My first ever Prius and first ever Toyota. First maintenance task: Spark plugs

some have said it is difficult to break them free, even at 120k.

 

I replaced mine at about 108K miles because well, like you say that's what you're supposed to do. They looked so good, I kept in the box of the new ones and somewhere around 300K miles maybe I'll swap the old ones back in.

 

Hope you need new plugs again.....

 

Did you have a torque spec, or just a certain angle of turn once they bottomed. The latter's probably safer if you've lubed them. FWIW third gen torque spec (assumed dry thread, lube not mentioned) is 15 ft/lb. I remove/reinstalled ours, with a sparing amount of anti-seize, and used 13 ft/lb. Basically I put a thin coat on, then wiped them clean fairly agressively with a rag, counting on there being some residual in the thread grooves.

 

Go ahead and try to change the headlight bulbs. We'll wait.......

Put a transaxle fluid change on your to do list.

 

Very good I would also change the belt no matter how it looks. Its only job is to turn the water pump. If the belt fails the pump stops pumping and you will never know till the you see an overheat icon on the dash which is too late usually head damage will result. No temp gauge in this car very very bad design. Its cheap and easy to replace and really pays off. I would not be surprised if its the original belt. You really have to remove it and bend it backwards to see how bad it is.
Then move on to Inverter coolant replacement that will really give you a great bang for your cheap buck as your mileage will increase.
Another really easy to do thing.

 

4 quarts Toyota ATF WS. This is drain and replace, and substantially all of the fluid will be replaced during the drain. If you don't have a service record showing that this has been done, it is way past due. You'll be shocked at the color of the old fluid, compared to new ATF fluid.

 

I did mine at 135k.
Those old plugs look iffy to me. Are they Iridium tipped? I don't see the Iridium. It says Iridium I think.

Apparently one plus of Gen2 is ease of spark plug replacement vs. Gen3.

 

I hadn't heard that before. I can't figure how it helps unless there's something wrong with it. Can you fill me in?

 

Toyota cautions to not use anything but Toyota ATF WS, or risk damage. I'd take that to the bank, lol. It's not that expensive; last time I did ours it was $9.14 (Can) per litre, at the dealership parts department. They'll have replacement washers for fill and drain bolt too. Those buggers can be expensive, lol.

Just be sure to have the car raised and level, and fill till it starts coming back out. That is optimum level.

 

I noticed an immediate increase in mileage after replacing the Inverter fluid. The coolant went from tepid circulation to very aggressive circulation looked like the water was on full boil after new fluid. Also the Inverter ran 5 degree's cooler as tested by my Fluke IR thermometer.

Inverter is the heart and soul of a Prius. More cool it runs the more effiecient it is.Think about it... its using water to cool electronics. No moving parts parts just high current Igbt's. The Inverter heatsink has a huge cross section of pure aluminum.

I also installed a bottle of Redline Water Wetter. Same color too. Running that in the rad and the Inverter. That stuff is great. Inverter really liked it. Been in the inverter 70,000 miles now. Still has boiling water aggression on circulation. The first initial replacement of Inverter coolant has all the aluminum wear in the fluid. I did mine at 30,000 miles. Same as the trans fluid the first change has all the break in wear.
The aluminum contamination in the Inverter fluid slows circulation is very abrasive to the pump and water does not cool very well contaminated. Huge difference with new coolant.

No to mention the extensive cooling channels in the transmission this coolant services. Very big coolant chases surrounding the windings assembly. The windings are held up against these chases to heatsink the windings so the Inverter coolant system as a whole does a very critical job to maintain the Inverter and the trans.
Toyota must have realized much later how important the cooling efficiency was because in the G3 they have a separate Inverter cooling radiator unlike the G2 which has the Inverter rad in the same case as the engine rad so there's alot of cross heatsinking from the engine there. My suspicion is if you installed a separate Inverter radiator you would probably gain another 5 mpgs. i thought about that for quite a while but theirs absolutely no room to put it anywhere under the hood.

Inverter coolant replacement is critical imho.

 

Any fluid that says WS Compatible will work fine. I have used Redlne D6 for over 10000 miles with excellent UOA's posted in the stickies.
Lots of people over at Bitog use Walmart Brand WS with good results no issues at all. Nothing special about WS it is used in very wide variety of Toyota cars and Trucks its basically Dex6 which has a much lower viscosity for better mileage.

Google Redline D6 reviews.

 

Anything wrong with Toyota ATF WS?