Hard pressing & Holding the brake pedal!..

It’s the hill start assist feature.

Normal behavior .

 

Normal

 

Now that you know what it's called, have you checked the Owner's Manual again to figure out how you missed it the first time? Is it just in a different section than you expected?

 

Ah the ol' Hill Keep Assist.
If you aren't aware of it's existence, then it can scare you.
But it's totally normal behavior if you have either consciously or unwittingly activated it.

 

We'd had the Prius about a week, someone didn't notice us, tried to merge into us, I tried to lay on the horn, managed to hit the bluetooth phone buttons, started it talking to me. All I needed...

 

Rented a car with 4 other undergrad guys to drive from Minneapolis to NYC for spring break. This was back in an age when cars were simpler than today, at least the ones we were used to.

Alternator flakes out around midnight, somewhere on the Indiana toll road. Car keeps going, with lights dimmer and dimmer, until it doesn't. End up waiting a while in a highway department facility next to a giant salt pile, then getting a lift to a Holiday Inn in Niles, Mich., after the car rental company promises to pick up the tab. Hotel night staff takes our word for it and checks us in to a room. So we get to sleep around, hmm, 5 am, 5:30.

Phone in the room rings about ten till 7, wakes us all up. Day manager has come in and found out the night staff checked in five college guys with a story about a car rental company going to pay for the room. So we're all marched down to the counter blinking in the light, getting all our IDs photocopied, half expecting to get fingerprinted next, when the phone behind the desk rings. It's the car rental company, saying, hey, if you've got five college guys there from last night, we're paying for the room.

So we all get handed our IDs back and the hotel gives us a lift to the nearest rental office, twenty minutes back in the wrong direction, and we get shown to our replacement car, some Chrysler thing if I remember right. It's been a weird night, we're on almost 2 hours of sleep, and still wanting to get to NYC, so we pull the car out of the parking space, get mostly across the parking lot and out to the street when this robot voice from nowhere says "ALL MONITORED SYSTEMS ARE FUNCTIONING".

Just about all jumped out of our seats....

-Chap

Edit: "your DOOR is AJAR" wasn't what it said, more of a generic thing to remember cars of that era saying. Thinking more about the story, what it really said came back to me, along with why it was even more surprising, because it wasn't a warning of anything, so it really wasn't even necessary for some robot voice to yell at us about it....

 

Well, it must have been, right about, then.

-Chap

 

Was it a Chrysler LeBaron and did it have a cell phone in it?

 

I've had my '15 Plug-in for 3 years now. I still can't think of a reason to use the hill-start assist. Living in the a flat coastal area (Houston, Texas), I haven't had occasion to use it. Would anyone mind walking me through how it might be useful? Mind you, I use two pedal driving, so that may obviate the helpfulness of something like hill start assist. . .

 

you mistakenly made a left turn and now youre in San Francisco. You’re stopped at a red light intersection with car nose pointed up in the air (on a steep grade hill) and there’s a car stopped behind you really close. You have 3 other people in the car and if let go the brake pedal on green, you could roll back into the car behind you if you don’t smash on the accelerator quick enough.

 

I never seem to have any problem with that......

 

come to sf to experience the steeper grades, you’ll appreciate the hill start

 

Nope.
I have a brother that's doing 20-to life in the Davis area.

Hard Pass!

 

@Grit
So, I think this assist wouldn't help me since I do two foot driving. But your explanation makes good sense. Thanks!