How to Remove Rear Window Glass 2010-15 Toyota Prius

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To take our window switch out. We have to pop this silvery-chrome piece off first. So I'll take our plastic trim tool. You can get these from 1AAuto.com. Kind of work it underneath here carefully. Then we're going to pop it straight up. It'll unclip. Put that aside. Now the switch bezel can come up, so again, I'll use the prying tool and start to pry it up. Try over here. Get it to pop up.

So I'm prying it straight up and out. You're going to unplug it, pushing in the lock, pulling the connector out. You could probably remove this door panel with the window switch in place. This just makes it easier because you already have it unplugged. You don't have to wrestle with the door panel while you're taking it off to unplug it. So now we have that unplugged and removed. Take your plastic prying tool, and just lift up. There's a little rubber pad here. You need to get that out of the way. There's a screw behind there. Use a Phillips head screwdriver. Take this screw out. Put that aside.

Then go behind the door handle. There's a little piece of trim here. Take the plastic prying tool and pop this out. Just unclips. There's another Phillips head screw behind there. Remove that. Those two screws removed. The door panel is now just clipped in place. We're going to use our plastic prying tool to just get under the edge here. That one's too thick. Start with a thinner one. Get a thicker one in here so I can pry it. Kind of find near where our clip is. I think there's a clip there. Usually takes quite a bit of force, so once you start to pry it, you'll pop the clips out. Usually you can get a hand under here. Give it a good, strong tug. It clips around the top of the sheet metal, so lift it up and then off.

Now the Bowden cables. You can actually pop the whole door handle out of the trim. Just kind of grab onto it. Just pop it out of the clips, and we'll slide it out of place. Let that hang. Then you put your door panel aside. If the clips stayed in the door panel, pop those out, and they can be reused. Just like that. You can put them right back into your door panel, and they can be reused.

To remove the door handle from the Bowden cables, the top one's the door lock. The bottom one's the door handle. Push the cable out of the holder, and then slide the cable and the little ball at the end out of there. Do the same for the other one.

To remove the water barrier, we need to take this metal bracket off. There's a 10 mm bolt here and a 10 mm bolt here. It also has a Phillips head cutout in it, but I'm going to use the 10 mm socket ratchet and extension because it's easier. Take it out. It's just a self-tapping bolt that goes into a plastic grommet. Put that aside.

To remove the vapor barrier, it is stuck on with this black adhesive. It's called Butyl tape. It's basically forever sticky, and you can remove it pretty easily, especially when it's pretty warm out. You'll just gently peel back on it. I like to a take a fresh razor blade, and you can cut along the edge of it, and this stuff will re-stick back to itself, so as long as you're careful taking this off, you can reuse it 'cause it'll go right back in place and re-stick. Before I try to take this all off, I'm going to pull these wires out of the way. Disconnect this wire for the door lock actuator. So I'm pushing in the lock. Pull it out. So, that'll eventually go through the opening in the plastic. These cables will go through the opening.

This plug for the window motor, I need to unplug that. It's a little bit deep to get my finger in there, so I'm going to use the plastic prying too. Pry up on it. Pull the connector out. It's clipped in here, so I'm going to have to unclip that. Before I get that far, I'm going to unplug the speaker. Again, I'll push the lock in and pull it out. And this harness is clipped up here. Take your metal clip prying tool. Get behind the clip and pry it out. They might break a little bit, but they should pop right back in there afterwards. So, that's loose. It'll come through the opening in the plastic. Now, just work your way around gently peeling this off. We'll just cut the black Butyl tape with a fresh razor blade. Probably want to wear gloves. It will get all over your hands. Just working my way around the door.

Don't worry too much if it looks like you're mangling the plastic. Plastic's pretty stretchy. The Butyl tape is very sticky. You should be able to reuse this without a problem. Even if it doesn't look that pretty afterwards, you're going to put your door panel back over it. You don't see it every day. Not a big deal. The real tricky part is to carefully pull it off of here and not get it to stick to itself too much. Guide these wires out. I should say cables. Guide the wire harness out. All right. I'm going to try not to get it to stick to itself, and then put it in a safe place where it's not going to land on the ground or anything because it will, of course, land on the sticky side down, but it's in pretty good shape. We can reuse this.

With the ignition turned on we're going to lower the window so we can see the mounting bolts. There's one mounting bolt here and then through this access hole here you can see that red tab with the bolt in it. With the window regulator in position where I can get to the bolts to remove the glass, I can unplug the switch, just so it's out of the way. I don't damage it. I'll put it down. Then you want to unplug the window motor. The ignition is also off, but this way it won't move on you and pinch your fingers. I'm just using the prying tool to push into the lock and pull it out. Put that aside there. If your rear window glass is broken or you want to remove it from your vehicle, you'll have to remove the run channel and this plastic trim piece here and then unbolt the glass in the regulator and it can be pulled out of the door panel.

We'll start by removing this bolt down here. This is for the run channel. This is a 10 millimeter bolt. So if your glass was broken and you needed to install a new piece of glass, the run channel and this trim piece would have to be out of the way. Let's get this bolt out of here. Put it aside. You can either use your fingers or the plastic trim tools. You can get these from 1aauto.com. We'll pry carefully the run channel out of here. I'm going to use my fingers, a little easier and kind of work it out. If you have to pull it up on it, that's fine. There's a hidden Philips head screw. We're going to remove that Philips head screwdriver. That is the run channel that the rubber goes into. I'm going to carefully slide the rubber up and out, get it out of the way. Glass is going to be loose but the run channel is also loose now. Let's see if I can pull it out. Yep. We're going to carefully slide this out of the door. Put that aside this plastic trim and remove this Philips head screw here. We need to pop this rubber weather strip up and out.

There's two Phillips head screws behind here. Remove those. This plastic trim should come out. Just slide it inside and up. Once that's out, you can remove the bolt holding the window glass. This is a 10 millimeter bolt. Try not to drop it inside the door panel. There's a second one inside here. We'll put those aside. Just be careful because at this point there's no run channel on this side so the glass is pretty loose inside the door panel. We're going to have to push the glass probably in this way to get it off that little collar. I'm holding on the glass with the other hand and I'll be popping off the regulator and I've got a good hold on the glass. Carefully slide it up and out of the run channel the other side and then out of the door panel.

To reinstall the glass let's make sure you put it in the correct way. So it's got kind of a curve to it. Basically matches the outside of the car, and then of course the shape of the door panel. Going to carefully put it into the door frame. I’ll get it started and then the run channel on the opposite side. Lower it down into the regulator. Reinstall the bolts.

Reinstall this black plastic trim. It feeds into the door panel. The screw with the wide, flat pin on it goes into here. Until it gets tight, stop. These two screws go on top. Install both. Push the rubber trim back into place. Reinstall the run channel. Maneuver it down into place. Let it sit in here. Be sure before you bolt in this run channel that it is around the glass. Install the bolt when the run channel is in the correct position. Spray some glass cleaner into the run channel. Push it into place and then guide it down over the window. Push it in. Guide it down. Push it in. Eventually, push it right into place. Make sure it sits on this side. Push it in.

We're going to reuse our vapor barrier, so feed the harness through the opening in it over here. Spin it around. There is another opening in here for this, and then our Bowden cables go through this opening here. And feed all the harnesses through, and get this thing pretty close. Like I said, this stuff is forever sticky, so you can kind of just mush it right back into place. It won't look 100% perfect as it was when it was there originally, but it should stick just fine. That was open before. Even if it's a little wrinkly, it's not a big deal. Just mash it in there. Go all the way around the door and push it right back into place.

Plug all your harness connections back in. That's for the door lock actuator. Window motor. Clip this back in place. This one clipped up here. There's no connection to it. Plug your speaker back in. The remaining one was for the door window switch.

We'll reinstall the bracket with the self-tapping screws, self-tapping screw bolts that go into the grommets. Use a 10 mm socket to reinstall them. They're just going into plastic grommets, and they're self-tapping, so when you feel them get tight, just stop.

All right, so the white one goes on top. This is for the door lock. So put the little ball through here. Slide this over. Clip it in place. And for the door handle, do the same. Pop that in there. Slide it over. Snap it in place. Slide the interior door handle into the door panel. Let it click into place. Now the lip of this door panel hangs over the sheet metal lip. So, get it started. It doesn't matter if the window's up or down. Go into place, and it'll hang down like that.

Make sure that your connector for the window switch is not going to get pinned back there so you can get to it, and now we're going to push this back into the door panel. Pushing the trim panel back into the sheet metal door panel, and all the clips will snap back into place, and that's locked in place. We'll reinstall a self-tapping screw here. If you feel it get tight, you just stop.

Reinstall the trim piece. So it's got some clips. Open up the door handle. It's going to slide in place and just click in and lock. Reinstall the self-tapping screw in the bottom of this door pull. Get them lined up in the hole, then screw it in. There's a rubber pad that goes over it. Reinstall the window switch, plug it back in. It will click when it locks, and then we're going to just push it straight down into the openings. It'll snap into place. Reinstall the silver door trim. All the tabs will basically go straight down. Snap into place. That's reinstalled.

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