Jerry's Evolving Thoughts on "new-to-me" Prime Premium

I had some time to play with the used front grille parts I bought cheap (see photo on my comment #639). It turned out the "glass jaw" is even more fragile when it is removed from the backing black plastic. First of all, to remove the acrylic fascia off of the black plastic grille, all of the tabs (23) have to be released. But that turned out to be very difficult especially when the acrylic piece is already cracked but you don't want it to be disintegrated into many pieces as you try to remove it. The acrylic piece is also held in place with double adhesive tape in 9 locations which made pulling the acrylic piece without breaking very difficult.


After managing to release all the tabs and pull off the adhesive tapes, I finally had the acrylic piece released intact in one piece from the backing plastic. But immediately after taking it off, the crack that was already at the middle spread, and a piece snapped off.





This made repairing the crack very difficult. Using Weld-On #4 acrylic cement, I managed to glue the cracks for now. The acrylic piece has a lining that is painted. The cement also dissolved the paint.


Also as a note, even using commercial acrylic cement, like Weld-on, the visible cracks from the front do not disappear. This means that even if the acrylic facia is fixed structurally, the cosmetic defect will not be fixed.


I have to let the cement cure longer than 72 hours for full strength. When it is strong enough to handle, I will see if I can make this piece stronger with something. For now, backing it with epoxy and covering the surface with a strong wrap is my plan. But that process has to wait for a few more days.

 

Yeah, I must say that acrylic "glass jaw" fascia on front bumper cover is a major designing flaw on Prius Prime. I have no idea who ever thought it is a good idea to place such fragile parts up on front of the car where it is subjected to road derbies and flying object that may come in contact with a car, not even mentioning a case of front end collision. It will take a major re-engineering to make this piece stronger to sustain ordinarily impact of small rocks, road debris, birds and such.

 

Perhaps the design originally called for polycarbonate, and someone decided to save some on manufacturing costs.

 

3D print it out of some nice raincoat yellow plastic.

Isn't that the way it always is. Looks like they never intended for that piece to be repaired, just replaced. Good work.

 

Toyota does not sell the acrylic piece separate, and there is no after market product to replace just that piece. If it's cracked, the only way to repair is to replace entire Grille sub-assembly part including the black plastic baking part for about $400 (~$560 MSRP).

 

Dang, almost cheaper to trade-in for the next year up. Just kidding.

 

That's exactly what I did with my 2017 PRIME with a crack on the "glass jaw". But I know the dealer I traded took at least $1K off of fair market value for that. I am hoping to prevent that when I am ready to trade in my 2020 PRIME to 2021 PRIME next year.

 

Just takes a large well placed bug smear or an innocently placed mud splash.

 

Yeah that's the thing. New grille has the same "glass jaw". It is purely for cosmetic decoration, absolutely no functional purpose.

 

OK, update on the "glass jaw" repair. After two nights of clamping, the Weld On has cured solid. The label says to wait 72 hours for 80% strength, but it can be handled now. It does feel it is a very strong bond. However, as commented before, the structural repair did not eliminate or diminish the visible cracks in anyways. From the purely cosmetic point of view, it looks worse than before the repair. On my 2017 Prime with a crack on the "glass jaw", I used super glue to mend the crack without removing the grille, but the result was similar. Running glue melted the surface and made it look smudged. It was worse than a simple spiderweb crack before the repair.



After the glue completely cures, I plan to put carbon fiber tape on the back of the cracks and further strengthen the bonded area with epoxy filler. Then I will lightly prep the front surface and wrap it with VVIVID Indestructible wrap. I purchased black wrap, but I did not like the look on my car. I think before placing it back onto the black plastic backing, I will paint the piece over the wrap as well.

 

In decent traffic and no A/C going (windows down), I've been able to get ~6.5 m/kW. That's going ~30-40mph.
With A/C, it drops down to ~4.5 or maybe 5 if I'm lucky. The A/C load % is pretty high.

These are also short trips...only have a 2-3 mile commute to work. Now that the weather is cooling, I'll have to see what a longer trip is like on the weekend.

 

I'm lucky in that my commute is 1.5 miles each direction, and the speeds are 30mph or less, so the only thing that causes my efficiency to drop is temps and terrain. I'm in Illinois, so it is mostly the temps. The lowest miles per kWh I've ever had in a day was 0.6, and that was at or near 14 degrees F and 20-30 minutes of defrosting and defogging windows included. So achieving middle 6's per kWh is not difficult. On 30 minute trips in EV, I usually get middle or upper 5's. Not bad. In the Tesla world that would be 200 Wh/mile or better.

The Prime has saved me more than gas - it allows for far less anxiety. When I had the Gen 3 Prius, the engine could never warm up on the commute to work, and was fighting me with mpg's in the 20's at best, since it was a 5 minute trip. I knew once I'd go PHEV, that the low gas mileage would end entirely. So far, the trick is how am I ever going to use this gas I have in the tank. The December 2019 fill-up is showing as a full tank (yes, thanks to COVID, no real long trips this year). I did use 9 miles of gas earlier in the week, so that helps a bit I guess.

 

Sometimes you just have to go for a drive. I your case, once around the "lake" should do it.

 

The Canadian border is still closed, isn't it?