Hi y'all,
anyone here done either? The engine should be straightforward, but the inverter is a mystery..

If you have the knowledge, please share on the how-to!

 

on the service manual it says -

COOLANT LEVEL IN RESERVE TANK (for Inverter)
(a) The coolant should be between the LOW and FULL
lines when the coolant for inverter is cold.
HINT:
If the coolant level is low, check for leakage and add
TOYOTA Super Long Life Coolant (SLLC) or similar
high quality ethylene glycol based non-silicate, non-
amine, non-nitrite, and non-borate coolant with long-
life hybrid organic acid technology up to the FULL
line.

if you want to drain it.. here's the plug (somehow it's not a DIY thing because it needs to be bleed properly);

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater



DRAIN COOLANT (for Inverter)
NOTICE:
Collect the drained coolant and measure its volume
to establish a benchmark. When adding coolant,
make sure to add more coolant than the measured
amount.
(a) Remove the inverter reserve tank cap.
(b) Using a hexagon wrench (10 mm), remove the drain
plug indicated in the illustration and drain the
coolant.
(c) Using a hexagon wrench (10 mm), install the drain
plug with a new gasket.
Torque: 39 N*m (398 kgf*cm, 29 ft.*lbf)


ADD COOLANT (for Inverter)
HINT:
Coolant (for Inverter) capacity: 2.9 liters ( 3.1 US qts, 2.6
lmp. qts.)
(a) Add coolant from the reserve tank.
(b) Connect the intelligent tester to the DLC3.
(c) Follow the intelligent tester screen to perform the
active test of the water pump.
(d) While adding coolant so that the coolant level is
kept between the FULL and LOW lines.
HINT:
If the water pump operates without a sufficient
amount of coolant for approximately 5 seconds, the
protective circuit will activate to stop the water pump
for approximately 15 seconds. If a sufficient amount
of coolant is added, the water pump will start
operating automatically.
Standard:
When the operational sound volume of the
water pump becomes small or when no air
bubbles can be seen in the inverter reserve
tank sub-assembly, bleeding of the coolant
system is complete.
(e) After bleeding is completed, stop the water pump,
add coolant to the FULL level, and install the
inverter radiator cap.
NOTICE:
Make sure to add more coolant than was drained
initially.

 

Lincoln, thanks for sharing I just 'liked' your FB setup, thanks again!

-Mike

 

Thanks for reply -interesting that there are no bleed valves mentioned. Plenty of Prius on YouTube showing them. Camry that much different? I wonder.

 

They are completely different mechanically. Prius has bleeder valves for the engine and inverter, Camry has none. In Prius, the Intelligent tester is used to start the ICE water pump, Camry doesn't need it. While it;s the opposite for the Camry, you need the intelligent tester to start the water pump for the inverter but not needed for the ICE (you just squeeze the hose to bleed)

The transaxle layout is different too, the fill plug in Prius is facing front, the camry is sideways facing the passenger front wheel.

I don't think Toyota would just drop in a Prius Hybrid System to a bigger car (such as Camry)

 

I opened transaxle screw just enough that coolant was slowly dripping out and keep adding fresh coolant to inverter, making sure coolant level stayed between low and full at all times, then tightened the screw after adding approximately 2 qrt of fresh coolant. Did the same thing for radiator. I know I didn't change all of the coolant, but probably most of it at least inside inverter and that should be good enough. It's a long life coolant and it's not as critical as lets say engine or transmission oil. BTW, when I was changing coolant in my other cars, I could never drain more than about half of what the manual said the engine should hold, I think TCH is similar, so outside of flushing the whole system I doubt you can replace all engine coolant anyway. 2 months and hottest weather on record later, no problems whatsoever. To compensate not changing all the coolant, in the future I'll probably will be changing it more often than recommended. The instructions posted in manual make no sense to me: What do they mean "to add more coolant than what was drained"? If originally coolant was full adding more than drained would put it above full mark, contradictory to the instructions about keeping it between low and max, no? Could it be just poor Japanese to English translation? I think break fluid should be changed at the same time as coolant, but it's such pain I think I'm going to skip it for now.

 

Pete4 thanks for the technique on the inverter..that is creative. I was also wondering if one of those vacuum devices could be used on both the inverter and engine, such as a UView Airlift (anyone done this?).

True the refill more than was drained made no sense at all.

Also the need for the Toyota scanner is quite an expense, which I won't pay for.

I have seen some slipshod work come out of our local dealer, and it is rated as one of the best in the USA, so I would like to change both coolants myself. It seems to me these hybrids want to be serviced correctly, so as to avoid major component failures.

This car can be tricky and I don't want to mess it up, but I sure don't want the dealer to get paid for doing that either. There are some Prius stories out there that after the coolants were changed, there were pump failures and other expensive problems that suddenly appeared and cost the owners alot of money to fix out of warranty.

 

There's really nothing that prevents you from doing this yourself, just be cautious of what your're doing..

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There's a word of caution on the inverter coolant reserver but nothing on engine coolant radiator or reservoir. I think the tricky part there is how to enable the water pump to run while the coolant is being added because there are no bleed valves.