in the 4 months ive owned my prius now i think ive used the p button 4 or 5 times, and put it into neutral zero times. just turn it off.
A lot of the buttons in that area get next to no use on ours: Power, Eco, EV Mode, Park. I never use the Park, just shut down. Power and Eco I ignore, just leave them both off (Normal mode). The only button I occasionally use is EV mode, mainly to move the car between the garage and the driveway when washing. D.O. for "B" position on the shifter. I gather it's only useful for extended downhill runs, to deal with a battery that's as fully charged as it can get. I've managed to get down a mountain or two without resorting to B, I think the car does some things on it's own, behind the scenes, even if you haven't selected B. And I don't like the sound of the engine high revving in B, lol.
Personally I can recommend using eco-mode. I've managed to average 62 mpg on an entire tank of gas using it. I noticed when not in eco mode the car will not engage ev mode on it's own like eco mode does (when the car is properly warmed up). i've never used the ev mode button personally, but when in eco mode I end up driving in ev mode a lot of the time and I can get decent mpg scores because of it.
The engine will shut down in Normal mode, car rolling, warmed up: quite readily, at least in my experience. Try it when it's warmed up: switch to Normal see if that behaviour changes. I'm not averse to ECO, just the pedal travel is too lengthy for my taste.
It's been an interesting read. Been my first week driving Prius to work. I have about a 30 mile drive one way to work, and that little summary screen on the Prius dash is telling me at the end of 30 miles I'm getting good mileage: as low as 53MPG as high as 58 MPG. At that is in Normal mode. And I have seen the EV indicator kick in while using Normal. I have not yet experimented with EV Mode or ECO Mode. By the way, I've never been one to use a parking break except when parked on a slope. Am I missing out on something by not using it more regularly every time I park? On previous cars, every time I decide to start using it, I never remember is disengage it before I start driving
When I read that, I thought, okay, maybe that's good practice in San Francisco or in the mountains of Colorado and then I noticed that you are from Florida. Florida? Never thought of saving load on the parking brake when I had the Prius in Florida.
You never know when them 'gators are gonna get hungry for a Prius and try to drag it off. That parking brake comes in handy for lots of things.
I've done this with my first Prius Gen III by mistake not too long after I bought it. I was entering the freeway and was going about 50-55mph when I hit "Park". I wasn't thinking/mind preoccupied and reached for the "Power" button and for some reason I hit "Park". It automatically went to "Neutral" and made a beeping sound.
It's nonsense "dealer wisdom" not grounded in reality that he made up and or heard from somebody else who made it up. Stop the car hit the power. It goes into park automatically first. This is all I ever do in my car and it works 100% of the time and internally follows the exact same process as hitting park first. The only time I hit neutral is backing down a hill so that I don't have to hear the reverse beep (I failed to get my beep turned off and should have).
One and only reason I use N is an automatic, drive-through car wash that propels the car itself and requires no acceleration and no braking. I allways make sure that I have 5 - 6 bars on the battery. Washing process is fairly short. It takes only 5 minutes or so. I also shut down A/C, lights and radio then (and obviously automatic windscreen washers). As for ECO button. I use ECO mode on short, city trips. Normal on faster and longer routes. PWR mode second to none. I missed A/C Auto button one while driving and hit P. It beeped at me too and get back to neutral. Also while in neutral if you press accelerator it will beep at you too.
Can we all agree to spell the thing that slows the wheels down a "Brake"? I think a Parking "Break" is found in those old style automatic transmissions, when you move the gearshifter all the way to P while driving 70 miles an hour...
Thats a great mileage...are you driving interstate or city??? Mine is a new 2013 prius and I never saw more than 50 MPG till now..I tried both Normal and Eco modes...my odo is around 2500 and I live in IL....
The last thing I want to do be doing on a freeway on-ramp is be looking down, hunting through some buttons. Regardless of what Mode you're in, if you floor it, you'll get precisely the same response.
My driveway is on a slope. So to get in the habit of taking the parking brake off, I always use it when I park. I have hit the power button before putting in park. I feel like I did something wrong.
Putting into Neutral before Park? Put it in Park? uh.... OK. That's a little extra redundant, but here's no harm in selecting neutral or park before powering down the car. ETC(SS) Parking: 1. Select an LZ. 2. Verify no obstructions are present or likely in the near term. 3. Bring vehicle to a stop, verifying compliance with parking restrictions. 4. While depressing the brake pedal, push the Power Button once to stop the car. 5. Exit the vehicle. 6. Bask in the warm glow of a successful evolution. I see no steps in my procedure for these other buttons. I only have 60,000 miles in type, BUT In my never-to-be humbled opinion? Your dealer is full of fecal material. There's a non-zero chance that they might be sizing you up for gullibility before they try to sell you some unneeded maintenance items in the future, or maybe some nitrogenated tires. JMHO. That's because you're not shifting. You're mashing a button (via a funny looking paddle) that sends a request to the car to complete an action....and you're right!~ Times they have a changed. We'll likely be telling our grandkids or great-grandkids about the good old days when we were able to legally drive our own cars....