Hello, I have a high frequency hearing loss and can't hear the buzzers. I am afraid that I will forget to push button to turn car off and get out and walk away leaving it running. I did this a few times on my previous car, an Altima Hybrid. Can the dealer raise the volume or modify the tone on the buzzers? Thanks for your help.
I think this is one of those circumstances in which the easiest solution will be changing your driving (stopping) habits.
Get in the habit of always locking your car and checking the handle. You can't do it if the car isn't turned off. It has saved me twice in 2 weeks.
Yeah, when you lock the car, look for the indicators to flash. if they don't, you didn't turn it off, and it's now making a really loud really annoying noise. My tip, don't use the park button. when you stop and want to get out, use the power button. this puts you into park AND shuts the car down. this way if you forget to turn it off the car will start moving when you take your foot off the brake. kind of hard to miss that...
That's a good practice but will not work if your car has the SKS, because you will just open the door and then have to lock it again.
I never touch the park button anymore as I have gotten in the habit of using the power button to put the car into park and shut down. It is really an easy habit to get into.
I don't know, but the dealer might be able to help. There are enough hearing-impaired people in the world that it would be odd for Toyota to not have some sort of accommodation... If the dealer has no answer, a call to Toyota USA might be helpful.
A trial indicated the above to be true. Not off you can't lock. I also found out some other things: when car is on and you are outside the inside display has a large "KEY NOT DETECTED" graphic; if you then try to lock the car, the graphic changes to "TURN POWER OFF" Knowing this will greatly ease my concern about this potential problem. A couple years ago my Altima Hybrid ran until the battery went and the engine came on to recharge. After complete recharging, the engine went off and so on, and so on until I returned to car a couple hrs later. I will ask my dealer about modifying volume, etc, just to see what he says. How does the buzzer sound to normal hearing people? Is it low or medium volume. Is it unusually high frequency? Just curious to what I am missing. Thanks for all the good ideas.
You are not the only one who has brought up this safety issue. It's too easy for people to leave the Prius running as it is currently designed. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...iii-does-not-switch-off-when-key-removed.html
Checking the driver's door works for me. The system really is smart. If the driver's door locks when you get out, the handle won't unlock when you immediately try it. You have to walk away from it and reapproach the car (or probably push the button on the FOB ). The back door would not be a good judge. It never unlocks with the smart key unless you've reprogrammed the FOB to unlock all 4 door.
rogburr, There are several visual indications that you should be able to use to make sure the car is off. When you push the Power button to turn the car off all of the indicating lights on the dash should go off except the odometer and the clock. Also, the Radio/Nav and the Climate Control displays should be off. If you will get in a habit of watching for these visual indicators you should be able to walk away from the car with confidence that the car is indeed OFF. Dwight
The handbook states the volume of the external alerts can be set from 1 to 7. the factory default is 7.
Thats true. Just not the way I do it as it only works if you check immediately. I agree that using the rear side doors to check presumably depends on having the locks set up to "unlock all" when you open the car. I should have mentioned that. It could also depend on some other settings and what passengers have just done before getting out of the car (eg locking door then getting out the other side) Something else I've done is to just touch the sensing handle at the front end where the "lock" sensor is. The "unlock" sensor is behind the handle where you grab it. People who can't hear the doors re-lock, would need to watch the lights or the lock/unlock switch inside the far door.
I too am the victim of some hearing loss. Like another poster on here stated. I just got in the habit of not pushing the park button. I just use the parking brake and push the power button. It puts the car in park and shuts it down. Though one thing I think Toyota should do is have the car shut down automatically if you get out and walk far enough away from the car. I know there are some visual and audible warnings that the car is still on, but there are some really oblivious people out there that won't pay attention to them. But for now I will just push the power button to make sure the car is off. :rockon:
