Engine Block Heater

I was thinking the same thing, unless the port for the block heater is on the back side of the block. Why would I need to remove the wipers to install a EBH?

 

Maybe you should give the local toyota dealer a call and ask the service folks, the ones here in the twin cities have always been willing to answer questions and help out. I might be doing this on my 2012 prius and my moms 2012 prius c so anything you find out is gravy!

 

I installed the EBH in my gen 2 Prius, and although it was a little awkward, it didn't take that long, nor did it require any major disassembly, just a lot of worming my arm up into a blind spot from below.

FWIW, I recently bought a gen 3, and asked if the service department could install an EBH in it before I took delivery. They said "they don't do block heaters because you have to disassemble too much of the car to get it in".

Haven't got the car up on ramps myself yet to see just how crazy it is with the new gen 3 underpanels, but suspect you need to pop some of those off to find the hole. YMMV, but I've never been very good at getting plastic panels like that off and on again without breaking the *#*!@ fasteners or cracking the panel somehow. Anyone have any tips?

 

I just finished installing the EBH I ordered from the PriusChat store in my 2013 Prius which we took delivery of this week. Needless to say this was my first venture under the hood (don't expect many more -- LOL), but it wasn't an impossible job. I followed some of the guidance in the How-to by FireEngineer, but I did the install from the bottom as I had no desire to remove all that cowling and wipers on a 3 day old vehicle.

Saw a note about tying up the access door , did this with string to a hole in the front section of the cowling -- worked great. The plastic push pins came off with no issues -- just used a pocket knife to start them opening. And you have to loosen the bolt holding the wire harness in order to get the EBH in the slot. Prefit of the cord plug on to the EBH made final assembly a breeze. Total job took less than two hours

The one caution is to be careful going up ramps. I had to build up the approach with some wood blocking as I would have surely scraped the body if I had not done so.

Install from the bottom would not be a good option for a large person. My arms barely fit up into the cavity , and there is limited room in there to say the least. Only got one small cut in the whole job -- mechanics gloves and nitrile gloves helped avoid donating too much blood to the cause.

 

I put mine in when I installed my strut tower brace, which requires removing the windshield wiper tray to get access to the strut tower bolts. I looked at doing it from below and it looked difficult - the hole can't be seen, plus you have to loosen a bolt restraining a wire hardness from the top.

After the windshield wiper tray is out, it's relatively easy to both remove/replace the bolt (with less chance of loosing it!) and install the EBH. If you use the instructions from HAWAIIANBUILT in his thread about the strut tower brace, it's actually pretty easy to remove and replace the wiper mechanism & tray. So the whole job can be done from the top.

It's also easier to route the EBH cable forward when the wiper tray is out.