Is this install as bad as it looks?

It really sucks that you had to go through all of that with your exciting and pretty new car! You might take them up on paying for the detail you get from your own detail person!! Then you get to find out how truly sorry they really are!!
If they installed that molding for $280 (a MAXIMUM 1 hr job for a pro), that's $280/hr labor!! My cardiologist doesn't charge that, and he's in "high rent district" Southern California!!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
AChoiredTaste.com

 

Yes, I've heard that the space saver spare should always go on the rear, regardless of where the original flat was.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

The donut spare is matched in diameter to your other tires/wheels, although it is narrower. You'll see that the wheel is a 17" wheel with a very low aspect ratio tire, to match the overall size of the other tires. In any case, you shouldn't drive the car more than a few miles anyway, as the warning on the spare indicates. You're also supposed to drive more slowly with a donut too. It's only an EMERGENCY fix, to get you to a repair shop.


Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
AChoiredTaste.com

 

Thanks, OP, for sharing the before and after pics. It is very obvious that the first installer just eye-balled sticking on the moldings, without taking the time to follow Toyota's meticulous installation instructions for measuring the exact height at each end. It is good that the service manager could see that both sides were not installed to spec, and took care of the problem. They look very nice on your car!

Just two weeks ago I added side moldings to my new Prime as a do-it-yourself job. I bought the OEM moldings from a dealer for $185, taking advantage of weekend sale on anything over $150 that the parts department was having. I was going to have a local body shop install the moldings, but decided I wanted to first play around with placement. I felt that the factory-installed side moldings I had seen on a Prime at the dealer were too low to block the majority of parking lot dings from doors of other cars. I wanted to see how the moldings would look about 4 inches higher.

I downloaded the official installation directions (don't remember where I found them), and carefully followed the directions for marking where the moldings should be installed. Then I taped the moldings on with a short cross strips of blue painter's masking tape on each end, and looked it over. Definitely much too low, I decided. Next, I marked parallel lines 4 inches higher, and taped the moldings on again. It looked very nice on the front doors, but the higher moldings did not look good at all on the rear doors. They were much to short when sitting that far above the rear wheel fender arc. I kept repeating the process, moving the moldings down an 1 inch at a time, and then stepping back and looking at both sides of the car from several angles. The end result of that hour-long process, was that I felt the moldings looked best pretty much right where Toyota said to put them. I was only about 1/2 inch higher by the time I was satisfied with the look.

After all that trial and error, I realized that all I had to do was peal off the protective layer on the double-sided tape, and stick the moldings on. It turned out to be very simple, once I had carefully followed the Toyota instructions for marking the positions. But it did take me a good half-hour to measure, put on strips of painter's masking tape, and mark the heights recommended in the instructions. It is definitely one of those projects where it is important to check all the measurements, recheck, and check again to ensure the moldings are straight and at an angle that nicely lines up with curves in the sheet metal.

It's a personal taste, but I think the two-tone, slightly wedged shaped Gen 4 side moldings really make the car look nice. They accent they look of the car perfectly. And, hopefully, the moldings will prevent at least a few of those inevitable door-dings. For me, though, the styling alone makes them a nice addition to my new toy. My Prime is a Silver Advanced model, BTW.

 

I won't let it happen again, I"M SORRY, REAL SORRY.

 

OK....
So not to chase this squirrel too far....
Current internet "wisdom" suggests that having a tire that is miss-matched from its mates by more than "about a quarter inch CAN" damage AWD and 4WD transfer cases. I suppose that this is true enough, but Priuses are FWD (FRONT wheel drive) cars, and like most cars.....you also steer them from the front. (it will come to you....)

The reason why they don't usually let Parts Department Managers work on cars is very similar to the reason that they do not let hospital gift store managers perform open heart surgery.
Store managers and Cardiac surgeons can both be very good people, they just have different skill sets.

So for those that think that "Doughnut" spares are proper spares?
They are!
BUT!!!!
They have limitations, and should only be used to limp the car home or to a tire shop for an immediate repair/replacement.

There are a few very good reasons to consider putting the 'doughnut' on the back of the car but they have nothing to do with some mysterious forces working in your car's innards, but rather because most of your car's braking and steering are accomplished from the front two tires and doughnut spares give you very limited performance.
They're skinnier and harder than the OEM tires and they only have to approximate the performance of the OEM tires.....because..........(wait for it!).......they should only be used to limp the car home or to a tire shop for an immediate repair/replacement.

The idea that somebody should use the erector-set inspired tools to remove a good rear tire and replace it with the doughnut, and then repeat the procedure to replace the damaged front tire with the previously removed rear tire seems a little irresponsible for an emergency roadside repair.....especially in marginal conditions and with inattentive, impatient drivers whizzing by a few dozen feet away.

Common sense:
fail.

 

I couldn't have said it better!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
AChoiredTaste.com

 

I'm having trouble connecting the doughnut discussion with how the OP moldings look...Seems like we drifted...

 

When using the web interface either click "Start a conversation" under their name on a posting or go to the mail icon in the upper right beside the Alerts flag. Then choose "Start a New Conversation"

 

I have done conversations just one-to-one. In fact, I started one today.
I restricted mine some because some users were starting a multi-person conversation instead of starting a forum thread.

 

There's a "reason" why it's advantageous to place a donut [sic] in the rear rather than in the front, but as I said before it has nothing to do with any mysterious mechanical forces inside your car.
The only reason that keep picking this nit is that there are still people out there who actually think that following dealership advice is actually a wise thing to do, and somebody who cannot afford AAA membership might actually think that they will hurt their car if they do not put the donut spare on a rear hub.
I do not mind people in dealerships parts departments giving out gratuitous advice, but whenever someone throws out a blanket statement like "never put a donut [sic] spare on the front a car" I need to know why this is so.
Remember....these are also the same people that are famous for giving their "customers" advice like:
"Your car needs a transmission flush."

Every now and then, everyone gives out bad advice.....and I did not want to do likewise in this case so I took the liberty of searching the owner's manual for any warnings, notices, cautions, about miss-mounting the compact spare that my auto-correcting browser keeps trying to call a "doughnut" spare, since this advice is not present in my 2010's manual:
https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47668U/pdf/OM47668U.pdf

So....I looked in the 2018 manuals, curious as to what has changed in the drivetrain:

https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47C17U/pdf/OM47C17U.pdf
https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47B89U/pdf/OM47B89U.pdf

According to the above owner's manuals (2018 Prius/Prime) there is no mention of not putting a compact spare on the front except on ice or snow covered roads (just like mine).
The OMs do give the standard cautionary tales for compact spares but there is no mention of damage to drive-line components for their use in Priuses because Priuses are front-wheel-drive vehicles, and thus it was anticipated that the front tires might not always be rotating at the same speeds.....such as when you have a compact spare on the car.....or.....perhaps when you're steering the car.

Owner's manuals are not perfect though.
They also mention taking the car to the nearest Toyota dealership for a repair - something that I would never do even IF the Toyota dealership was the closer than my home or any other tire shop.

As always......
YMMV!

Good Luck!

 

I bet it's 3M VHB tape - he's lucky that it didn't "set" yet. Kind of amusing how many car accessories are stuck on with the stuff; from Lamborghini body kits to that little spoiler on the trunk of the Model S to pedestrian body mouldings on sports trim cars.

 

How dark is your tint? 20%?