$875 Auction Prius - Drove it home!!

My god man, that is gross. Good job of cleaning it, as stated above i guarantee the hybrid fan in the back needs to be removed and cleaned. All that dog hair will get in the fan and make it nasty.

 

What's the oil and coolants look like? Engine air filter? You check those before driving home?

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For the odor, maybe a leave a couple open boxes of baking soda in it overnight? For fabric cleaning the seats, I have Woolite cleaner that I got from Amazon and I think it works pretty well. Also, I've found that mixing a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen peroxide / Dawn dish soap does absolute wonders on stains. I've only used it for clothes, but if you have stains in your seats give it a shot. I'd definitely toss the carpets.

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When I cleaned up my new-to-me 2006 Prius, I removed the front seats, shampooed the carpets, scrubbed carpets with old time scrub brush and then vacuumed with heavy duty shop vacuum. Carpet came out pretty clean but not brand new. IMHO, I would try cleaning carpets first. If carpets are not cleanable to a presentable level then get a new carpet.

 

Great score, it has cleaned up real well and looks a treat. I bought an ex taxi that had huge miles on the clock, took ages to get the smell out of it and clean out all the vents where crap had built up from hair and sweat and heavens only knows what else. But once cleaned up it has turned out to be a great work horse and cheap as chips.

T1 Terry

 

My guess is that this Prius the OP has spent some time in a watery grave. Probably a flooded vehicle at some point in time and dried out.

 

The best anti-odor you can do is remove the source. In this case it may be latent moisture, mold, dust, who knows. You already know how to clean that out. Check for rain leaks, especially that back hatch. Then for the lingering scent? Pick up an ozone generator from an equipment rental company. Run an extension cord out to the driveway, seal the machine in there and run it for 2-3 days.

Often the best way to clean seats & carpets is to unbolt the seats and get them out of the car. You can get at every bit of it with ease.

 

When removing seats, doing it one at a time / day can be your friend for finding ways to do it easier and better. I did a full carpet removal, and cleaning once and there is definitely no substitute for it, put it's a real time consuming unfriendly process.
I do carpet remnants too. but only on the hottest, driest days of the summer. In the driveway, hose um down, mix laundry detergent in a bucket and scrub with a hard bristled broom. White pile gets bleach in the mix too. Turn um over rinse and repeat. When done, drag um to a set of saw horses and drape them in the sun to air dry. If you get full sun they'll usually dry in one day with luck.

Be careful of air bags in the seats, but you may want to eventually get to undoing some of the easy parts of the cloth upholstery and getting the cushioning underneath directly.
Cleaning up after pets can be a challenge, especially when they are not your own special friends.

 

If there was a lot of animal hair in the car, make it a priority to check and clean the hybrid battery cooling fan. The intake for that is in the cabin on the right rear seat back. There is no filter for that, so animal hair will get into the squirrel cage fan and clog it up preventing proper cooling of your hybrid battery. That can be very bad for the battery. It is not difficult to get to (search YT for it) and clean, but is very important, especially when you know there was animal hair contamination in the cabin.

For the brake job, you do not have to disconnect the 12V battery, although it is not an unreasonable thing to do. After disconnecting the 12V battery many things in the car get reset. Your radio, your clock, your ECU codes, driver's window auto-up function, etc. If you'd rather not disconnect the 12V battery, but still want to make sure the brake system will not decide to activate the brake pump at the worst possible moment, then simply pull the two ABS relays under the hood in the fuse/relay box. They are well marked as ABS relays. If those are out, the brake system will not activate no matter what.

Also, on front brakes do make sure that you clean out the slide pins and their "nests" of all old grease (use brake cleaner and q-tips) and re-lube them with proper synthetic slide pin grease (not just "any" wheel bearing grease). It is super-important that those pins are properly lubricated. In fact, I would make it a practice to inspect and re-lube them once a year or so as part of routine maintenance. Other than that a front brake job on this car is a cake walk. Super-simple. I would not buy the cheapest RockAuto parts, though. I would do a little research and buy some better stuff. This may very well be the last time you will be replacing brakes on this car, so may as well get something good.

Good luck with the car, it sounds like you got a great deal and a good project for yourself. I love my 2007 a lot!

 

You must clean the fan itself as well as the duct work. That thing gets logged with hair and produces no airflow despite spinning if allowed to get to a bad state. Just check it and it will be obvious.

 

Yes, if course! That filter looked nasty. Best of luck! It's all simple stuff. After the cleaning you may also want to change the transmission oil. engine oil, spark plugs and engine air filter. Again, simple and relatively inexpensive items. Make sure to use proper transmission fluid (Toyota WS is recommended) and don't go cheap on the plugs, get the proper iridium ones (Denso SK16R11 or NGK IFR5A11). Those are good for 100K miles.