What did you do to ur Gen III Prius today????

Do they steal cats too?

 

Not sure but nobody tries it here in florida. We r all armed

 

If rogue cops or ICE officers also stole cats, would that deter them?

 

Hi! Both kits are from MCX... I went with them because my cat was stolen on my former gen 2 and the cheap oem skid was always falling off, losing its structural integrity, and carrying dirt and rocks that somehow got lodged up in there. Regarding the whole area coverage, I didn't create the design, however, just the feel of how much sturdier it is with all the fasteners and the extra protection it provides to the oil pan is worth it to me. IMO the extra plastic just creates more space for dirt and grime to travel around with me as extra baggage.

 

Did an oil change, which lead to I might as well clean out the oil catch cans, which lead to pull the intake manifold for access, clean the throttle body, and so on.


Outcome of one hour soak in 10% KOH solution.

 

Miles?

 

Roughly 65k. Garage queen. We make a point to do goodly drives every week or so, and we consolidate any shopping chores with those drives, whenever practical.

my wife and I are both retired, fixed income, kind of tied down with an aging dog currently too. And just getting less enthusiastic about driving. Still need a car, but only doing about 3k kms yearly.

Toyota Canada says to change the oil every 8k kms or 6 months, whichever comes first. I did stick with that for over a decade, but with 3k kms yearly now, gave my head a shake, went to once a year, first chance I get in April.

 

Same here w/ our diesel 5th wheel pulling machine. Sits under its cover for over ½ a year at a time. Other than 2 or 3 cross country trips, we got more campsites we can even go to - w/in 175 mi.
So - ½ way through winter, remove battery maintainer, unplug block heater, pull cover off, & wheel covers, check tires, warm up & high speed drive for about 15-20 minutes, put covers back on until spring.
Oil & filter change? Fuel filter change? Ends up getting done for <750mi year.
.

 

We've got a local waterfront destination, round-trip about 15 miles, if it's a nice day, pack sandwiches and coffee:


(we don't live in the Coquitlam Centre, but nearby.)

Hit a few stores on the way back as needed.

 

I'm just going to caution you regarding KOH since it melts aluminum....

 

Understood, just for stainless steel. Regular steel, aluminum, it’ll react.

and yeah, definitely worth noting.

 

211k oil change, and front stabilizer links. No more funny chuckle when going over side-to-side bumps.

In the process, noticed front pads at around 1 mm. Added to to-do list.

The links came off easy as pie, just a little B'laster and a breaker bar to start the nuts off. On two of them I had to use a hex bit in the thoughtfully-provided hex to keep the stud from turning.

 

Possibly the closest I've ever cut it without going over. I had been measuring the pads every tire rotation and tracking the wear vs. miles, so I had a decent idea when they'd get here. Still pad material all over, but not a lot extra.



When I see a rotor look this nice, I usually want to just wet-sand it with 150 grit like an old Ford shop manual told me, and put it right back.



But Prius rotors often seem to want to do this, on the side you don't see:



Anyway, thanks to a dealer discount and the Memorial Day parts promotion and these rotors being on clearance, Toyota rotors basically matched in price the house-brand ones at my local parts jobber. So I bought Toyota rotors.

And maybe I see part of the story. Toyota (well, Advics) puts a nice coat of paint (or something) on these, on the 'hat', and on the outside circumference.

But they don't put any inside the hat, or on the exposed inner circumference of the disc. Well, no wonder the rust gets established there, and just eats away more and more of the inner pad edge and makes the useful area narrower and narrower.

Gemini tells me there are several aftermarket brands that do coat that area, and also tells me that really does significantly reduce this effect. I'm a little disappointed that by springing for Toyota rotors I ended up lacking that treatment.

On the other hand, I guess I'm here after 211k miles, so maybe I won't be picking out rotors for this car again unless I make it to 422k.

I might consider doing something in there with hi-temp paint at my next tire rotation. Gemini tells me that will still be an improvement.

Made my usual ➡fifteen-minute brake drag test drive⬅ and stone-cold both left and right.

Also used the Memorial Day sale to get three out of four door belt moldings, where the rubber seal against the window had come apart.



Edit: hey, I just now noticed the labels for 75710- and 75720- both say MOULDING ASSEMBLY, FR. The 75720 one is actually front left. It was correct on the ordering website. I needed both.

That turns out to be one of those jobs the repair manual makes really complicated. If you look there, you think you'll have to take the whole door apart (literally, "remove belt moulding assembly" comes as step sixteen):



... and then you take the new one out of the bag and look at it for a minute, and say "how come I can't just roll down the window and twist this end of the old one like so, and pop it out?" and you do, so all three are done in like 10 minutes.

Because of how the sun passes where I park, I don't seem to need the 75740 one yet.

 

If you keep looking long enough on Ebay you'll eventually find a stupid cheap compatible slotted, dimple or vented rotors that look really cool. And because its a Prius you can't really go wrong with cheap "high performance" rotors because it's going to be exceedingly rare that you'll ever max out a brake rotor modified for higher performance no matter how cheap.

 

My own leanings are toward stupid cheap sensible rotors that look like rotors.

When I did my rears four years ago, I ➡used the house brand⬅ handed across the counter to me at my local independent auto parts jobber. Came in around half the best discounted price I could find at an online Toyota dealer, and they did come with coated hubs and outer edges, according to what I wrote in that linked post.

It doesn't look like I wrote whether those did or didn't have coating on the inner circumference and inside the hats. Maybe at my next tire rotation I'll slip them off and check.

Because I ordered these front rotors on Memorial Day, I wasn't able to check at the neighborhood jobber because they were closed. And with free shipping, a discounting Toyota dealer, the Memorial Day promotion, and apparently a clearance on these rotors, they ended up around $36 each.

I did stop in at the jobber the next day just to check on what I could have bought there, and it turned out the Toyota rotors actually matched their price this time.

But because I'd already ordered the Toyota ones, I didn't take any more of their time at the jobber asking about how fully coated those rotors were. Maybe they'd have been nicer than the ones from Toyota; I just don't know.

My rear rotors from four years ago, by the way, are definitely showing rust around the hat. You can still tell there was some kind of paint or coating there, but whatever it was obviously wasn't a miracle treatment.

 

Lol... Sound like you're trying to make the argument that being boring is better... Truth is you could of bought these gorgeous rotors for $22 a piece and not only would your car look more cool, but the brakes would perform better when pushing them to the limits, which is almost never in a Prius: https://www.ebay.com/itm/327119758017

 

Those say rears. I didn't see $22 pricing for fronts even at the local jobber.

If there had been choices at that price, say some that would look cool and some that would last long, I think I'd have gone with last long.

 

You can also take off your backing plates with these because slots mean they will work better when exposed to dirt and debris.