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Replaced: Liftgate Garnish / hatch door handle

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by tnana, Aug 21, 2016.

  1. tnana

    tnana Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2013
    5
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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Hello,

    With help from posts on this site, I was able to successfully replace hatch door handle aka lift-gate garnish. Paid $47 for the part on eBay. Had to spend extra for glue ($5.39) and license plate lamps which were dead ($4.99).

    Spent 4/5 hours because it was hard to take out nuts from inside (used a makeshift tool to put them back quickly), some of the plastic connectors for black cover inside of door stayed with body and 3 screws of lock button were rusted.
    6. Rusted screws.jpg
    Had to take help of my handy-man to shave of the heads of these screws because they got damaged when I tried to unscrew them.

    Taking out nuts of side bolts was relatively easy. Used pliers to loosen them. Tried same on middle two but gave up. Finally managed to get them out by using pliers on the bolt from front. Had to be careful when removing the nuts so that they don't drop inside the door body.
    1. Fasteners.jpg

    Removing button to unlock hatch was also difficult even after removing black sleeve. So cut the plastic with hacksaw. Did same when putting the button in new garnish.
    2 Removing button to unlock hatch.jpg 8. Install button.jpg

    New part was black in color. Seller states that it should be painted to match body. I decided to use it as is to contrast Silver body. Inside has 4 bolts (no nuts but that's Ok). Plastic piece in place of button to lock the car and knock-out for rear camera.

    3. New Part outside.jpg 4. New Part Inside.jpg 5. New part knock out for camera.jpg

    Toyota logo is glued. Removed it carefully using a long flat screw driver. The glue is strong.

    7 Glued logo.jpg

    After putting both buttons in new garnish, tucked the wires.

    9. Tuck wires.jpg

    Was thinking of cutting long bolts so that I can use socket but then thought of using a big flat screwdriver. Jammed it in socket with couple of soft hammer strokes. It was wonderful. No fear of dropping the nuts as the sunk inside the socket. All 4 were done in couple of minutes. :)

    Makeshift tool.jpg

    Black garnish looks fine due to black glass above it.

    Final.jpg

    Regards