Oil Change Access Door

i took mine off completely and replaced it with an aluminum model made on a cnc machine at a local shop. door is hinged and has a locking cover to keep people from stealing my oil. all this for under a hundred bucks and well woth it!

 

Haven't got to first oil change, but I raised it once for a dry run. I pulled out the 3 fasteners on that access flap, expecting it to flop down, but nothing happened. I finally pried it down enough to have a look, and was suprised at the effort needed. It seemed like the whole panel was flexing quite a bit before it started bending at the "hinge" point.

If it's breaking off, I suppose you could sandwich the joint strip of some sort of tarp material on both sides, and pop-rivet it together, producing a flexible joint. Pretty funky to have to deal with this though.

 

Just did my fourth oil change, and I noticed that the "hinge" is tearing. I can foresee the need for some kind of legitimate hinge when the thin plastic seam gives out. I've seen some plastic hinges on the 'Net, I'll have to track them down again.

 

$800 bucks for a piece of plastic? That sounds steep!

 

If this is truly the case, we need to push for a TSB of some sort. This is un acceptable.

 

Can you give some detailed information about how it was done or by what kind of a shop (what to look for)?

Thanks.

 

my door is gone too....but it DOES make it much easier to change the oil

 

Do we need the door? What is the purpose of the door? fuel economy? Will our gas milage decrease that much?

 

keeps the road junk out of there, specially in winter. perhaps a bit of aerodynamics. absolutely necessary? absolutely not.

 

Yes, $800 for that panel sounds insane...

When I first looked at the underbody panels, just reaching under and giving them a tap, I was almost convinced they were metal: it is definitely thinner and harder plastic than Honda uses on their Civic Hybrid.

I picked up a rubber utility mat and cut chunks of it for various app's, guess a replacement flap could be made out something like that: cut the same outline as the flap, put holes for the push-thru pins in the same places, and leave it an inch long at the hinge location. Assemble with the push-thru pins to orient it, then pop-rivet to the remainder of the underbody panel at the hinge point.

 

I plan to drill a couple of holes each side of the seam and run zip-ties through leaving enough slack so the door can still fold down.

 

yup ! zip-ties as hinges ! even ferraris on track days survive on zip-ties !

 

Good idea spiderman! I'll be doing the same. Thanks!

 

I Just went to our dealer this morning, the door constanly was falling after the last oil change (4th one), thats what they did, added Zip ties to hold the door in place.

the mechanic said "the plastic clips keep breaking off, the weight of the ice and snow build up on the door, pops the door open"

This is a Poor design. this should be redesigned.

 

More likely each flex of the hinge point fatigues the plastic. The plastic used seems to be too brittle. Was this not a problem with earlier generations? Maybe they switched to harder plastic with third generation?

 

This whole under engine cover is an idea new to the Gen3, the gen2 had no cover therefore no door to fall off.

I had the four under body covers removed last year looking for rattles and I did some mileage tests with them on and off. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...5-mileage-test-under-body-covers-removed.html

If removing those four large covers made no difference in mileage I can't imagine the oil change door would matter. But it does keep dirt out so when mine falls off I will probably rig up something like Spiderman mentioned.

 

I've been thinking of something like this:



A couple of strips cut out of rubber mat would substitute for the paper, pop-rivets for the staples, a nylon rod (or section of vacuum tube?) for the pin. A thin layer of silicone dielectric compound on the pin would likely help.

I wouldn't do something like this until the door is actually breaking off, and try to flex it as little as possible in the interm.