Just picked up my 2010 after my dealer's free 5000 mile checkup. I requested the dealer to change the backup beep to one beep as well as the seatbelt alarm. They agreed to do it with no charge along with the tire rotation and "checkup". While waiting they came out and said the only options were the standard beep-beep-beep-beep, etc or a CONTINUOUS BEEP! Thank you Prius Forum.....I told them that that was impossible as I read a forum that relates many 2010 owners who have had it changed to just one beep. They said sorry, that's the way it is. I told them that I'll prove it can be done by finding a dealer who has done it via "our Forum" and bring it back for them to try again. I got in my GenIII to leave and put it in reverse...to my surprise it beeped only ONCE...just like I wanted. I went back in and told them it was now a one beep and thanked them for their for their accidental fix. I did notice a few others in the forum saying that they heard the only choice was short beeps or a continious one. I'd guess that maybe what the dealers computer calls a contioious beep is really the one beep..........which may scare some owners from changing the sequence. Hope this helps some GenIII'ers
Beeping of short tone once short. Many time same happening is continuous. Hard sometimes for translation to clear be.
LOL! Caught another one. The mechanic had the door open while he was doing the option setup. Guess what happens when you have the car turned on, put it in reverse, and open the door? Beeeeeeep! He set the option ok. He just couldn't confirm it since the door was open when he tried to test it.
What Toyota should have done is make the continuous beeping an "outside" beeper towards the rear of the car. That way, kids or pedestrians behind you would know - it just makes better sense. As the driver, I know when I'm in reverse!
I live in an apartment building and I *KNOW* this would not be a good feature as bedrooms are right above the car park area. As for inside the car, only the Prius does this -- and I assume it's because the shifter is purely electronic? Like you can't look at it to know the gear. Of course, the flashing indicator on the dash is a give away. I have one beep enabled and it's 100% good for me. I am so used to the car letting me know I'm in reverse now, I kind of like it.
The reasons for all the GIII beeps is Toyota legal CYA. Thanks to this forum, and an earlier-obtained online owners manual, I gave them a list of all the changes to defaults that I needed at new car pickup. Since it was in the manual they had to do them, but I think there was discussion about it there. It was part of new car prep, no charge. We'll see if they are sans clue at oil change time.
Some people have mentioned that after having the reverse beep changed to a single beep at the dealer, they could no longer access the secret menu that allows you to adjust the Bluetooth microphone volume and that the volume was set low again. Did you find that to be the case? (I'll live with the annoying reverse beep rather than give up Bluetooth microphone volume).
I can't wait to get this turned off, it's absolutely the worst thing about this car (other than blind spot, but that was not a deliberate decision on Toyota's part and is necessary based on shape of the car).
The "secret menu" for Bluetooth has nothing to do w/ the reverse beep. One is a function of the combination meter, the other the NAV system (which has the Bluetooth function). On a side note, I disabled mine today w/ my ScanGaugeII - I kinda missed it... after driving an early 2004 and then an early 2010, I've had beeping since Oct 2003. That's nearly 7 years... so the silence backing up was actually awkward. I'll give it a week before I decide to turn it back on or keep it off.
They may not be directly related, but I can see them taking the opportunity to do a software upgrade to everything while they have the laptop connected (possibly automatically without the service guy even knowing it), getting rid of access to the secret menu in the process. There HAVE been reports of this menu being disabled after getting the car back from having the reverse beep turned off in another thread -- I want to know if this was a fluke or if it is a routine occurrence.
Here is the post I was talking about where the guy lost access to the secret menu after having the reverse beep turned off: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...-microphone-volume-gen-iii-3.html#post1014224
