Catching up some maintenance on my wife’s new to her 2015 two today. It has 38k miles and we have had it for a month. Lubed the brake slider pins with some Sylglide today. The brake slider pins were almost completely dry...I was pretty suprised at that. I will be lubing the brake slider pins every 30k miles or so from now. Took less than 30 mins and that included taking the tires off and putting them back on. Brake pads still looked like new. It will be going to the stealership for a brake fluid flush in the next couple of weeks. Want them to do that since the proper brake fluid flush method requires the Techstream.
On the 2015? There is an officially sanctioned brake fluid change without Techstream, in the Repair Manual. I'll attach that excerpt. Also, @NutzAboutBolts has a video on it, pinned at top of maintenance sub-forum. A couple of comments on the video: 1. The proscribed order in the Repair Manual (and not sure if it matters, fwiw) is: FrontRight, FrontLeft, RearLeft and RearRight. 2. In the video they use a motorized vacuum source. The don't say, but a lot of viewers seemed to infer it was needed. But really, it's not. I made do with just a large syringe with tube extension, and needed that only for basting out old fluid from the reservoir at the outset. For the rest, I used just a tube with a (kosher) bleed bold coupler on the end, and ran it into a big old mayo jar with hole drilled in the lid. What you do need: someone to step on the brake at the right times. I used 2 pints of Toyota DOT3 fluid, that worked out about right. I made sure to wrap up with the reservoir level as it was at the outset, and with a little new fluid held in reserve, just in case I wanted to fine-tune the level after a few days. It was fine though, I ended up just recycling that remainder (it doesn't store well once opened, I've found). Watching the video is extremely helpful. In particular: they show in split screen how your assistant (mandatory) pushes the brake pedal, in conjunction with open/close of bleed bolt. And the trick to getting the car into "invalid mode". It's described in the Repair Manual attachment too, but it's tricky. For example in order to shift from out of park you need foot on the brake, and that I believe is not noted in the manual. The main thing with the video: you see how doable it is.
I bled the system on my '13 V wagon the other day without Techstream. I have to say, it was by far the easiest bleeding I've done on any car because the Prius basically has a built-in power bleeder. You just have a helper apply pressure to the brake pedal and hold it, that activates the pump, which power bleeds the system -- it's wonderful. I don't know what the Techstream is supposed to do differently -- maybe just allow you to do it without a helper?
Do you guys know if this method works exactly the same on the 2015? This is from the 2010 service manual.
i'm also surprised at the dry pins. was it a northern car? why are you doing the brake fluid so soon?
It was a FL car. It’s over three years old now. I do brake fluid flushes every two years. Lots of humidity here in South Carolina.