A/C Blower Motor Replacement

My A/C blower on my 2011 Prius was occasionally failing to start up, sometimes fixed by going over a speed bump or giving the glovebox a good solid whack. This lead me to this forum and this post about the exact problem in the Gen 2 Prius complete with handy images. Thus inspired to do the install myself, I ordered a part and went to work.

What I found was that the layout under the dash is just a little different in Gen 3, so I thought I'd take some photos as I went. My work seems to have been a success, so I guess I didn't do anything too terrible. However, I am not a mechanic and I can't promise that following in my footsteps won't screw something up. So, take all of this with a grain of salt.

There are lots of resources out there on how to remove the glove box, so I won't describe that.

First, make sure the replacement motor you buy accepts a three-pronged plug. Here's the side of the plug on the motor.


The view under the dash. The kick plate comes away after releasing the three tabs in front.


Here's the original motor in place; you can see its plug. The motor is held in place by three star-drive screws. Towards the bottom of the image you can see a little square hole in the plastic. The kick plate has a long tab on the back which (I think) is supposed to fit into that hole when reassembled.


I was able to remove the motor's plug by hand by depressing the tab and wiggling it out. Just don't pull on the wires themselves. Tuck the plug somewhere safely out of the way.


On the right side of the blower motor image above, you can just barely make out another set of wires belonging to something else entirely.


They're secured in place by a metal bracket. Unfortunately this bracket sits directly under the blower motor, blocking access to one of the mounting screws and making it impossible to remove.


I didn't bother releasing the plugs: I just unscrewed the bracket and pushed it off to the side. In order to get to the bracket's phillips screw (which is impeded by the wires) I wound up carefully clipping the little zip tie at the rear of the bracket. In retrospect I don't know if that was necessary, but it didn't seem to hurt anything. Here you can see how the bracket is secured by one screw and two plastic posts. Remember that for reassembly.


With the wire bracket off to the side you just have to unscrew the three star-drive screws and the old motor will drop out.


Now you just need to fit the new motor in, replace its three screws, secure the wire bracket, plug the motor in, test it!, snap the kick plate in, and replace the glove box.

I strongly suggest getting some short screw drivers to work on this, as you don't have a lot of room. You may want to use hex sockets and a ratchet to work the motor's screws. The replacement motor I got was just a little off, making one of the screws very stubborn to put back and I really had to struggle not to strip it. Good luck!

 

It came with the fan. I was able to find it for about $90 shopping around online. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the original!