This is really weird. I hopped into my 2007 Prius today and the digital clock was pushed out of its snap-in mounts several inches back into the dashboard cavity. I don't even know how this might have happened, it's like somebody playing a practical joke on me. I spent a few minutes trying to wrangle it forward with my fingers pressed against the side of the display area, but I couldn't get enough purchase to snap it into its detents on the side. Please tell me I don't have to disassemble the whole dashboard just to snap the silly clock back into its mounts. There must be an easier way. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
A butter knife and less than a minute will remove the vent next to the MFD so you can get at it. I have never heard of them just falling back. Only if they are pressed hard. Any kids or anyone else have access to the vehicle while you were gone? It is simply to put back.
Not that I know of Of course there was that girl back in college... I'll give that a try, thanks for the suggestion.
There is a really good instruction manual out there (on this forum I think) with pictures and everything on how to disassemble the dash. I think it was for installing an EV switch, because that involves removing dash panels all the way across including the glove box. You might want to comb that over for the relevant section before you start going in blind if you have never done this before. You can snap off the plastic retainer clips easily if you pull the wrong way. The vents' clips are straight in out retainers. So no rocking or arcing. You need to pull straight out which takes patience to get enough of it out to do so.
I also have an '07 & no girl from college (LOL). Our fell in after a LIGHT touch w/ a cleaning cloth. The dealer 'fixed' it while it was under my ''pre-owned' warrante, then 'she' went out again. It did NOT fall into the dash, so I've left it the hell alone for obvious reasons yet, i wonder if I can get CLOSE to the radio's antenna connection so i could hookup my EXTERNAL XM radio by Delphi. If not, I'll just 'jerry-rig" a temp location for the antenna that came w/ it. Tom, let me know how u made out w/ that butterknife entri. Thanks, DJ
Due to travel and general laziness (oh--and SUPERstorm Sandy) I haven't attempted this yet. Now that we have bright sunny days back here in South Florida I'll have plenty of light to work with and give it a stab. I did some research as suggested above and found a number of photos and a PDF that identifies it as "Instrument panel register assembly #3". I saw a couple amateur photos posted by Prius owners that make it look like there's a tab sticking out to the left to secure this panel under that black finish panel that houses the Power button. If so, I can see myself being as careful as possible and still snapping that plastic tab, only to be rewarded with panel #3 rattling around from then on. Do you just slide the butter knife or equivalent tool straight in to push the latching tabs back? I guess you work from the bottom towards the top to slowly unfold it? Once I see it in my hands I'm sure it will be crystal clear, but I can't get there from here and I'm heeding the warnings to be careful so I don't break the plastic tabs.
The cover with the power button in it holds the vent with the park button in it in. The panel below the steering column traps the cover with the power button in.
