Prius Hates Heat ! (Extreme Prius Driving Part 1)

So I'm in southern Arizona and the temps here have been 109-115 (Wth!) and my '07 does not like this. Two things that I noticed :

1. When I start up in the morning I lose three to four bars of charge from when I powered down in the afternoon.

2. My shift lever went wonky!!! It would not stay in drive or reverse and had to be held down in either R or D to stay in gear. An internet search revealed many reports of similar problems associated with hot days in 07 and 08 models. On closer examination what appeared to happen is that the shift lever would "catch" and not completely go back to it's "hand's off " position causing the car to go to neutral. After the aircon had been on for 15 minutes and the car cooled down this problem disappeared.

 

From the number of reports I saw when I did the search this may well be a quaity control issue and worthy of a recall. Quite a few people mentioned that the dealership charged them in the $700+ range to replace the shifter with a couple of reports of the dealer giving the part for free but charging $300 for the labor.

I've had the Prius since March and never had a hint of shifter difficulty until I apparently traveled to Planet Vulcan which appears to be located in Southern Arizona. It probably got to 125+ degrees inside the car since it was 111 outside.

 

Today it was 113 again outside - inside the car it must have gone to 125+ (yes I do have a windshield reflector) . And once again the shifter began to "stick" and not return to it's default position unless I put it there manually. The effect is that the car stays in neutral unless I move the shift lever manually to the far right. When I get out of this terrible heat next week it will be interesting to see if the shifter problem goes away.