***Grinding noise when in reverse...***

I knew the Prius had low ground clearance, but that's crazy.

 

Missing push pins?

 

Comes from flexing back that "oil flap" for oil changes. It's a poor design; better to take the whole underpanel off. If that hinge is near-completely cracked you can maybe cobble something, drill holes and install zip ties.

If you're missing fasteners, the attachment has the part numbers. It's good to wash the fasteners out in soapy water, before reinstall: it's grit that jams them, makes the hard to remove, prone to break.

 

There's three part numbers. The vast majority are #3 (not shown, but basically all the fasteners down the sides and at the front), there's a couple of #5 (they have grey centre caps, are slightly larger), and a couple of #4 (at the plastic-to-plastic splice). If you take the whole panel off you never deal with the latter.

 

There was more damage to the push pins after the first 2 "Free" oil changes than the 14 oil changes since.

 

I bent the flap back for the first oil change (DIY from the outset), and the way the whole panel was flexing, I vowed nevah again.

 

No noticeable increased drag on my 15 (1 year ave 52 mpg), but I do agree on the protection factor, especially from road debris. I decided to risk it anyway since I have never had road damage underneath on any car I ever had and none of those had a plastic shield.

 

Good plan. These are essentially wear items. I have bags of them at home. If the old ones don't look new, I replace them. Cheap enough.

 

My oil pan flap and "engine cover no. 2" were torn off today by some unexpectedly high water during an extreme weather incident. Then I reversed and the oil flap got bent under and creased.

My heat gun on about 5 was able to relax the crease and get the flap nice and straight again.

The plastic around the clip holes in engine cover no. 2 broke in neat lines and just bent around the clips (which stayed attached to the car).

I found my same heat gun turned up to about 7 was able to melt the polypropylene and sort of stick it back together, only the airflow from the heat gun tends to blow the softened plastic away from the break instead of back toward it. I'll probably just buy another engine cover no. 2, as it's only $27 (unlike the oil flap, which only comes as part of "cover assembly" at over $200, hence my straightening it out).

Crazy.

 

Making the flap easily removable is a better solution than taking off the whole panel every time, methinks. Besides reducing the number of push-pins to contend with, that eliminates the need to lift the car up high enough for the silly flap to clear the ground.

 

Yeah 4 gen is better in that regard: it has 3~4 screws holding a small panel on: take out the screw and the panel just drops off. Still, it's good to take the whole schmo off once in while, check for leaks, look at the CV boots.

 

I have it down to 3 push-pins and 2 screws to take out each time.

 

I bought extra push pins. For some reason My car had 2 different sized push pins. I ended up with the larger size. I think I had to enlarge 1 hole as I recall. Like I said, since I have been doing the work they don't seem to get damaged even though I know they are a wear item.