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Menu Items Vanished from my Prius!

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by anti-gas, Sep 1, 2008.

  1. anti-gas

    anti-gas Reduce, Reuse and Conserve

    Joined:
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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    I must be going completely nuts here. I bought my 2008 Prius back in February. When I got home from the dealer, I was sitting in my driveway going through the MFD and all its stuff and came across a calculator. I did 3 calculations with my Wife present so I know I'm not crazy. Since then I have gone through every darn menu item and the calculator has completely disappeared. The dealer tells me there is no calculator in the car, yet both myself and my Wife used it and I remember saying at the time, that's a waste, I don't think I would ever use that, then a few days later, I forgot my cell phone (with the built in calculator on it) and went to use the car's calculator and I can't find the darn thing ever since.

    The second item is the voice selection. I remember I was able to go somewhere and select which voice I wanted the car to use for the NAV, Male, Female or Computer Generated. I can't seem to find that either.

    I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone!

    If anyone knows please enlighten me otherwise I'm going to wipe everything in the car as if it were just from the factory and start over. Maybe I will find it then, but I hate to loose all my NAV info.

    Also, one other thing, does anyone know how to turn homelink off when I'm not in the car. I don't like the fact that while my car is in my driveway (locked), anyone can break my window reach in and push my garage door homelink button, open and enter my house. I have deleted my remote from the car until I can figure this one out. When I'm in the car with the car locked (locked with the remote from someone else on the exterior) after the 60 seconds when the alarm engages, the Homelink on the RV Mirror can still be operated. I think that was a stupid design. It should be powered off unless the ignition is hot!

    Thanks for anyones help in this area.
     
  2. rigormortis

    rigormortis Active Member

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    homelink solutions
    -----------------
    you might not like this heh

    1) park the car in the garage
    2) find a modification to make homelink off unless car is on
    3) remove the homelink mirror, sell it on ebay, and go with the standard prius mirror
    4) do you have the $165 glass breakge sensor?? if someone broke the window at least the car alarm would go off
    5) get a dog or a bigger dog
     
  3. 9G-man

    9G-man Senior Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    There is no calculator, there is no nav voice selection.

    Prior to having a car with Homelink, what did you do with your garage remote, when your car was sitting in the driveway? Be honest. do that now.

    Another solution would be to select lock on your garage door controller in the garage, when your car is sitting in the driveway. That way, no remote can open the door. Deselect when you leave .
     
  4. Sarge

    Sarge Senior Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2023 Prius Prime
    Model:
    XSE Premium
    Not a bad suggestion, however, for each person like yourself who complains about this behaviour, there will be one or more who complain that they have to start up the car to operate teh garage door. Given most people simply clip their non-integrated remote to the visor, this effectively operates under the same conditions. Ideally, this should be a user-configurable option.

    If you are that paranoid about this security risk, then you can always leave the homelink unprogrammed and use a non-integrated remote that you can toss into the glove box or center console to hide it. Though it still wouldn't stop someone from smashing your window to try your Homelink... if they think like you.:(

    The best suggestion of all is to always park in the garage when home, then this becomes a non-issue.

    Also, I'm quite certain there is no calculator in the car, nor any ability to change the voice. You DO have a pretty useless calendar, though!
     
  5. anti-gas

    anti-gas Reduce, Reuse and Conserve

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Absolutely without a doubt the voice selection for the NAV DOES exist because I sampled all three, the first was the standard womans voice, 2nd was a mans voice and third was that non-human "SAM" computer generated voice. Once I selected it I could never bring that menu up again. It came up on the same screen as the Calculator and a few other menu options such as Personal Organizer. I'm not crazy, my Wife saw it and made the comment that she was jealous because my car had a built in PDA.

    The only thing I can think of is it only comes up when you first setup the NAV system, not sure, but the dealer tells me there is no such thing but then again, what the heck to they know, they told me my GPS antenna was located under the drivers seat when in fact it is located up in the dash built directly into the MFD. They also told me that the 'B' on the shifter knob was for making extra electricity when driving and I told them they were wrong it was engine brake, so I'm through arguing with the dealer as they are nothing but a bunch of idiots. I hope I never have to bring my car in for service! I may have to drive a distance to find a dealer who actually higher people with brains.

    I want my calculator back and If I have to reverse engineer this car to find it, I will. It IS THERE!
     
  6. anti-gas

    anti-gas Reduce, Reuse and Conserve

    Joined:
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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Unfortunately I only have a 1 car garage and it is full of the normal household stuff, so no luck in pulling a car in there. I do have my homelink unprogrammed as unless I can secure it, I don't plan on using it. I'm the one who takes my garage transmitter out of my car every time I exit. I don't believe in having my "HOUSE KEY" left carelessly so a potential thief can get it. We living a world of home invasions, home robberies, and a mess of other crimes against people. I'm not going to leave an open invitation in my car. I know of 2 people in my lifetime that have had their homes burglarized due to one, having their car stolen and the thief used their registration in their glove box to find their home address, then used the cars garage door remote which was programmed into the cars system to open the garage door and completely wipe out their personal valuables when they weren't home and the second person had their car parked in their driveway at night while sleeping, the thieves broke a window of the car, pushed the button on their garage door opener's remote, opened the door, held the family hostage at 3am while their 16 year old daughter, 8 year old daughter and wife was repeatedly raped by 3 different people and the husband killed for attempting to stop it. No thanks, I will keep my keys in my house!
     
  7. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    I have a 2006 with the Nav system, so I can't say it's exactly like yours. I do know on the 2006 there is only one voice file on the nav DVD, and it's named Jill. That's why we call the woman in our nav system Jill.

    Tom
     
  8. rigormortis

    rigormortis Active Member

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    then why not spend the msrp of $165 to get the glass breakage sensor installed?

    the only possible way i know of to reset the navigation would be to do the following:

    1) disconnect the 12v battery
    2) i heard disconnecting the dome light fuse also reboots stuff???
    3) inside the actual dvd drive under the seat (not the external eject button) but actually inside the dvd drive is a lack of a better term, a CUDA switch, open the actual dvd drive and press that button

    if none of that works, then i am stuck
     
  9. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

    Joined:
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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Like the other poster suggested, I park inside the garage. That said, it doesn't make much difference since we don't lock our garage. The garage doors have unsecured outside buttons for easy access, so there is really no need for me to worry about the security of the remote opener. I suppose it would be different if I lived in a high crime area, and also different with an attached garage.

    Attached garages are a bad idea for several reasons: 1) Fire, 2) Noxious chemicals, and 3) Dangerous fumes. They do offer a certain amount of convenience for unloading groceries, but we walk from the grocery store, so that isn't an issue for us.

    Hearing these horror stories about home invasion raises a bigger question for me: why do people continue to live in areas like this? Is it a conscious decision to stay, the inability to leave, or something else? I can't imagine dealing with that sort of environment.

    Tom