What do you do when someone else drives your car?

I showed my g/f how to use it and let her drive. I also made sure my roommates understood how to use it. But it seems like there will always be the risk of them leaving it running.

Ther best thing i think i could say is to tell them to look it and make sure there is a short beep, and tell them a long beep means something is wrong. As in the car is still in ready mode.

 

Crap my pants when my wife drives.

 

Cringe!!!!!!! Then pray to any god who will listen!!!

 

LMAO! Pretty much applies to me; so I try my best not to allow her to drive....period.

 

Usually it is after taking them to lunch or an errand. Mostly I just mark it as one more person who will be immune to hybrid-skeptic nonsense. Yes, I've given nearly a dozen folks short test drives and they universally leave in wonder at the car.

Bob Wilson

 

I take the Nancy Reagan Approach - "Just Say No."

 

Abbie Hoffman: "Telling a drug addict to 'Just Say No' is like telling a manic-depressive to 'Just Cheer Up'."

 

I think I'm more concerned about leaving it with the Toyota dealership. No one there is going to ask how to drive the car!

There is one car wash I've gone to where I leave the car, and they know how to drive a Prius. My wife knows how to drive it (and does), and I have a few friends who've driven it. Not to worry -- you give a couple of easy instructions. The two most important are: 1. How to turn the car off and lock it; and 2. How to forget about adding gas (no need!).

The more people who drive it, the better. I just get a bit upset when my FE takes a hit (and it does).

 

Don't believe what people tell you! When I had my Gen2 I took it to a local tire shop and when I gave the keys to the tire guy I ask him "Do you know how to drive this car? it's really different." He said "Yes we do these all the time." So I ask him how he would start it and he didn't have a clue.

There are a lot of people who will never say "I don't know". They would rather make complete fools of themselves or even break something than admit that maybe they sill have a few things to learn.

OK that's my rant for the day, thank you for putting up with me. :mmph:

 

I needed my car ferried from the start of a trail run to the end, and a friend who was working an aid station offered to do it. She was quite nervous about driving the car. As I was teaching her about the controls (just have the key with you, press the Power button...), she tried shifting it into Drive. The shift lever sprung back to Neutral, and she quickly tried to get it to stay in the Drive position. The whole dash lighted up, red triangle, some scary message on the MFD, and the beeper when off . Apparently there is a timing problem with repeatedly toggling the shift lever. She freaked out and bailed out from the offer to drive the car. Anyway, I turned the car off, and everything was ok after turning it back on. Another woman who has driven racecars volunteered, and just needed the simple facts of how to start and stop the car.

The lesson I got is that people vary in their tolerance of new things. One freaked out at the shift lever springing back to neutral, and the other thought that the rear view camera was really neat.

The important things that you have to teach someone about driving the Prius seem to be the following:

1. Keyfob usage. It really is a key, but it communicates by radio to establish that it's ok to start the car. The system knows where the keyfob is, and will only unlock the ignition if it is inside the car.

2. Power button. Step on the brake and press the Power button to "start" the car. If you don't press the brake, the dash will still light up, but not go to READY mode where the engine can run. If the READY light doesn't go on, you probably didn't press the brake. Press the brake and the Power button again until the READY light goes on.

3. The READY light indicates that the car is ready to go. The engine doesn't have to be running, as the electric motor can handle moving the car initially. The gas engine will kick in if needed, and it's normal for it to stop when you stop the car.

4. The gear shift is spring loaded. It's normal for it to spring back to neutral position after selecting a gear. Look at the gearshift display next to the speedometer to see what gear you're in.

5. Just drive the car like any other automatic shift car. The gas pedal makes it go faster, and the brake pedal slows it down. Nothing new about that. Ignore the fact that the gas engine starts and stops by itself, as the electric motor takes care of moving the car when the gas engine is stopped. It saves a lot of gas by running the gas engine as little as possible.

6. It is necessary to turn the car off by pressing the Power button. Just because you've stopped the car and the gas engine isn't running doesn't mean that it's powered off. Set the parking brake, and press the Power button. The dash lights should turn off. If they don't, press the Power button again until the lights do go off. You can ignore the Park button, as the car will automatically shift to park when it is turned off.

7. Even though the car automatically unlocks when you pull on the door handle, it doesn't lock by itself when you leave the car. The simplest way to lock the car is to press the lock button on the keyfob. The car sounds the beeper and flashes the lights once when it locks. You can also just press the switch on the door handle, but that doesn't work sometimes. If all else fails, then take the mechanical key out of the keyfob and use it on the driver's side door.
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I think this list pretty well covers the issues that drivers unfamiliar with the Prius will run into. Once they've learned these items, all they have to do is operate the car the same way as any other car. The GO pedal makes it go, the BRAKE pedal makes it stop, the steering wheel makes it turn. Toyota went to a lot of effort to make the car act the same as any other modern car.

 

Man, I was nervous when I went to the tint place when I got my car tinted. Heck, the car was only a couple of days old and I was still learning how to start it up and move it. But they must of had some experience with the Prius because they didn't have any problems. I think I found on an old Post someone listed the directions for the Gen II and I printed it out and laid it on the seat just in case they did have problems

 

After 9 years, lots of people know how to drive a Prius. When the Gen 1 first came out I laughed at the idea of letting a valet or someone like that drive it.

Not only that, Toyota actually gave everyone a small stack of cards (about 2x-3x) the size of a business card that had basic instructions on how to drive it. And this was before the smart key and power button.

3PriusMike

 

Ha ha. Yea I wouldn't let anybody drive it. My gen 2 prius touring; my mom wanted to drive it and I went with her and she kept turning It on and off and theshe didn't put it in park or something and it started rolling. And then she thought "B" was for backing-up. So only person I pet drive it is my grand ms who gave it to me.

 

She has admitted, in a previous thread, to driving a Gen2 Prius that her grandmother handed over to her. The "first car" thread was about actually buying one, a Gen3.