Here in Phoenix, I find it to be very desirable to be able to secure my car with the air on for brief trips to the store and such. Unfortunatly, this requires me to leave it in a state such that a simple broken window gains a joyrider my car. (Yeah, they won't ever get it started again if they shut it off, but with potentially 500 miles of joyriding, think of the recovery effort. :roll: ) So... I would like to know if anyone knows how to disable the gears (or the computer that is pretending to be gears ) so that the car cannot leave park without the fob.
I have a lot of things to say about this, but I'll try to be nice and just answer the question. No, I know of no reasonable way to disable the car. That said, unless someone really "Knows" the Prius they're very unlikely to realize that it is even turned on and thus 'stealable'. It would require looking through the window and seeing the dash lights and "REady" mode. The might hear the ICE start up once in a while if listening for it, but it seems awefully unlikely that that cooincidence (Ice starting while a potential car thief is standing close enough to hear it). And, if you're in an area where such theivery is a significant risk that you're even asking the question then to heck with keeping the AC on...just lock the dang car, save some gas and sweat a little.
Yeah, that's what I figured the answer would be, but it never hurts to ask. Actually, theft isn't really a terrific concern, but I am unduly paranoid. I have locked my car to walk 10 feet to the mailbox. :roll: I go with the assumption that the worst thing that can happen, will, and do what is possible to prevent that. The side effect is, I get to be happy every time nothing happens, which is pretty much all the time. As to the noise, though, I have found that, at least from the outside, the most obvious noise is actually the air compressor. I think it is actually louder than the engine, and it does cycle on frequently. But, now you have me curious. I have my thick skin on today, so lets hear all those deep, dark thoughts you spared me. :mrgreen: P.S. Keep in mind, "hot" is easily 115[sup:378e771b90]o[/sup:378e771b90]F. The car easily reaches 140+ in ten to twenty minutes, as measured from the left base of the drivers seat.
I live not too far from Phoenix, and honestly, I have not had any problem cooling the coche down quickly. The sunshade helps keep the steeiring wheel cool. When I get in the car, I just put down the windows, turn the AC to max cold, and about 1/4 mile later, the windows are ready to come up. I have not picked up a shade for the MFD yet, so I've just been covering it up with a manila file folder. I know, I am so stylish and hi-tech. Sara
Most times, its not a problem for me either. Sometimes, though, on trips that require frequent shuffling into and out of stores with short hops inbetween, the car really dosen't get a chance to cool down well. I just live with it, but I can still dream. (Of couse I dream my Prius flew, too 8) )
A solution I am considering to keep the car cool is a gizmo that clips to the top of the glass on a nearly-closed side window. It has a solar collector and a fan. It continually exhausts the hot inside air to the outside, reducing the inside temps to nearly the outside temp, perhaps 10 degrees warmer. no power, no draw on the battery, and with the interior not baking to 130, it cools faster once I'm moving with the A/C on. Haven't seen them advertised lately, but I'm sure they are around.
Do you have SKS? I haven't verified this, but I think you can put the car in park, leave the car on, and walk off with the FOB. I think the Prius won't allow shifting into drive until the FOB is back in the car. I don't think you can lock the Prius using the outside lock buttons, but I think you can still lock the car from the inside. Also, I recently got my car tinted with Huper Optik Ceramic (non-metallic tint to prevent interference with GPS and has high solar energy rejection, but also expensive) and it helps a lot with keeping the interior cooler even when left parked in the sun for short amounts of time. I haven't had any experience how hot it gets when left out all day, but I would still expect a significantly cooler interior.
I have an appointment to get the windows tinted with the Huper Optik Ceramic and wanted to know how effective it really is? Enough to justify the price when you live in the stinkin' Arizona desert in the middle of August? I'm going to do it anyhow, but reassurance is always nice... I've thought about trying the "leave the AC on with the car locked for a short period of time" thing, but always chicken out. Its my brand-new baby, and I can't get over how I'd feel if I came back out of whatever store I'd been in for 10 minutes and my car was gone. --Chris
I sort of did this accidently the other day. Drove to work with the airco on, turned off the car, but left the windows open. (did lock the car - where I work is close enough - a few yards - that I'd hear the alarm go off if anyone tried to enter the car.) Was told it was starting to rain, so I ran out in a hurry, jumped in the car and turned it on to roll up the windows. Guess I wasn't thinking clearly - ran back to work without remembering to turn the car back off. Came out from work that day to find the car airco had been running.
Well, if your dealer has a demo box like mine, you can get an idea. Basically, the demo box has a heat lamp with clear glass on one side, and three kinds of window tint on the other sides that can rotate so the heat lamp shoots out various ones. You can put your hand in front of it to literally feel the difference. It works surprisingly well. I have 50 on all around except for 60 on the front, which has 49% and 42% solar energy rejection, respectively. A couple weeks back it was I was driving around before I got it and it was about 108 degrees outside. I felt the heat beating on me and my A/C was running high and the car cooled very slowly (took about 15 minutes before it got comfortable) and still ran high after that. Today, it also got to around 108 and I did not feel the sun excessively heating me up and the the A/C was on low. I didn't have to adjust the temperature lower to counter the extra heat I felt from direct sunlight. I do think it helped a lot that I tinted the windshield. The windshield is just huge and the right under it is a black dash which just absorbs heat. Lots of glass in this car, so the tint helps. Huper Optik is expensive, but totally worth it in my opinion. I got it because it really bothered me that I could go out to lunch during the summer and my car just would still be uncomfortably hot when I got my destination. Now, it's totally faster to cool and cooler to start out with. Still have to use the HeatShield, tho'. I imagine it'll be way more worth it for someone in the Arizona desert. I would experiment to see if you can put the car in drive if the FOB leaves the car. If it can't, that means a thief can get in, but can't drive away. I mean, how is that different than if you turned your car off? Except for the heat, of course.
I wish I could get the windshield tinted. I think you're right and that it would make a huge difference. I'll live by the law though, and buy a windshield heat shield. I'm also thinking about trying to find a dashboard cover in some sort of color/material combination to keep it from glowing red when its 110 out. Does anyone else's do this? (j/k). The same person that markets the MFD shade also makes a dashmat out of leather that might be available in silver? That might be effective, I'm thinking? Or maybe just a standard tan-colored fuzzy standard-type dashmat. Guess its research time for me...
Light colored dashmats will reflect too much light while driving, making it hard to see out the windshield! That is why they are fuzzy and dark. I used to have a light grey one obn my Buick, and it was distracitng in bright daylight while driving.
If you find a source for these could you post it or let me know? I've been looking for one of these. Thanks!
A Google search for auto ventilator produced the following http://www.comforthouse.com/comfort/elshavgrunpr.html There were other hits as well. Note what it says about tinted windows.
Back OT, gearlock: Hmm... Well, unmodified you can't, but I suppose one could put in a hidden switch that would disable the shifter inputs (there are 2 pair) to the HV ECU. You would have to fake out the shifter home position to prevent DTCs. Or one could disable the parking mechanism, but that would probably trigger a DTC.
