as IKEA's: They're meant to be purely pictorial because they're going to be read by people speaking dozens of languages. The US instructions I posted earlier look like the English instructions were added in later.

I'm in the middle of something right now, but I think I'm going to try and find the EU instructions for the same part to see if there's a difference.

 

So, I put a set of the door edge guards on today. The color match, at least in red, is perfect.

Unless there is some impossibly-thin, impossibly-clear adhesive on the inside of the guards, I'm pretty sure it is simply a mechanical fit that holds them on. They have you do a ritual with numerous wipes of alcohol on each edge, then making it squeaky-dry, which I assumed was for an a good adhesive bond, but I don't think there's any actual adhesive involved. I guess a clean edge will still provide a better mechanical fit, though.

The written instructions and the paper front door template showed the starting tapping point in different places (instructions showed the starting point a bit below the door handle, the template showed the starting point at the top edge of the guard). I tried both, and my only success was starting at the top - starting below the door handle got nowhere - the guard just wouldn't grab onto the door edge when starting part-way down. There is definitely a little bit of a learning curve on getting them started, and having them stay on as you work your way down the first few inches - on the first one, I was very concerned that I might never get the darned thing on. By the 3rd or 4th, things were going pretty smoothly. On the rear doors, I found that starting at the bottom edge worked best. (Instructions seem to say to start a few inches up, near the door crease, but that went nowhere for me. Parts of the instructions are darned-near indecipherable, they tried to make them so illustration-based that they became almost comically unclear.

On the front doors, setting the edge about 2mm above the template worked better for me - the first front door I did, the bottom edge of the guard was a whole lot closer to the crease near the bottom of the front door than I was really happy about. (I think that starting near the top, and tapping your way down, sort of migrates the edge guard down a tiny bit, perhaps.)

Anyway, they're on, no children or animals were harmed, and it appears that they will indeed protect my door edges.

 

Oh, also, the instructions have a section about measuring and possibly 'adjusting' the door edge sealant. I'm not sure quite what that is all about - on my car, there is a very smooth transition (ie, it almost looks like formed metal - I'm not even sure there is any sealant involved...), and it is well away from the door edge. For my case, the sealant thing was completely irrelevant.

 

From reading the instructions, the sealant is supposed to be inside the door edge guard at least 3mm from either edge. If you had taken one of the edge guards and looked at it from the "top" (so it looked like a U), you should have seen it in the inside bottom of the U. When installed, it should have been wrapped around the very edge of the door.

 

I could see how you'd conclude that, but the sealant that is actually being described (as I mentioned, the instructions are kinda abstruse) is sealant that is used on the door itself, to connect an inner panel to the door (but which doesn't actually seem to be on the Prius - ie, making sure that doesn't get in the way of the edge guard's inner edge. (There's a video here about putting on Toyota door edge guards that makes that a little bit clearer (see about the 1 minute mark):

I looked inside the door edge guards themselves every which way I could, and I swear, there's nothing in there!

 

I see. Good find on the video. It does confirm to me that I made a good choice in asking the dealership to remove the guards from my order before it got to port(so they were never installed). The installation has to scratch the heck out of the paint, so once they're installed, you're stuck with them.

 

Well, the finish on the guards is almost a plastic-y material - not plastic outright, but the finish definitely feels like some type of polymer or such, so I don't think it'd scratch the paint at all.

I do worry a bit (now that I know there's no adhesive or such in there to take up the space), that over years, it could trap water, road salt, etc in there, and ultimately lead to corrosion along the door edge. I guess as long as the paint is solid (which I guess is the purpose of the edge guard), it'll be fine, but it is a little bit of a concern in the back of my mind.

I'm not a huge aesthetics guy, but I've kinda fallen live with the red color of the car, and the nice uninterrupted lines. I was a little concerned that the edge guards might detract from that smoothness, but they pretty much blend in like they're not really there. (The car was originally supposed to come with the door bumper strips, too, but they never got installed at the port - I think those might've detracted from the smooth sides a bit - we'll see if ultimately door dings will have a worse effect, though...