I have a question concerning moving or towing a "dead" Prius. In the building where I live, I park in a very low underground parking structure with very little room on any side. Let's assume I park nose-in in my parking spot. I then have a large pillar on my driver's side, a wall in front of me, another car on my passenger's side, and a pillar on the other side of that. I have tried to include an attachment map which details this layout. Assume that the Prius "died" such that I could not get the computer or MFD to turn on - as some people have reported here. If I cannot turn the car on, I cannot shift it into neutral, correct? If I cannot shift it into neutral, how are they going to move the Prius in this configuration (note the front wheels are not available to be lifted by a tow truck due to the wall)? Would the car have to be dragged backward out of its spot to get it to a point where the front end could be lifted? Would that not be very traumatic on the car? I am seriously wondering what would happen in this situation. Does anyone have any experience or ides on this?
You could lift the front of the car from the side and put the wheels under a dolly. Getting access to the lift point would be tricky. Otherwise, your only option is to try and boost the car into Ig-On, or else you'll have to drag it a few feet to get to the front of the car. I would have suggested manually applying power to the parking pawl motor (properly called the shift control actuator), but it is a 3 phase 12V motor. Preventative solution would be to back the car in.
I agree with Dan, I think it depends upon how "dead" you are. If you are completely electrically 'dead' and it won't go into IG-ON mode to allow you to go into neutral even with a battery boost then you're probably going to have to drag it out. I think the risk to the system are small, but certainly aren't zero. If, OTOH, you just have a dead 12v there are plenty of battery boosters and jumper cables long enough, to allow a jump start. Even if it won't turn over get it into Ig-On and put it in neutral before dragging.
Whether I'm parked at my condo underground parking or at the underground parking at work, I always like to back into the stall. Just a habit I've always had.
There were some excellent ideas presented here, and of course, the solution would depend upon what has caused the "dead" Prius. BTW, I always back into my spot...so the question was really more a hypothetical. But it could happen to someone else.
