Remove rear spoiler flimsy

The spoiler is held on with nuts and snap clips. Once you have the 4 or so nuts off and you have unhooked the 3rd brake light harness you have to pull up firmly on the spoiler to remove it. Most likely the nuts are loose.

 

You can buy replacement clips from the dealer. You will need these to get it to reattach correctly. Ask me about backing up in a garage with the hatch open. Hint, don't do it.

 

@Elephanthead, my wife backed out of the garage with the hatch up and fortunately or maybe not so fortunately the spoiler took the hit rather than the garage door. It appears some of the screw mounts on the spoiler are broken and part of the mounting bracket also, so she got a guy at Firestone to rig some long plastic straps under the part of the mount that isn't broken. Is this a repair a moderately handy person can undertake himself, or should I leave this to the dealer? We are about to take a road trip from Chi to MSP and although it's still attached, I'm concerned about it flopping around or worse yet, detaching at highway speed. Dealers here are backed up for weeks because of a mechanics' union strike. I also thought of trying a body shop, but it's Weds. and we're leaving Saturday.

Should have mentioned it's a 2005 Prius.

TIA,

Bob

 

Removing and installing the rear spoiler is pretty easy. But to fix it depends on how it’s broken and you probably have to kind of rig something. If the old spoiler is damaged in the way that you can’t figure out how to repair it you can just get a used spoiler and install it.

 

Thanks @valde3. I researched it further and realized it's one piece for the 05; the way my wife described it, it sounded like 2 but that's because it looks like she basically sheared it into two pieces. The straps holding it on go under the spoiler in a small gap between the bottom of the spoiler and the body and then over the top of it. It's a total loss, so time for a new one. Dealer ordered it for $497. I'd do it myself but I'm afraid of breaking clips and I bet the bolts holding it on are probably at least a little bent and also need replacement. I'm not at all concerned about the paint matching and if I had it all to do again I'd order the part on eBay as you suggested. So it's the straps and duct tape in the meantime, and if it comes loose on the highway I'll just take it all the way off. From a Youtube video I watched on the subject you have to pull firmly to get the clips on the trim panels to unlatch but if you follow in sequence they're unlikely to break. The trick with this and many other similar repairs seems to be to not get in a hurry.