Gen 3 Dead accessory battery, manual key won't unlock door

can't wait to find out what's wrong with it. maybe built on a friday?

 

Good tip, I went out and tried it right away.

What about just silicone?

 

I believe I misread your post. I didn't think you could "turn" the key.
Sounds like one of the rod ends has come out of the plastic clip.
Don't think the dealer is going to do anything about it, without charging you.
Pull the door panel off and see what happened. It's fairly easy to remove it.

 

Thanks, just did this as well! I have had to do this a few times before after I bought cheap FOB batteries and those kept dying.


While i was out there i had a few thoughts if someone thinks there may be a problem: 1. have someone inside the car to open the door if the key doesn't work. 2. Roll the window down before closing the locked door. 3. If needed to be parked for a longer period...you could tie a string to the handle and drape it across the seats to the other door (as hidden as possible) with just a slight tail coming out. This would be good in a pinch until you can address the real problem of course.

 

Don't RIG it, fix it! Pull the door panel. Sounds like the end of the rod came off the door lock.
The plastic probably broke from age. It's fairly easy to repair, and inexpensive. YOU CAN DO IT!

 

So if I am out of town on business and the car is a hotel parking lot, the best advice is to stop what I am doing and fix it??
I was not advocating rigging it long term. I was offering a temporary solution, apart from calling AAA, until it can get fixed as per your previous advice and agree it will probably be a really easy fix.

When my sunroof exploded, it took a week to get the new glass, if temporary rigging is outlawed here, my car would have been unusable for that week (it happened to be a rainy week).

Also, i should have clarified, numbers 1 & 2 were suggestions to keep oneself from getting locked out of the car while testing if the lock isn't working properly.

 

Perhaps I misread, again. I didn't see where anyone was "out of town".
If you are stuck on the road(or at a hotel) you do what you need to do UNTIL you can fix it properly.
My understanding was it happened at his house.
Just get a slim jim and take it in the hotel room and if you can't get the car unlocked us that.
Safer and less risky then running string some scum bag may see while checking cars to break into.

 

Are there any YouTube videos or decent instructions on this? I found one, but was not the best. I asked in a thread awhile back and didn't receive any response.

I have the dreaded "collapsed door armrest" and I'm confident that I will be able to fix it but need to get the door panel off.

 

Somewhere on here is a link. I have no idea where though. Sorry.
If you go to youtube and type in "remove drivers door panel for 20XX Prius, you'll find videos. Where "XX" is your model year.
You should watch several videos because are better than others.

 

So I just typed on youtube search bar "how to remove door panel prius 2010" and got this one below, less than 4 minutes duration.

 

Nifty! Now click the "cog" and change the speed to 1.75.

 

Weird that link didn’t work for me, but I also typed the same thing and watched the first one that came up. Seems pretty straight forward to me and kinda standard operation with most doors. A couple screws, a bunch of clips, lift and separate.


-Spiral

 

well, not to side track this thread, but yeah, EXPLODED! Lexus was not very interested in helping either. Started driving home from work and it sounded like a shotgun went off above my head (i was on the highway with corn fields on both sides of me, there wasn't a single car or person anywhere around). Then all I could hear was loud air movements, same sounds as if the moonroof was open. pulled off to the side and noticed a giant hole in the glass. I was only about a mile from work, so I turned around to assess and decided removing all the glass was safer at interstate speeds than having small pieces continue to fly off. Lexus said because I removed the glass they couldn't help me since they couldn't determine if a rock had done it. They didn't bother to even look at the pictures. I was pretty livid. The pictures show the glass bowing OUTWARD. If a rock and hit it, it would have shattered inwards. I had to find a replacement glass which took time, but still needed to drive the car, so I "rigged" a solution. It was janky, looked stupid, and made a lot of noise, but it kept the rain out and I was able to continue working. Ended up finding an entire assembly off ebay and it installed in 10 minutes with 4 screws. I still have the janky one in storage if something happens, I can throw that back up.

 

I consider myself pretty good with searching, but somehow I totally missed this one. Thanks!!

If only he'd kept the camera running -- the collapsed armrest problem he pointed to that he was gonna fix is what I will be doing.

 

Search for the arm rest....

 

This info helped me! Have three 2006, 2011, and a new to me 2014. The 2006 has been sitting waiting to have its traction bat reconditioned and bad cells replaced. I couldn't manually open the door with the key and this thread confirmed that it is all mechanical! Of course WD40 is something I stay away from with locks and the graphite did the trick! The key turns clockwise to "open" the door. That direction was definitely stuck, clogged, glommed. Thanks everyone!

 

Off topic / But On Topic: The reason WD-40 is both 'a quick solution' and a terrible long term solution was explained to me after I used it to ungum-up a victrola I bought that had 100 year old hardened grease. The good news is that WD-40 contains a solvent and a medium to deliver it, not really any long-term lubricant. It works quickly to unstick things, but then leaves them long-term just as badly off as they were before - it's not a lubricant - it's a quick solvent. And, unfortunately, that evaporates/dries away really quickly leaving you with gummed up/drived mess--unless you follow the WD-40 application with a compatible lubricant. For mechanical locks, stick to graphite based 'liquids' like Lock-Ease.

My dad taught me a handy trick: Just take a pencil and rub it repeatedly on both sides against the key you have that works in the lock you want to lubricate. The idea is to coat the key with a lot of pencil 'lead', AKA graphite. Then insert and remove the key many times, turning it through it's range of motion. Then repeat, with more pencil graphite on the key...

 

WD-40 content was analyzed with Gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectroscopy (MS).
Results where:

Mineral Oil
Seriously. WD-40 is mostly a mix of baby oil, Vaseline, and the goop inside homemade lava lamps.

Decane
WD-40 contains an abundance of alkanes—hydrocarbons that match the formula CxH2x+2, usually in a long, zigzagging chain. This one, C10H22, which is also a common ingredient of gasoline, helps WD-40 remain a liquid at cold temperatures. Decane doesn't freeze until around -21 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nonane
Another alkane. One reason these molecules are so handy here: Their hydrogen atoms don't hold a charge, so they can't connect to the hydrogen or oxygen in water, which makes alkanes water-repellent. WD-40, after all, stands for "water displacement, 40th attempt."

Our lab analyzed WD-40 with gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectroscopy (MS). GC separates chemicals based on size, boiling point, and other factors, releasing them one by one over time. MS then blasts the molecules with an electron beam and tells what's what by the mass of the ionized fragments. Tridecane and Undecane
Freeze-resistant? Check. Water- repellent? Check. Contains an alkane that is the major product of the red-banded stinkbug's scent gland? Check! Many alkanes are naturally produced by living creatures. Undecane, part of the pheromone trail left by cockroaches and ants, is present.

Tetradecane
Another alkane! Zzzzzz.

Dimethyl Naphthalene
Here's the thing: This stuff (C12H12) comes in 10 forms, called isomers. One of them is a harmless hormone given off by potatoes. Another is used in high-performance engineering plastics. Our analysis can't determine which ones are present here, but if you're using it as a solvent, as is likely the case with WD-40, they all work just fine.

Cyclohexane
That cyclo prefix means that unlike standard alkanes, which come in chains, this one's a ring. The shape gives cycloalkanes a higher melting point. And huffing them will knock you out cold. (Or so we're told.)

Carbon Dioxide
The WD-40 company claims that by using this gas as a propellant, it avoids using smaller gaseous alkanes (possibly butane and propane), which can be hazardous to the environment. As if CO2 isn't.