My dog crawled under the driver seat and chewed clean through a group of wires. There is no beeping when you do not have your seat belt on or if the door is open and the airbag light illuminated on the dash. we brought it to toyota and they want to replace the whole harness for $7000. is that necessary or is it as easy as soldering back together or some sort of splice? Will it sense a resistance? and the other thing is are those wires linked directly to the airbag and can it go off if i splice them.. If any one has some ideas can you please share. I would greatly appreciate it as i dont want to pay 7000 or get rid of my dog...
What's to stop the dog from doing this again? You should try and splice and see how that goes. But the airbag sensor is the big hurdle.
Do you have any independent workshops near by that work on Priuses. Seeing as the damage is in a known location (that's a huge help), and presumably quite localized, I'm pretty sure that any good independent workshop could repair it as good as new for vastly less than what the dealer has quoted you.
Splicing the wires by soldering is perfectly ok. Insulate, and protect each splice with heat shrink tube after soldering. The resistance of the joints will be less than the wires they replace so that will not be a problem. The 12 volt battery must be disconnected before carrying out this work to eliminate any risk of airbag deployment. It "may" be required to turn off the trouble codes for the airbags once the work has been carried out, but they "may" reset themselves. John (Britprius)
no more rides in the car for that dog.... id remove the seat to make life a little easier.. you might want to remove the orange safety plug as well as the 12 volt battery and let it sit overnight so everything discharges .. good luck
Hmm, rats love to chew on Prius wiring. Sounds like your beloved pet isn't much bigger than the rodent to be able to squeeze under the seat. SCH-I535
Unless the wires are to close to the connector/s, repair them with environmental or butt splices. Even shielded wires and coax can be repaired if you have the right splices.
