Prius Hatch Debris

I don't think it's been discussed.

I have leaves which try to accumulate there too when I park under trees outside my Church - I have got into the habit of plucking them off when I open the boot if I notice some there. It's not the first car I've had that problem with.

 

i know in my prime those black pieces are attached to the taillights. so short of removing your taillights or cutting them off, i would say no.

 

The black parts indicated by the arrowheads in the photo are the left and right rear combination lamp covers, shown in parts catalog Figure 81-11, Rear Combination Lamp.

The removal procedure in the Repair Manual (available by subscription to techinfo.toyota.com), under Vehicle Exterior: Lighting (Ext): Rear Combination Light Assembly: Removal, has two illustrations showing how to disengage four claws using a molding remover, and then to disengage two guides, to remove each cover.

This is step 34 when removing one of the rear combination light assemblies, but it is the first step when removing the rear bumper, so I believe the covers can be removed on their own, if desired.

 

Here you go, try this. The video should start at 9:35

 

Wow - that's easy to flip it off - it looks like it pops back in easily.

But whether removing it every week for 5 years is going to weaken the attachment - I suspect so.

You might be able to approach a company which does car body wraps - they might be able to apply a narrow strip of wrap material to make a "bridge" across the top of here so the pine needles slide down the gutter, across the bridge and away, rather than under the bridge - but I'm not certain if the wrap would "stick" to the black plastic?:


Just go in with your chequebook closed tight - or you'll end up coming out with it looking like:

 

There are less costly options. For example, your local libraries (Seattle, King County), like many others, sponsor free access to the ChiltonLibrary service, which has most of the text and illustrations from the Repair Manual for the fourth-generation Prius, but not the Electrical Wiring Diagram or New Car Features books available on TIS, nor the library of Toyota technical training courses.

The fees for TIS don’t strike me as totally out of line, compared to the prices of the printed manuals that it replaced. For example, the paper Repair Manual for the MY 2011 Prius (the last one published) was sold by Toyota’s distributor, Helm, Inc., in five volumes, at a total price of $961 for the set. Even so, I think it’s unfortunate that Toyota doesn’t sell Electronic Technical Manual discs in the U.S., as they do in Japan; I would have gladly bought one from the dealer, if they’d had it for sale.

Quite the contrary. Like other automakers, as a signatory to the AAIA Memorandum of Understanding and Right-to-Repair Agreement (PDF), Toyota has committed to licensing their repair information to developers of ”third party service information publications and systems,” like ChiltonLibrary, ALLDATA, and MOTOR.

While some of those services do have information on current vehicles, several factors might explain why no publisher has (yet) invested in writing and publishing their own book for the fourth-generation Prius:

• Many of the cars are still under warranty, or simply don’t need repairs, so the market is small.

• Do-it-yourself books—like those from Chilton (2001–2008 Prius) or Haynes (2001–2012 Prius)—face vigorous competition, not only from TIS, but also from third-party services, online forums (including this one!), and unofficial copies of the manuals circulating on the Internet. The days when the only choices were the automaker’s paper shop manuals, bought sight unseen at a high price, or a Bentley, Chilton, or Haynes book, are long gone.

• For today’s complex vehicles, the condensed format may not be effective. That Haynes book has 256 pages and tries to cover three generations of vehicles; Toyota’s Repair Manual for the second-generation Prius alone has over 4,600 pages. As @ChapmanF observed in a previous thread, “the completeness of information and low rate of errors makes the choice easy.”

 

Yes, definitely.

The other observation I've made is that less people seem to be doing their own repairs - when I was a teenager with my first car, I had a manual and my mates and I would be tinkering with our cars most weekends.

And I agree with your other comment - cars which are still under warranty are unlikely to have many owners doing anything much more than is outlined in the Owner's manual. Once they're out of warranty, that changes a bit.

 

I have a similar problem - bouganvillia and cypress trees which drop rubbish similar to, but smaller than, pine needles. I just hose them out whenever I wash the car.

 

We get needles accumulating similarly on our 3rd gen. Our previous Civic Hybrid as well. Using a piece of coarse string like dental floss will sometimes help.

 

I just watched a Jay Leno's Garage episode where he was showing a 1960's automobile. Absolutely a beautiful piece of machinery and art combined.
Evidently this vehicle, came when you bought it, with a Chiltons like manual that showed you how to maintain, repair, just about anything and everything associated with the vehicle.

By contrast, my 2016 Honda Fit came with a highly abridged "Users Guide" showing only the most basic of operations, centering highly on entertainment console adjustments and usage.

The actual Owners Manual came on a downloadable CD.
If you wanted a hard copy of it? You had to contact Honda within X amount of time after purchase and they would send you one.

Even the owners manual is basically a repeat of everything in the users guide, with some additional information but seemingly mostly clogged with lawyer like warnings of what NOT to do. or NOT to expect. It's hardly something to consult in regards to doing much yourself except maybe for changing the oil or rotating tires.

Times have changed.

 

My folks had a 58 Beetle, bought new. I looked up the Owner's Manual for it, it's virtually a shop manual:

'58 Volkwagen Beetle Owner's Manual | PriusChat

(the pdf attachment is a little easier to read than the the link)

 

I've got a PDF copy of Dad's Austin A40 1949 Owner's manual. It goes into quite detailed maintenance and tuning, eg carburettor adjustment, brake adjustment & bleeding, all the greasing etc. It doesn't go as far as replacing items like piston rings and brake linings. It however, details that tappet adjustment and decarbonising is to be done regularly - but without detailed instructions. Whether that meant that the average owner at that stage was well aware of how to do it - or they sent it to the shop, I'm not certain. I know Dad used to do tappets, but don't recall the head ever coming off.