Nobody hears the proximity warning

Train horns would be pretty cool. Especially in the Walmart parking lot when people are walking down the middle of the road. :heh:

 

TerryLowe,

Thanks for the tip about going through the wheel cowling to get to the Proximity Speaker.
Removed 3 screws and 5 pull-plugs.
To seperate the white speaker connector I had to push down on the release clip on the top-left of the plug.
Here's a photo.

 

Glad to help. You took out a few more than me...I didn't remove the bottom screws, so I bet my well "crinkled" a bit more than yours as we reached behind the well.

I did manage to slip up behind one of my employees in deadly stealth mode while she was walking IN THE ROAD to her car. I think she plans to file some sort of complaint against me...... If I DID have those train horns, it would have even been cooler.

 

Probably there's 12v on the connector. Ought to be able to attach a different sound-making device to it. Someone mentioned a dog bark - here's one.

What it really needs is an on-off switch, or - to comply with law - a normal/loud switch. I'd like to be able to turn it up in a parking lot or when overtaking a bicycle.

 

I just unplugged mine - I tried reaching in but gave up yesterday. And today, I took out one pull-plug & one screw to get to it thru the wheel well, but had hard time pulling out the plug. So, I reached in thru the top again, and it was surprisingly easy! I put my left hand in, pushed the clip w/ my thumb and pulled it out straight, and it just slipped out - wasn't even tight. Now my 3 wks old Prius does not sound like it's at the end of its life-cycle any more.

 

I swore I would unplug or remove my speaker when I got my car, but now it kinda sounds neat like a George Jetson spaceship

Mike

 

There is an even easier way:
1) Remove Philips screw at bottom left front of vehicle, as shown.
2) Remove plastic rivet near front left tire, as shown.
3) Peel plastic cover down, as shown.
4) This exposes noisemaker, as shown. By disconnecting the white connector in the photo, the noisemaker is disabled.

I couldn't get the white plastic connector to separate, so I gave up and cut the wire where it enters the noisemaker.

 

As far as I can tell, there is no legal requirement in the United States to have the noisemaker. Toyota is just shooting ahead of the duck. The law mandating noisemakers is called "The Pedestrian Safety Act of 2010", and it requires DOT to make noisemaker regulations, but those regs don't exist yet. The latest info I can find is here:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/Laws+&+Regulations/Quiet+Car+Notice+of+Intent
All it says is that DOT intends to propose regs.

 

There's probably a code to use the ScanGauge II to turn it on or off. Wish I knew something about programming

Mike

 

Man where was this when I went remove mine
It was a big pain in the arse when I unplugged mine a while back. I unclipped a hose and tried to reach down to unplug...took me like 45 minutes since I tried without unclipping the hose first.
Thanks for posting.

 

I was in my driveway scraping all the skin off my forearm, thinking there had to be a better way.

 

lol, same here. My arm looked pretty bad when I was done.

 

My hands and arms are still pristine, my solution was to KEEP using it,

 

You won't even dirty a fingernail using the method I described in the photos above. I scraped my arm in my futile attempt to disconnect by reaching down through the hood. Then I just removed the panel below the noisemaker (one screw, one rivet), and it was very simple to do.

 

For those of you who want to unplug the speakers...think through what you are doing.

If you hit anyone, and they take you to court, they can prove negligence on your part for disconnecting it.

I am not a lawyer, but I know that noise is not enough for me to either take a risk of hurting someone and or getting getting a big penalty against me in court.

(I wish they never put in on )

 

The device is not required by law. What's more... The thing is barely audible, and many EV's built this year and last do not have these squawkers.

 

It's still not the law yet that we have to have the silly speaker on the car. Toyota just jumped in before it became law. In the past couple years I have driven 2010 rental Prii thru many universities in EV mode and not once had anyone not noticed the car moving. We all know how thick the students are walking around a university during the week

Mike

 

Here's some interesting reading about the testing for the Vehicle Countermeasures Sounds from the U.S. DOT and NHTSA:

http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/42000/42800/42888/DOT-VNTSC-NHTSA-11-04.pdf

It looks like this was released in Oct. 2011.

For brevity, check out the Executive Summary and Chapte 9 Summary of Findings.

 

Why remove it?

I think its a neat sound and you can barely hear it with the windows down.

 

Simple solution is wait until someone hacks it so we can upload our own noises. Just imagine if you could replace it with the sould of a horse galloping... You really think people wouldn't turn there head in disbelief if they heard a horse galloping behind them....

Then chaing your horn to the sound of a horse neihing (however you spell it). That would be absolutly epic.