Plastic part on 17" Touring wheel

An improvement!

 

Thanks for these pics. I'm still perplexed/depressed by the course Toyota's on with Prius rims, but good to know what's in there.

 

Sweet !

 

Please do! Can't wait to see. The more I think about the absurdity of Toyota coming up with such a moronic design, the more I wonder about their competence.

I now have a bag of these plastic things sitting in my garage that will never serve any purpose just as they didn't while attached to my rims. What a waste of my money.

 

You could paint them black gloss and see what they look like back on.

 

Could you reach a hand through the plastic opening and pinch the two tangs enough to release the plastic price? To avoid having to remove the wheel for this?

I'm really put off by this design decision, in the whole. A nice silver painted rim, uncovered and designed to be visible, with slimmer spokes, anything but this, would be fine by me.

Thanks again, everyone posting pics and description.

 

Maybe plumbers pliers, the narrow ones, might reach the tangs ?

 

Guess the brake's in your way too.

 

I would say no, not possible. There just isn't enough room for a tool and your hands to get behind the plastic thing to pinch, then pull out from the front. I would suggest for your first service when they rotate your wheels to have Toyota remove them while they are off. But once removed you will like the result. Even the tire actually looks low profile and larger with just the rim itself!

 

It is what it is. In your shoes I'd likely do the same.

Still, I'd much prefer silver finish over black, there's those lobes, plus the square notches around the hub, all say uncovered utility rim to me. I'm in a slow burn over this, think Toyota's basically brain-dead over customer's wants, really frustrating.

One thing, if enough owners with touring pull them off, maybe it'll shame Toyota into a shift?

 

Having blacked out rims is definitely not a traditional silver alloy look, so if you prefer that, maybe leaving them alone is the best thing or in hindsight purchasing one of the other models that come to silver alloys and hubcaps with 15" tires. Honestly though, the clip holes and things that were designed in the rim for the silver bits disappear from view. I'm much more content to see them then the rims with the plastic bits. At least with the look I'm trying to achieve wit the car. I've even ordered California retro black license plates with gold lettering and numbers. I'm seeing them on more and more new cars that are black.

 

@ucla107 My 2 cents, the silver look is the best looking part of the rim, for sure use plasti-dip, something easily reversible, if you're going to black them out.

Trying to understand the rational, I guess they wanted to lighten the rim, but they could have done it with a modest reduction in spoke width, plus some hollowing out.

When we shopped Prius in 2010, this plastic nonsense pushed us to the 17" model, now that loophole is close too.

Sorry, rambling, need my meds.

 

I sort of liked these.

Toyota Prius - A Hybrid Icon. Again | Toyota UK

 

FWIW, my last car had these and the looked really nice-- not sure if the bolts were 21mm like on the Prius. Just a thought.

Wheel Bolt Caps Black (Complete Set of 20 Caps w/ Removal Tool)[12771404]

 

350 Euros?? Groan...

 

Wow! They actually look good painted. I still like without plus I'm a horrible painter!