Hello all! Hope everyone's had a good start to the new year. Kind of an update, Changing the headlight bulb was not as difficult as I feared it might be, because it was not necessary to remove the entire front bumper as per the factory service manual. My little Prius has HID headlamps for better or for worse. The headlight assembly is far more complicated (and expensive) than the halogen system. I haven't been able to update my findings regarding MPG and if the 12 volt battery could effect it. I just have not had the opportunity to properly test it. I have a trip up to Phoenix at the end of this month and perhaps after that, I will be able to at least pass along the facts and figures. My reason for writing today is to pass along a little information and to ask a simple question regarding the fuses in a second-generation Prius. I am sure this has been addressed previously in this form but for anyone who may be dealing with the fuses in a second-generation Prius, I have attached a picture of what they look like. These are the fuses used in the interior fuse block just above your left leg and there are several in the engine compartment fuse block also. That's what they look like but good luck actually seeing them. Using a mirror is a little hint. The other two pictures are of a fuse type I have never encountered before. I suppose it is some variation on a fusible link, but I have no idea how it might be serviced should it need be. Do you have to replace the entire fuse block or are the blades within it replaceable?
And it's a royal pain in the butt to replace You got to pry your fuse box All kinds of fun stuff so make sure nobody connects jumper cables for you You do it yourself Red to red black to ground you know follow the colors It's real simple Don't let some asshat Just do what he wants that's the first thing that gets shredded that's usually how it happens so as long as you don't let dingbats connect the jumper cables for you You're in good shape If you're getting a jump from somebody you always walk over to the person's car that's giving you the jump no matter how nice they are and you make sure that red clamp is on the plus terminal I can't tell you how many times you need to go over this You treat everybody like a 5-year-old If you don't well you'll be replacing this and more All you have to do should you decide that you would like to do is look over their shoulder and make sure red is on red black is on black and you're holding the other two ends of the lead heading to your car and you tell that person not to touch anything please. Then once your car starts get the cables off of it immediately hand them to the guy and say thank you so much failure to do this and well you may be chasing electrical gremlins for some time so don't let it happen You can read hundreds of pages here where it's happened.
Had to change it in a family member's gen 2 and got a junkyard fusebox first to practice on. I thought "oh, what a royal pain" while I was practicing, because a bunch of wires attach to the bottom of the white thing and they were so stiff that trying to lift the white thing out of the fusebox was really slow going. Strain to pull it up a cm or so, wedge something in to hold it there, come back in 20 minutes, it can be pulled up another cm, wedge it there, come back in 20 minutes.... At long last it was pulled far enough up to disconnect the wires at the bottom. When I actually got to the family member's car, having steeled myself to go through all that again, the thing just lifted right out of the fusebox and I just swapped the wires over to the new one and shoved it back in. What I had thought was stiffness of the copper wires, I think was really more stiffness of their plastic insulation—in the junkyard fusebox that had been sitting around for ages with UV from the sun beating down. In the fusebox that was just living normally in a car, the wires were much more flexible and the job was way easier than I was expecting.