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I was looking into replacing the spark plugs on my housemate's Prius PHEV, which is
idling very roughly. I found a video on YouTube that shows, in detail,
how to do it.

* First, you remove both windshield wiper arm assemblies.

* Next you remove the wiper motor and associated linkages, in their
entirety. You have now removed about 20lbs of parts.

* You then remove the large plastic and metal cover underneath where
you once had windshield wipers.

* Having removed *all traces* of windshield wipers from the car, you
then pry up the simple plastic cover that sits in the middle of the
engine compartment, right on top of the engine, but which projects
*slightly* beneath where the wipers were, and Voila! You can replace
the spark plugs - after you remove the four ignition coils sitting on
top of the plugs, of course. It actually looks easier to remove the
entire fuel system from the engine than it is to replace four spark
plugs. Pass.
 
Luckily the plugs seem ok on our '07 regular Prius. Note they are the originals but the car only has about 110k miles on the ODO.
Note when cold I've noticed a slight bit of roughness in the ICE but only lasts a minute or so, probably until the plugs get warm :(
Crazy you have to remove the wiper assembly to do something that took just minutes on cars of yesterday! Not that my old slant 6's were the easiest being on the downside of the slant but nothing like your describing!
 
It does sound like a pain, but in the end not as dramatic as it might first appear. I had to remove the LEAF's wipers and cowl assembly when I accidentally put the wrong fluid in the reservoir. Long story, it was a cleaning fluid that had the same color as the windshield washer I thought I'd grabbed and it catalyzed somehow with the Rain-X that was in the reservoir, slowly forming a goop that began clogging the system.

Anyway, the wiper stuff is intimidating but really not a big deal once you've done it. More of a PITA was getting to the reservoir and fluid pump, which required removal of the entire front bumper fascia. :lol:

Use some good iridium plugs and you probably won't have to worry about them again for 100,000 miles.
 
Then there are the individual ignition coils on top of each plug. I'm hoping the dealership won't want a ridiculous amount to do new plugs and maybe one or two coils. We think that this is a fuel problem that they never properly dealt with, but if they are talking about failing coils - at 6 years of ago and 30k miles. I don't want to play "let's see which expensive part actually needed to be replaced"...


The crazy thing is that the plastic cover on the top of the engine is NOT under the wipers. It just projects under them a few inches in the back. In the comments section there is mention of just loosening the wiper shroud and squeezing the cover past it. I'd probably try that if I had to do it...
 
OT: Way back when I was considering which (used) sports car I wanted to buy to do stupid things in, I was interested in the Sunbeam Tiger, which was a Sunbeam Alpine with a Ford 260 (later 289) V8 shoehorned into the engine compartment normally occupied by an inline 4, the same basic idea as the Cobra, but with roll-up windows and (at the time and probably now), a lot less expensive than a Cobra. I knew a guy who bought them, fixed them up and then sold them. I didn't want the typical British sports car of the era owing to their lousy Lucas* electrical system and oil leaks, so thought the Tiger might at least have a reliable engine/transmission. I asked him why he sold them and didn't keep one. He said"'because you have to remove the engine in order to change the spark plugs." :eek:

I wound up buying a Datsun 2000.


*One of the ad slogans suggested for Lucas by one of their long-suffering customers was "Lucas - the company that invented darkness".
 
GRA said:
*One of the ad slogans suggested for Lucas by one of their long-suffering customers was "Lucas - the company that invented darkness".

lucassmoke.jpg
 
I think I've mentioned this before, but the Volvo 240 (aka "the Brick") had mediocre bearings in the ventilation fan motor, causing them to eventually start to squeal, especially when cold. (It also had biodegradable wiring insulation, but that's a story for another time.) This annoyance was made infinitely worse by the fact that, according to legend, anyway, the car's assembly process began with a worker suspending the blower from a string at the beginning of the assembly line, with the rest of the car then being assembled around said blower. No one in their right mind ever tried to replace the blower when the bearings went bad, as this required disassembling most of the dashboard and a little of the engine compartment. Instead, various 'Drill N Squirt' techniques were developed to bore a hole or two (or more, when you missed) in the ventilation plenum adjacent to the motor ends, squirt oil of various kinds* onto the motor shaft at the bearings, blot up the excess somehow, and then patch up the hole and reassemble just part of the dash that you had to remove to get that far. This band-aid usually lasted a year or so - sometimes more, sometimes less - and then had to be repeated. More than one 240 was sold just because of the noisy blower fan.


* I probably hold the record for the worst choice of oil. Not wanting to have to repeat the job, I used 80 weight synthetic gear oil, on the assumption that it would stick in the bearings, and by virtue of being full synthetic wouldn't smell sulfurous. Alas, they actually added sulfur to the oil (probably to be mean) and our 240 smelled like the Bowels Of Hell from then until we sold it.
 
That's not too bad.
A typical V6 fwd car you normally get to take apart the intake to get the 3 plugs nearest to the fire wall.

Current hyundai hybrid car the spark plugs appear to be easy access.
Since the engine is off about half the time in city driving and off around 20% of the time for highway driving I think the plugs will last well beyond 100,000 miles.
 
Decades ago, I had a 76(?) Monza. To replace the spark plugs the engine had to be hoisted out of the car.
Bad design is nothing new.
 
That is the Toyota recommended method of replacing the spark plugs. Just like on the Gen-2. However you don't have to do that at all. You can get to them all without removing a darn thing as long as you have the right socket attachments and the ability to blindly place components without damaging the spark gap itself. I've done it before. And after 120k miles and replacing my plugs, the gap was still in spec. It was purely preventative maintenance at that point. If every 10 years you've got to spend an extra hour on car repair... That doesn't seem so bad.
 
Fortunately modern iridium spark plugs that last for 150,000 km or more have made changing spark plugs something that usually only needs to be done once or twice in the life of the vehicle. A PHEV with a decent EV range allowing it to only runs its ICE occasionally might never need its plugs replaced. Even if it does, it will probably have an inline 3 or 4 cylinder engine with the plugs readily accessible on top.
 
2k1Toaster said:
That is the Toyota recommended method of replacing the spark plugs. Just like on the Gen-2. However you don't have to do that at all. You can get to them all without removing a darn thing as long as you have the right socket attachments and the ability to blindly place components without damaging the spark gap itself. I've done it before. And after 120k miles and replacing my plugs, the gap was still in spec. It was purely preventative maintenance at that point. If every 10 years you've got to spend an extra hour on car repair... That doesn't seem so bad.


How do you get the spark plug cover off in that case...?

The problem turned out to be a defective ECU. Toyota knows about it and quietly extended the warranty on that part to 8 years. They reprogrammed it for free today, and will replace the ECU for free if necessary. So if you have a Gen III Prius that's idling roughly, and you get codes 0300 through 0302 (or 0304) you may be eligible for a free fix. Unless it's a 2010 or 2011...
 
Zythryn said:
Decades ago, I had a 76(?) Monza. To replace the spark plugs the engine had to be hoisted out of the car.
Bad design is nothing new.

GM later published a revised procedure: Drill holes in fender wells and use long socket extension. You still had a choice of either jacking the engine up or removing the right side exhaust system to remove the starter motor.
 
The problem turned out to be a defective ECU. Toyota knows about it and quietly extended the warranty on that part to 8 years. They reprogrammed it for free today, and will replace the ECU for free if necessary. So if you have a Gen III Prius that's idling roughly, and you get codes 0300 through 0302 (or 0304) you may be eligible for a free fix. Unless it's a 2010 or 2011...


I need to update this. The problem returned immediately, and we ere then told that there is no extended ECU warranty. We don't even know, at this point, what the issue is.
 
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