Safety and Technical Issues With A 2008 Prius Touring

My 2004 Prius came with both DRL and auto headlights, but that is because it is a Canadian model. AFAIK neither feature is available in the United States

You can "cheat" and have "auto" headlights by leaving the turn stalk switch to On all the time. When you power down and open the driver door, they should go out.

The Canadian Prius has an extra sensor in the dash left corner - 2 sensors, one for auto climate control and the other for auto headlights. The extra sensor is the ambient light sensor, it determines when the headlights should turn on. The stalk has an extra position, "Auto."

I wish my Prius also had autolock. My 2000 GMC Sierra SLT had autolock and auto volume control on the stereo

As far as GPS I would never depend on one. The better - more expensive - models from Garmin and Magellan you can update the maps and they're usually quite good. A co-worker got a cheap Cobra GPS unit by using up some Air Miles rewards. That one does not appear to be easily upgradeable and doesn't list a lot of newer streets

Something like a Magellan Maestro 4050 TrafficKit you can upgrade the map to an AAA-approved street map using either SD cards or a download from a DVD they send

 

1. we get hid lights down here, canada gets auto lights and drl. crappy tradeoff imo. use jayman's suggestion. if you have hid lights, you don't want to use them as running lights though.

2. where we live, i don't even wait to start the car before locking yourself in. i lock myself in as a combined motion with closing the door. but that's just where we live. moving in 2 weeks and can NOT wait.

3. i think toyota gets their map info from another company but i forget. don't see too many people around these parts who are genuinely happy with the nav system so you are definitely not alone.

 

Hmmm, you forget to press one button to lock all the doors, and you want to blame Toyota for the carjacking?

Sheesh.

 

1. Leave the light switch on.

2. Auto Door Lock

3. Prius NAV is not an exceptionally great OEM unit. Wish you'd have asked us in advance.

You really in Fort Mohave?

Fort Mohave - Arizona Ghost Town

 

maybe you should ask people with the older 2007 prius navigation cd
and see if they got your street, theres been a couple complaints about
2008 7.1 removing streets from what i read on here

 

If you are not happy with the product, consider returning it. When features are very important to you, confirm their availability before purchase. If the dealer was not honest and sold you something that was not available, he had best take it back or be prepared for legal action.

 

<rant filter ON>

 

Every car purchase involves a series of trade-offs.

 

Do you want some cheese with your whine? Do your homework, read Priuschat, and you would find that all the "shortcomings" your car has is normal. Whine if it makes you feel better, but don't blame the car manufacturer for not fulfilling your every wish. The Prius is the most nearly perfect car I've ever owned, in the things that matter, performance, room, mpgs, and the fun gadgets are a bonus. Sorry you're not happy.

As for NAV, which I don't have. My friend was showing me his NAV on a new Audi A4 (over $40,000). As we drove down his street, we were in the "gray" area, no streets were shown, and he has lived there almost 30 years. Not surprised it can't find your street in a ghost town. I'm talking a long standing suburb of LA! Some times you don't always get what you pay for.

 

I had a similar problem with the Nav system initially, but I decided to try entering the street name and then the number. For some reason, it wouldn't find my house if I did the number first. Odd, but it works just fine.

 

Check the region setting on the Nav setup screen. It may not be set to your local area.

 

Also don't fully rely on GPS (Factory or Aftermarket) for pinpoint the House Number, they never got it right in most cases.

 

The house numbering on GPS maps is not done by physical location, but uses an interpolation scheme based on starting and ending addresses for a given street. It's not a bad assumption, but it's not perfect. Lots differ in size, and many locations have missing addresses in their numbering schemes.

When I enter an address on the NAV system, I always work from largest to smallest:

1) Make sure you have selected the correct region.
2) Enter the city.
3) Enter the street.
4) Enter the number.

This way each selection narrows the options for the next, so you usually don't have to key in the entire field, but can pick it from the list.

Make sure to never enter extras for streets, such as South, S, Street, Ave., etc. Just use the base name of the street, and pick it from a list. You never know how the database has the street listed, and by adding one of the qualifiers you can inadvertently remove the target street from the search. By leaving out the qualifiers you get all of the streets with that name.

Tom

 

We live on a long block. The cross street at the west end of it would be 81st it it didn't go by another name and the street at the east end of it is 85th street. All of the house numbers start with 81**.

A GPS and even Mapquest can't get it quite right. If we went by their information, we would live about 12 houses down the street.

 

Not unusal, that's why when I register my HOME in my Prius' Nav I use the current position (parked in the garage) instead of keying in my home address.

Google and Mapquest got my address on their maps in right location though.

 

Some combination of responsibility ranging between "the dealer lied to you" at one end and "you didn't do your homework/didn't understand" at the other. Take a deep breath and review things.

 

I have a 2008 Prius Touring #6. I don't recall being able to order auto headlights or DRL as an extra. Was this part of the package or did you pay more?

I have a setting that automatically turns on lights when I start car, they turn off as soon as I open the driver's door... They aren't quite like my Sienna DRL/auto lights that turned off after 30 seconds but they solve the big issue which is my lights are always on and I don't have to think about turning them on. And they turn off as soon as I get out so I don't have to worry about them staying on. I was a little bummed at first as I liked the Sienna features but as soon as I found a reasonable solution I chilled.

Regarding #2 I did see in the manual that you could program different options but haven't tried them. I have mixed feelings about autolock anyhow in case of accident, and don't worry about carjackers much. Would they want to carjack a Prius??!!!

Regarding your nav, that really isn't Toyota's fault, those databases come from somewhere else. There are always issues with certain areas, just like Mapquest and everything else. I assume you know how to get home !! You may have to relax on that one and accept it is not a perfect world.

IS ALL CAPS IN FORUMS "YELLING" LIKE IN EMAILS

 

I have HID lights and use them as daytime lights. So now I'm worried. I've always been big on having lights on during the day. I'm starting to feel bad for having HID, am I causing misery for other drivers?

And I'm sorry to be obtuse but why can't I use them during the day?

 

The main reason to not use HID headlights for daytime running lights has nothing to do with bothering other drivers, it's daytime! The cost of replacing the HID lamps can be very expensive. Dealers want several hundred dollars to replace them. If you buy the lamps on eBay and do it yourself, you can get the cost down to about $80. HID headlights have a long life, but not infinite.

I like having lights on during the day too. There are hacks described on this site to let you run the otherwise minimally useful, and less expensive, halogen "fog" lights with the main headlights off, but this is illegal in many states. But it's not the type of infraction that would usually get you pulled over.