Potential new Gen 2 owner

stepping back, I guess I look at this as an interesting project car. Probably worth $4500 as a pile of parts today. Probably needs a good $3500 to turn it into an 18 year old car that no insurer would value higher than $6k were it to be lost.

An interesting opportunity, but keep it all in perspective.

 

In my head, that's you doing the evaporator and a shop doing everything else, (tank, struts, ac charge) including a surprise nobody's found yet. Because there are always surprises on 18 year old cars.

Oh, and stay the h*** away from eBay and Amazon for autoparts, particularly electrical, ignition & suspension subcategories. WAAAY too many counterfeits.

 

only thing i would add is.. the hv battery cooling system (i.e. a fan + back seat duct ) depends on the AC in the cabin to keep temperatures normal. AC is not a luxury like in most cars, its part of the drive train

 

Fix AC? Maybe watch the youtube video at the bottom.

Fix A/C or Live Without? ;-) | PriusChat

Tom Lech / LECH AIR CONDITIONING - YouTube

7.5 hours to replace evaporator OUCH

 

there's controversy here regarding 'a/c part of drive train'.

some people hook up an obd scanner to watch battery temps, and haven't noticed a difference between a/c off and a/c on.
others say if you are comfortable, your battery is too. idk if toyota states anything in the o/m.

 

If A/C is part of the drive train, then why isn't the A/C controlled by the drive train. How does the drive train turn on the A/C or shut the car down if it can't turn on the A/C. Doesn't stand to reason.

 

The car already had a bad compressor and a bad txv valve. Possibly because of bad ac oil. Not operating now means the root cause all along was a leak. Major repair likely again on a compressor run by three phase power with the windings insulated by the proper oil. This tells me a true hack outside of the dealer has been working on the car.

Exactly.

Given the price and hackery, the next balls to drop are the engine and brake booster. I would not give my son this vehicle and expect reliability.

USMC Vietnam Era

 

what im trying to say is that heat kills batteries. The batteries are in a box under the back seat. the only cooling they get is a fan pushing air through a duct that pulls from the cabin on the vent on the right hand passenger side. So if that person never uses the AC, and they drive around in places where it's 120 F degrees outside and no AC, parking in a lot where its 130-140 in no shade, windows closed for 8 hours, what are we talking 150F inside that miniature greenhouse? They start the car, no a/c, commute home for an hour, those batteries heat up by nature of their internal resistance during normal operation, so now we are maybe pushing 160-170 on the batteries? Those batteries are going to undergo a lot more heat stress than someone who has the A/C cranked. The a/c is basically the cooling system for the batteries, like a radiator cools the engine.

 

Said person is likely to be dead, never mind the car's battery. With all 4 windows down and a reasonable speed the car might be only 130F inside. People die in short order at those sorts of temperatures unless they are very well hydrated. Maybe even then.

A more reasonable scenario is 100F outside, all the windows down, and 110F inside. I don't think that would actually kill the pack. It would result in the blower running at higher speeds though. Hot air can still pull heat out of an enclosure, it just doesn't do it as well as cooler air.

 

2 minutes of bla bla bla and 0 important information.
In order to get to the evaporator coil you have to remove everything to get full access to the hvac box. You will have to split that box. The coil is hidden inside of it.