I have one very bad habit carried over from my previous car. I tend to forget to turn off the lights (daytime) when leaving the car. My other car turned them off for me. Since I start out in the dark, or if it is raining, the lights are always on at the start of my drive. Can an after market reminder buzzer be added? Last time left the lights on, when I started the car, it ran but I had no audio. After driving for about 30 minutes, the audio returned. Is this the way the Prius conserves needed battery power? I thought I could just choose auto on the lights to have this problem taken care of, but the lights still stay on.
Strange, I leave my lights on all of the time. When I park and open the drivers door the lights go off automatically. This is standard for the US prius since we do not have DRL. If you are not located in Canada, take it to your dealer and have it checked out. It would help if you had your location in your profile.
I think it was a coincidence with the radio. Many people have reported one time or rare occurances similar to what you describe with radio problems. Your lights will turn off when you open the driver's door after turning off the car...but there is a tiny residual drain through the circuit if you do not turn them off with the switch which might make a difference for a long time sitting idle. I doubt you'll experience the radio problem again. But I'd try to re-train myself to turn off the lights.
I wished the Auto function was like the Camry. It would stay on and turn off after 30 secs or so, or you could press the Lock button twice to turn off the light. With the Prius, the light goes off immediately after opening the driver's side door. Problem with that is if I'm in the passenger seat, and I turn the car to IG-ON, then off and leave, the lights won't go off cause the driver's side door didn't open.
If the lights don't auto off, such as turning the lights off then on while the driver door is open, then you will hear warning beeps.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DanMan32 @ May 15 2005, 07:22 PM) [snapback]89746[/snapback]</div> Nope, not in my situation. Here is what happened to me. I had the (running) lights on going to work one day. When I arrived, I turned off the engine and left, forgetting the light switch. No matter, however, because the headlights turned off automatically when I opened the door. After lunch that day, however, I returned to the car to drop off my lunch box. I opened the passenger door and put in the lunch box. Then, noticing how hot it was inside the car with no chance of rain, I decided to crack the windows. From the passenger seat, I hit IGN-on, lowered the windows, and then turned off and left. There was no beep, no warning, no indication anywhere that the headlights had turned back on because of the IGN-on. They stayed on because I left via the passenger door. Ugg! Fortunately, I wasn't gone long enough to kill the battery. This is an uncommon situation, but it happened. Toyota and passenger door users, please note! jh
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ May 15 2005, 01:02 PM) [snapback]89707[/snapback]</div> Seriously, how often do you do this? I can't imagine why you would climb out the passenger side after driving. I climbed in from the passenger side one time when my neighbor had his sprinklers on and hosing the driver's side door, but it wasn't something I try to do often.
