Some naive owners may be using the B instead of the D

I'm not surprised. This is a myth that is perpetuated by some Toyota dealers and their sales people. When I took delivery of my car I was told that I had to use the B mode to charge the battery. I was also told that after pushing the power button I had to wait for the ICE to start before I could drive the car, and a lot of other non-sense as well.

A lot of people don't read the owners manual or visit sites such as this one so it's no wonder there is a lot of bad information floating about.

 

DH gets the occasional customer complaining about the transmission sounding funny, and it turns out they're driving around all the time in B.

they're out there.

 

I asked my saleman what the "B" was for, he stated it was used for slowing the car down on long and/or steep downgrades. I guess some of them know something of what they are talking about.

Off topic, roperld, my last name is Roper also, I wounder if there is any realtion here. My dad was from Arkansas. You have any relatives that live out there?

 

Actually the salesman was very honest when I picked up my car last year. He said - "With the Prius it doesn't surprise me that people buying one already know more about the vehicle than I do."

I must admit that I had researched it very throughly before buying one.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(roperld @ Sep 2 2006, 06:20 PM) [snapback]313272[/snapback]</div>

'scuse me. what exactly DOES the "B" do?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(key @ Sep 3 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]313727[/snapback]</div>

Engine Braking.

For mountainess decline driving, to reduce the demand on traditional braking.

For added assistance on slippery curves, to reduce the odds of overbraking.

 

Ok, I'm no dummy, but I also don't have a CAN-view or any other fancy doodads (other than the standard fancy doodas) to help me get an answer to this:

Is engine braking just a waste of drag? Does it let the spinning ICE just eat up kinetic engery? And if so, isn't light-footed regular-braking better for the long-downhill scenario since it'll use MG2 to slow you down instead and hence pump your battery full of juice?

If that's the case, wouldn't you only want to use "B" if you're trying to avoid charging the battery? (I guess there may be times you'd maybe want to do that)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(roperld @ Sep 2 2006, 07:20 PM) [snapback]313272[/snapback]</div>

Hi Dave, you can get into all the techno stuff about what happens but in the real world my 06 option 8 prius will not allow me to use cruise controll if in B. I can't image anyone who obviously pays some attention to gas milage not using cruise controll if the car is equiped.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bradysplace @ Sep 3 2006, 09:40 PM) [snapback]313807[/snapback]</div>

That happened to me one night. I couldn't get cruise control to work and nearly drove into the Toyota dealer to complain. I saw I had accidently slipped into B mode and changed to D. Up until then I didn't know cruise was so inhibited. Back to recurrent training......

 

Cruise control does not work in either "B" or, for that matter, going downhill. "B" is used to slow the car on long downgrades (when CC will NOT work), or when you prefer not to use your brake pedal to slow. All of my earlier cars WOULD slow to keep CC on downgrades. The Prius will NOT.

 

I find this a little hard to believe. For starters, how are they selecting "B"? You can't select "B" unless you're in "D" to start with, so are you saying that these people are doing a double-select - moving the selector down and right to select "D", then release, then down to "B", every single time they come out of park or reverse? What do they think "D" is for?

 

Yep, I have no doubt there are people out there that are just driving in B-mode. All sorts of strange things can happen when people are ignorant and don't RTFM.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KMO @ Sep 3 2006, 11:10 PM) [snapback]313849[/snapback]</div>

interesting down and right for D. In NA it's down and left for D and down for B and yes you can't select B with out it going into D first.

 

Here's journalistic proof of the "driving around in B" phenomenon. Sad, really.

Journalist "unintentionally" bashes Prius

 

OK I know this. I had a right Pro clip and it did not fit well for me. When it fell off it had the tendency to drop straight down and put the car in B. This happened a few times and I tried to glue it back on the dash. On the last time it fell off on the Freeway and put me in "B" mode and I preceded down the freeway. In stop and go traffic I lost 5 mpg. B is no place to be except in a long steep down hill.