gen 3 hybrid battery cooling fan dust buildup

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Well I took your advice and took everything apart to get to my 2010 battery fan. I was pleasantly surprised to find it in pristine condition. No dust buildup or anything I could see at all. I put everything back together. I did however check my cabin air filter. It was black! I will be changing it this week. I changed my engine air filter a few days ago.
Are there any other preventative maintenance items I could check? Car has 93000 on it. Car fax says a 40000 mile service was done on it at the dealer. Says alignment, electrical system, new tires and oil filter change at 48,000. Fluids checked at 68,000. Oil and filter change and tire rotation at 76,000. 76,366 says recommended maintenance preformed at the dealer???? 92,000 tires rotated
Anything else I need to be doing?? Thanks in advance

 

There are some cabin filters that are blackish from the outset, impregnated with carbon.

Transaxle fluid change, brake fluid change, and an in-depth brake inspection, are a few that come to mind. Again, @NutzAboutBolts videos have a lot of info.

 

I just did my son's 2014 Gen 3 last weekend. Not sure when was the last time it was cleaned. Here are some pictures of the before and after.

 

How many miles on it? This might be indicative of a fan that's running a lot, maybe often at higher speeds (there's 5 or 6 speeds), either due to high ambient temps, stop-and-go driving, and/or a borderline battery. If the filter is dusty, I'd assume the downstream passages and the fan fins could use a cleaning too.

Interesting: the 2010 doesn't have that filter. People have jury-rigged similar though. I started with vacuum filter, but ultimately used household window screen, similar mesh size.

 

His car has 105K miles. It used to be a fleet car. That could explain this build up. I was also suprised to find this filter when I openened it. I watched Nuts&Bolts video and his car did not have a filter. The 2014's filter was not a tight fit tough. It was Toyota brand and held to a couple of openings, however did not seem to be a perfect seal. The fan blower had the usual fine dust when I cleaned it.

 

Oh ok, was thinking you didn't get there.

 

Hi there,
new member here, just joined. actually found this forum because i was searching with re to this specific issue.
i actually have two prius: a 2014 and a 2015.
the 2015 went to the dealer and they upsold me on a bunch of services, including this one. the silver lining is that it made me aware of the need to check the fan vent, and when i looked at my 2014 fan vent it looked pretty clogged up, exactly like the photos from @icyrius above show. i also want to give a shout out to @NutzAboutBolts, because i followed his video exactly. i am not much of a car guy, and didn't even understand socket wrenches (drive size, etc), and had to go buy a set to do this. (fortunately i got a cheap set for less than $20). the trim clip pry bar was also enormously helpful on those plastic clips.
some people have said it is not necessary to remove the rear seats. i was encouraged to proceed by these statements, but ultimately, i thought, "I'm in for a penny, in for a pound." i figured i might as well go all the way. so i completely removed the seats and the fan. the fan did not look super dirty - until i started cleaning it. i used Q-tips with isopropyl alcohol (at least, i THOUGHT it was isopropyl, until just now when i saw that it was actually hydrogen peroxide!). anyway, the dirt was very fine on the fan blades. almost invisible. but once it got wet, it was like mud. it took the longest portion of time for the whole job just to clean the fan blades. i did two passes and tried to always sweep in one direction with the Q-tip. but regardless, there was always some "mud" stuck at the top or bottom of the fan. i always held the fan blades in position with my other hand, to avoid rotation, and potential damage to the motor. compressed air was of very little use so i wouldn't even bother with it. in all honesty, i probably could have not cleaned the blades at all. but i think cleaning the vent was very important. it looked very obstructed as you see in the photo from the user above. in general, the job was pretty easy, and i'm very glad to have saved $195 (as quoted by my local dealership). i'm curious as to the cost of the fan, because if it was really dirty, and i had to do this again, i would probably be more interested in just replacing it. i can't imagine the cost is more than $35, and the work is now familiar to me. of all the time spent, cleaning the blades took me the longest.
hopefully, hydrogen peroxide was not a bad thing to use. but nutzaboutbolts says in his video that he used brake cleaner, which is probably harsher (even if it probably dries faster). if i were to do it over again, i might use brake cleaner too.
i'm also glad that i took the rear seats out, because it was very easy to take them out and replace them, and doing so gave me the opportunity to clean them better. i also found a ton of cheerios and some nasty looking milk or barf under the seats. (my kids are 2 and 4 and i bought the car when the older was an infant). so now everything is cleaned up and working well (it seems). just wanted to share my experience since the posts here provided me with valuable (and money-saving) information.
thanks.

 

Yeah I never bother with that; it's trivial to reach through and remove one bolt. But no cheerios and barf here, lol.

 

tried feeling for the bolt myself but no luck, been wanting to do the screen filter inspection. Maybe this weekend.

 

I had the same frustration when I cleaned the battery fan as part of the job of cleaning my bus bars and installing a Prolong harness. With a sore back I finally said f*** the q-tips and spent a couple minutes to remove it. It was then a 2 minute job of holding the fan blade stationary as I sprayed the entire fan blade assy. with a garden hose.

 

You want to have a some light, and a ratchet with 6" and 3" extension. IIRC it's 12 mm socket size? Put a knee on the seat cushion near the back, compress it a little, and push back-and-up a bit on the bottom of the seat back. Piece of cake then. You can get a hand in too, when it's just about off: you don't want to drop it. A magnetic grabber might work well too.

I just reached in with a q-tip, found the prospect of complete removal more daunting. Then set the wet/dry vacuum to blow, to wholesale blow the dust out. I believe you should keep a finger on the fins, prevent it from free-spinning?

But as someone, @padroo?, was saying the other day, there's a lot of things that add up to 10 (1+9, 2+8 and so on).

 

Just found that my 2014 has the filter/screen. 63K miles and not too much dust on it. Easy to press on the seat to remove the bolt with 12mm socket. Dropped both socket and bolt. Was able to reach the socket but needed a magnet retriever to reach the bolt. Removing the seat bottom looks easy if all else fails. Once bolt is out work the trim piece up and out. The screen is an odd shape and looks like it does not fit well but after settling it in place it seems to be OK. A tab on the right side and the top fit in indents in the mouth of the duct. Did not look at the fan, yet. Probably not too much
dirt on it based on what was on the screen.

 

Yeah dig down to the fan before too long.

 

Anyone know if this filter would work in a 2010? The clip-on filter is just plastic that I think would be fine for pet hair, but this larger one looks like it'd be more effective for dust and debris.

 

Does anyone know what the part number for the PriusC is? And did Toyota start including a filter in later model years but earlier ones didn't have one? I'm wondering if I should order this for my 2014 Prius Plug-in (and for my friend whom I sold my 2012 PriusC to).

 

I think he meant the part # for the Prius C HV-Battery filter...

 

i think I meant the forum on this side is the gen 3, the non-C or V.

 

The post I quoted had part numbers for the Gen 2, Gen 3 (2010-2013), PriusV, and Camry HV battery filters, so I didn't want to create a duplicate thread for the same thing. It just wasn't obvious to me if the HV battery filter was not included in earlier model years, but is included on current model years.