Yesterday afternoon after purchasing several rootbeer freezes at Sonic - Prius in Park mode - car wouldn't 'shift' out of PARK into D!!! Had to finally shut car off, restart and only then could I drive away from the service window. Outside temp. = 108 degrees fwiw. Any idea what was going on?
It's possible you did not have your foot ON the brake? The car won't shift at all unless you're on the brake. And, you may have been quite excited with root beer freezes, not quite focused on your fancy footwork?
If you press start without your foot on the brake to listen to the radio without starting the car and then press start without your foot on the brake, then the car will not allow you to take it out of park. Safety feature. You just have to turn off and then restart with your foot on the brake. The good news is that this prevents my 5 year old from starting the car and placing it in drive or reverse since she can't reach the brake. She sometimes will sit in the driver seat to change out her CD's or change songs on the phone (connected through AUX), etc. So this prevents her from accidently placing the car in drive/reverse... even though I am next to her or in the drivers seat or right outside the driver door. I could also see her going into the car without permission, and without this feature, a kid could press start and then put it into gear very easily.
This caused me a lot of problems when I rented a 2010 Prius a few weeks ago. I did eventually find it mentioned in the manual and then I was fine. It is disappointing that an error message displays on the dash screen, but it really doesn't give you any helpful information. If it just said "depress brake pedal while pressing power" newbies wouldn't have any trouble. I also think that the owner's manual could be written better. While I did ultimately find the correct procedure, the manual just doesn't read that well for me. And the procedure for starting the car is on page 50 or something. I would have expected info like that to be right up front.
Wow what a really smart car! Your Prius knows what your priorities should be better than you. It wanted you to consume the rootbeer freezes and cool down before going anywhere. Keith
My Prius was running but wouldn't go into Drive and wouldn't shut off. Yes, my foot was on the break. After 10 minutes it fixed itself.
Didn't notice the READY light but it was cold. Just strange because it had been running them couldn't do anything. It hasn't happened again so maybe that was it. Tks
