I just bought a comfortably used 2016 Prius, 126k miles. What's weird is that the under-hood insulation is shredded. The dealership blamed the pressure washing of the engine (??!!) And I'm honestly not quite sure what to do with it. Obviously I need to replace it, but I have 800 miles to get home. Should I take it off? Leave it? Make sure to deal with what's hanging? (That's my sister's suggestion.) I'm honestly worried about it getting into the engine I'm also not 100% where to get a new one, though I probably know a guy back home who could help
Mice have been in there, and might still be. Check the air cleaner box and the HVAC fan chambers. That's where they usually build the nest with what they've foraged.
Keep in mind too: this is likely a dealership that is BS'ing as fast as they can. Not that that's unusual.
I wash my engine department and do not have any shredded insulation. It would take someone acting bizarrely.
I don't think it was mice? It was a clean tear in the covering, and then a bit of damage to the insulation underneath. Not what mice would look like.
This would not surprise me. Maybe directly pressure washing the insulation? It kind of looked like that could have been the case, as if you stripped a slice of covering away and beat the underside a bit. I cut the hanging pieces off for my drive home. No error codes, no untoward problems on the long drive so I think I'm probably ok? I'm having the local hybrid expert do *all the things* it needs, but they're backed up about a week and a half from vacation <sigh>
Check the engine and cabin filters asap. Could be nothing, someone trying to unclog a washer jet for example.
Here's my hood insulation pad story: I didn't even plan to pop off the plastic rivets and look at/under it, but... Oddly, the windshield wiper sprayers all (4 of them) wouldn't work, but I could hear the little pump running and I had wiper fluid. I tried putting a baby pin into each of the 4 to unstick and focus their spray. No luck... But then, when the hood was up, I started seeing lots of blue liquid coming out from behind the pad. Hmm. I tried to remove the pad rivets carefully with interior removal tools. They are really on tight. All of the ones I removed broke. Toyota/Ebay have more... What I found underneath was icky and funny. Lots of orange mouse nesting material, almost all of it severed from the black pad. Liberal mouse poop (clean your hands after, don't breathe: danger of death!) and... a 3 inch section of rubber (soy rubber?) hosing chewed away. I did a 'temporary' repair by sticking a tasefully black Halloween straw between the trimmed bits of hosing, prayed a bit (I didn't, but, OK, I will be thankful in my next prayers) and put the car in accessory power on mode and squirted... And it worked! Now I just need to replace the yellow insulation material with fire-safe material. What can we put down to repel the next mouse looking for his/her/their house? Tags: Are your sprayers not working? Do you hear your engine a bit louder than it should be? Has your vehicle sat unused in a barn a long time?
