I should be a test driver for Toyota, I'd be the perfect study for the "what if they're stupid enough to actually do [fill in the blank]". Blunder 1: Thought my trunk was unlocked (it wasn't) and stupidly tried to open from the spoiler when a quick grab at the handle proved futile. Result: A nice piercing cracking sound of plastic molding yielding to the caveman brainless thought process that allowed me to try this maneuver. After feeling like a complete moron, and letting my BP settle, I inspected. Looks ok but has a slight amount of free play so I can tilt edge a degree or two up/down. Blunder 2: My wife left two bottles of wine in the floor area in front of the passenger seat. Apparently, she didn't think to put them in the trunk so instead laid them down next to her feet. Forgetting to tell me they were there, I found out later...while driving. Thought I had time to stop a mile up the road and remove them once I heard them clanking around. I was wrong. One shattered and gushed a nice Spanish rioja all over the floor mats and down around the edges into the floor carpeting. Result: Divorced. J/K. Wife, meet net in trunk, net, wife. Well, that's for one bottle anyway. Better yet, a box. Removed floor mat, threw towels everywhere to absorb as much as possible, dabbed and dabbed some more. Smelled like red wine for the better part of a day. Stain mostly gone, floor mat needs washing big time. Blunder 3: This is the kicker. Driving home from work, tired as usual. For some nutty reason, decided to grasp the shifter...yes, the shifter, and just held on. Then, for some unknown reason, my hand/arm decided it was actually back in time, to this morning when I was starting off, and re-shifted into D from D. The car didn't seem to mind too much, but did seem to register the flub by responding with a slight but noticeable shifting sensation or perhaps a slight / subtle pause. This was at 75 mph w/cruise control on. I checked the manual later when I got home, and apparently the Toyota engineers were smart enough to protect idiots, like me, from doing most of the things one could possibly do while driving (e.g. R->D, D->R, etc). However, I saw nothing that would prevent one from shifting from D->D while driving, and I'm assuming here that while redundant this can't exactly be a good thing (please somebody say I'm wrong). It will beep supposedly if you shift into D without the break on, but apparently not if you're already moving and in D and then re-shift into D (left and down). On top of that, I think I may have been breaking as I was approaching traffic and/or the cruise control may have been, so I'm not sure. Clearly, I need to chain my hand to the steering wheel. Result: ?? Hoping I didn't do something funky to the transmission. Blunder 4: Parking after the wine incident. Came to a stop and thought about how I could finish the cleaning job later, meanwhile my foot is still on the break and I'm in the parking space. with a curb and trees in front. I run through a mental check list of cleansers, brushes and things I could use and then, satisfied with my list, take my foot off the gas and prepare to exit vehicle. The car, not in "P", starts creeping forward and BUMP, scaring the heck out of me not because it was a particularly big bump but I wasn't expecting it. The underneath section of the front of course made the horrible scraping noise as it draped over the top of the crub. Ugh! Bad week, and it's only Tuesday.
Good post, Chrism. Funny. I would guess that the only real damage you caused was to the spoiler, and that it is easily fixed. The Prius does cause some stupid behavior. especially if you let it idle for a while after parking. I have often tried to get out of the car, thinking it was off. I have also tried to start the car when it was already on, thereby turning it off instead. (Which would not be so bad, except for the derisive laughter coming from my teenaged son in the back seat.)
About a week ago, my family and I went to the Explorium in downtown Mobile AL to see the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit. It was raining and I pulled up close to the front entrance and let the family out. I proceeded to go about two blocks away to park. I pulled up in a parking spot and for some reason checked my pocket for the key fob! I almost panicked, I had left my fob at home. The car had started and ran because the wife had her fob in her purse, and even though she got out of the car, it would still run. Luckily I had my cell phone, called my daughter and had her meet me at the front entrance with the wife's key fob. I had read somewhere that the car would run after removing the fob from the car but you couldn't start it again. If I had turned off the power button, could I have locked the doors or is the fob required to do this?
Dear Fobless Floyd: I don't think you can lock the car from the outside using the electronic button on the door handle. But you might be able to manually lock it from the inside.
chrism07924: good post. BTW. shifting from D to D does nothing but D then N then D. It goes into N real quick because you passed by it and then went to a gear.. even though it is the same gear. you can't turn the car off while driving, you can't part it while driving ( above 5mph or so ) and you can't throw the car in reverse while driving ( 5mph rule applies again. Reverse isn't a gear though ( from what i know ) it's simply the electric motor spinning backwards without the help of gas engine ( since it only spins forwards) i do dumb things too. you would think with 200 miles a day of stop and go that i would not do dumb things.. but i do.
One bad habit I have still have after owning the Prius for over 6 months is when I'm not concentrating and attempting to put the car in reverse I somehow automatically activate the windshield washer. Is there a Prius psychiatrist who can explain my actions? :roll:
Spilling red wine is pretty bad. Having a can of poorly-sealed house paint (to be used by your daughter for a Jackson Pollock-type art project at school) tip over and spill all over the back seat is also not good. Fortunately that was in my previous car, and it provided the impetus for plunking down money for a Prius.
LOL. funny you should mention Jackson Pollock...in the news yesterday was a report about a bunch of new Jackson Pollock paintings found in an attic a couple years ago. To be on display next year.
Without a nearby FOB, you must lock the Prius with the inside door lock. The outside buttons do not function without a FOB nearby. At least mine don't. 2005 BC.
In time you will do everything wrong that you can possibly do and the only things left will be the correct things. So get it out of your system. On another subject, spelling. I have seen this misspelling many times on the Board. It is the work 'break' when you are referring to the word 'brake'. As in 'I stepped on the brake to prevent my Prius from breaking'. So, brake is: A device for slowing or stopping motion, as of a vehicle, especially by contact friction. Something that slows or stops action. and break is: To cause to separate into pieces suddenly or violently; smash So you really don't want to break your Prius!
Well, there you go! I can't take my own advice. Misspelled the word 'word' as 'work'. Stupid fingers! I even read it over twice.
I do that one all the time, break vs brake. Sometimes I catch myself in midsentence (mid-sentence?) and sometimes my fingers lag behind my thoughts a second or two to notice. I try to break out of the spelling rut (rutt?) that I'm in when I remember to put the brakes on as I'm writing too fast or when I'm about to hit the submit button. Look at that, time for a break.
Regarding shifting, you aren't moving anything mechanical in the drivetrain with the 'shifter', you're just making mode change requests to the HV ECU. It then decides how to operate MG1, MG2 and ICE to do what you want, if safe. To request neutral, you have to hold it there for a second or two. Passing through does not go into neutral. Going from D to R or R to D or D/R to P at too high of a speed will shift you to N for safety. Going D to D and R to R will be ignored, though it might beep a warning. Perhaps you put the car in B? That might cause a feeling of a shift, as you change the rate of regen braking.
It took me forever to remember to use the little handle inside the hatch to close it... Grabbed the license plate frame many times instead. I'm finally remembering to use the little handle.
Another blunder I made last year: back out of garage with hatch still open. Fortunately only damage was the spoiler that caught an edge of the open garage door. Cost me over $400 for replacement painted spoiler.
My most embarrasing blunder so far is getting off a highway in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere... pulling into what i thought was the entrance to a gas station... driving across a grassy bumpy horrible field to get to said gas station... crunching down over the curb into said gas station parking lot... *crash* *crunch* Fortunately no damage was done and in my embarrassed stupor the guy at the pump next to me said he did the same exact thing
That's what made it the better part! Thanks very much for having the guts to share your learning experience. Here's 10 points for your contribution to helping others avoid similar blunders, and for helping us avoid a bad Friday the 13th. For your enjoyment you may want to read the recent thread about "Wife Said the Prius is So Slow!" Turns out she went to work with the speedo/cruise set to 68 kph instead of mph. Easy to do, unless you chain your hands to the wheel.
