Transaxle replacement: how to/DIY writeup?

I got the recall done a while back. There was another recall on it recently but they said since I did the first one I wasn't eligible for this one.

Here's some comments on your instruction Keep in mind I wasn't familiar with the prius components or transmissions in general, so some of this might be obvious to some but might help others.

1. Ramps on the rear and jack stands up front work well, but I had a real crappy Kobalt jack and had to raise the front in two steps (raise a little, use jack stands, put wood under jack and raise more). It also took a lot of strength to use this jack. I would recommend a better one lol

2. The battery plug is on the left side (driver's side) behind the rear seats. And I didn't realize it was just a plug with no wire until I went to plug it back in.

3 & 4. Fairly straight forward, a few bolts, one electrical connector, and disconnect the relay box above the ICE.

5. Could not figure out how to remove the plugs in the wheel wells that fit in a square hole, eventually I undid all the other bolts and just yanked on the plastic covers real hard and they came off w/o damage but I'm sure this isn't the best way.

6 & 7. easy

8. There is a total of 12 electrical connectors on the inverter that need to be unplugged. no ground strap.

9 & 10. easy

11. Transaxle has 4 electrical connectors that need to be unplugged (3 on the front, 1 on the rear), along with whatever clips is holding the wiring in place.

12. I found the removal of the axle nuts to be optional, especially the passenger side. Removing the driver's side does give you a little more room to work with (by removing the axle completely) but it could easily just be hung somewhere out of the way.

13.
a-d. easy
e. At the back on the subframe there are two 19mm bolts on each side with "11" marked on the heads. I didn't pay too much attention and removed all these, but only one should be removed the other goes through the control arm and should stay. The other bolt (on each side) can be accessed through a hole in the control arm, it's about in the middle of the wheel well (easy to see). The transmission jack might work a little better on the subframe than a regular jack.
f. easy
g. I don't like buying expensive one time use tools so I didn't get the wedge and shim kit. Don't try to pry it with a screw driver, I got the idea of using whale jaw pliers from a youtube video and it worked great (clamp on the metal piece at the end, has some grooves in it, and bang on the pliers with a hammer to pop the axles out.)

14. I didn't get the engine hangers as I figured I could just bolt the plates that came with the hoist directly to the engine. i couldn't find where the engine hangers would bolt in and just used the two bolt holes left from removing the air box. Might not be the best place but it worked.

15. I did not get the recommended motorcycle jack, I got this one as it was cheaper. It worked but had trouble jacking up evenly (one side of the scissors mechanism would want to jack up more than the other.

16. easy

17. can't remember what all I had to disconnect but it wasn't much

18. easy

19-21. easy

22. If the orange connectors need to be moved over, one is easy with just a smallish square cover. The other, on the driver's side of the tranny needs the big cover removed, and you may also need to remove the small cover (pump cover?) on the large cover of MG end to line up the dowel easily.

23. I used a pump that I already had to fill the transaxle fluid, it was easier because I had already put everything in the engine bay back together. Coolant was pretty simple, won't need more than a gallon.

24. Still need to do this


My total cost on this was right around $700 (24k mile transmission, engine hoist, transmission jack, misc tools/parts, fluids). Took me a week start to finish, but I only worked on it at night and had a few days down time waiting for parts, I don't think I spent more than 16 hours actually working on it though. Now I'm sure I could do it in a day, and maybe half the time, if I had to do it again.