No Way to Change MPH to KPH on New 2016 Model Three

Hi!

I'm new to the forum.

I just bought a March 2016 Prius. I can't figure out how to get km/h, and now I know why. I bought it from Carvana, and I just called them and asked that it be swapped for a 2017 Prius. Will that sort me?

I called Toyota USA and they said "There's no way to do it from 2016 onward. We don't do that anymore." That's a staggering blow. But based on this thread, I think they're wrong. Or lying. Can anyone confirm that the 2017 Prius for sure fixes the bug?

(Incidentally, for those lacking the km/h display: your anger is justified! Hearing all the talk of hardware limitations, I figured the speed display must use those old-style 7-LED number displays that they used to use on digital clocks, in which case 2 would get you up to 99 MPH (which ought to usually be enough for many Prius owners, unless teenagers) but which would be inadequate for km/h, hence the ostensible hardware problem. But no: my 2016 MFD is just a bunch of pixels, so it obviously has plenty of room and versatility to display MPH, km/h, m/s, chains/fortnight, Shakespeare quotes, ipsum lorum, Pushkin quotes (in cyrillic, if they added a font), whatever... hell, it wouldn't be too hard to program it to watch movies, if the CPU were powerful enough. Adding km/h would take about a minute to code and debug thoroughly, since they'd just have to multiply a variable by a constant, and change the unit text. There simply ISN'T a hardware limitation. Developing a computer that could do what theirs does and also COULD NOT multiply a variable by a constant before displaying it would require a ridiculously custom computer architecture that would cost a few dozen of millions of dollars and years to develop and manufacture. Absolutely guaranteed they didn't do that. Re-adding the menu option would require more debugging, but they've already done it, so total software developer time would be maybe an hour. This is very obviously a software problem, and I'm disgusted that Toyota would rather spend weeks denying the problem than one hour fixing it. I wish I knew which human made that decision, and what his reasoning was.)

Anyway. Are 2017 Prii fixed?

Thank you!!
-Ben

 

Yes, I have a 2017 Trim Two. They fixed that issue part way through the 2016 model year. Mine works fine.

 

According to Transport Canada, which prohibits import of cars with this problem, it appears to have been fixed in 2016 Prius Liftbacks made from about April 2016 onward. Here are the Prii that they prohibit:

"Notes 3, 4 and 5: The following vehicles models series do not have the functionality to program the digital speedometer units from miles per hour (mph) to kilometers per hour (km/h):

-Certain 2016 model year Prius (estimated production period: start of production through March 2016) , and

-Certain 2016-2017 model year Prius v (estimated production period: Avril 2016 through end of production), and

-2017 model year Prius c (estimated production period: Dec 2016 through May 2017"

My original post on this is here:
Obd speedometer compatiblity | PriusChat

 

That is strange. I wonder why they removed a feature that was present on the 2015 Prius v?
My son has one sitting in our driveway and it has been driven to Canada and had no issues switching units..

 

I'd guess that they were 'upgrading' parts or systems or changing supplies, and somebody left out a critical spec.

 

Wasn't there talk with the advent of 4th gen, about standardizing components, reducing variations.

 

As in TNGA, Toyota New Global Architecture?

 

All Prius v are 3rd Gen They beefed up the front end and made other changes to improve the safety rating for 2015. Why would they change things again so soon??

 

mad at Toyota for something he/she probably should have researched first.

 

Hi all -- same story as many, I just realized my car has the MPH issue. I'm fine doing the math but I also need to get it insured in Canada, which is why I'm trying to figure out a more concrete solution. Does anyone know enough about how the HUD works to tell me if I could replace it with an aftermarket HUD that shows km/h (i found two on ebay) or is whatever it will be connected to the issue?

 

Check the CDN regs first, don’t assume we care lol. In BC for example, the U-Haul trucks I’ve either rented or “swamped” on, had mph-only speedo’s. IIRC, something was amiss with them.

 

Boy do I have bad news for you. 2016 model year Prius are inadmissible to import into Canada because of this exact issue according to Transport Canada.

The following vehicles models series do not have the functionality to program the digital speedometer units from miles per hour (mph) to kilometers per hour (km/h):


-Certain 2016 model year Prius (estimated production period: start of production through March 2016) , and

-Certain 2016-2017 model year Prius v (estimated production period: Avril 2016 through end of production), and

-2017 model year Prius c (estimated production period: Dec 2016 through May 2017)

Consult the owner manual for information on the functionality to switch speedometer units from mph to km/h. Vehicles lacking digital speedometers programmed in kilometers per hour (km/h) will fail the inspection and will be reported as inadmissible.​

 

I had the same issue, but a shop here in Jordan reprogrammed the speedometer somehow and now it works both in miles and km just like the 2017 version


Other shops here replace the whole speedometer with a used one and that also seems to work but the mileage will be different

 

So nothing to do with page 153 of the manual and if you hold the trip button it switches between mph and kmh. I do this on my trips to France regularly