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Disable Idle Creep!

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Accessories & Modifications' started by haiyue, Jun 12, 2005.

  1. haiyue

    haiyue New Member

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    I love the Prius - every aspect of it - except for the pre-programmed idle creep. A normal automatic vehicle has an idle creep - that is, when you let your feet off the gas, the car creeps forward due to the pressure in the torque converter.

    The Prius also has this idle creep, except that it is programmed in! When you let your feet off the brake, the computer turns on the electric motor, causing the vehicle to creep forward like a bad automatic! I love stick shifts and I love the way they don't move after you let the brake off. The only probable reason why Toyota added this annoying feature is that they did it to satisfy the general public's marketing and to make it look like any other ordinary automatic when it actually boasts the most advanced CVT in the world!

    Is there any way to disable this annoying idle creep feature?
     
  2. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    I think people have tossed this thought around and the general consensus was 'no'.

    Some argued that the creep is there to keep the driver alert. That is, I have been sitting in the car in a parking lot, get distracted, forget to put it in park and when I take my foot off the brake a little, the car moves forward. That's my wake-up call to put it in park. Before you scoff, I've also left the car on and gotten out thinking that it was off. Stop laughing; your day will come.

    Some said, like you indicated, that Toyota did this just to make it feel like any other car.

    In the end, I've just gotten used to it. Then again, I've never owned a manual so idling creep is the norm to me.
     
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  3. vincent1449p

    vincent1449p Active Member

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    I agree with TonyPSchaefer.

    You may like to check out this link:
    Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Transmission Shift Lever
    Besides this safety reason, I actually find this creep force to be very useful in traffic jam. You just need to release the brake and the car slowly creep forward. It causes less fatique on your foot than a manual.

    OK, there may not be a way to disable it, but you can try my suggestions (provided that you are on level ground):

    1) Shift to "N" if you know the wait will be short.
    2) Shift to "P" if you know the wait will be long.

    This is to ensure that your HV battery's SOC doesn't get too low as the ICE cannot charge it in "N".

    Vincent
     
  4. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Well, with a manual, isn't it because you're in neutral or your clutch is in?

    Same with auto, just stick in neutral if you wanted that effect. Not sure why you don't want the creep. Worse come to worse, just apply the parking brake if you're at a long light and want to rest your foot.
     
  5. Devil's Advocate

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    Creep good!

    Without that flow of paower this car would have nearly zero resistance to rolling. Now try and get your foot from the brake to the accelerator without rolling backk about three feet. There is no clutch to feather so the car would instantly roll backwards.

    Granted there may be some way to use the computer to "hold" the car in place but if your going to use that kind of calculating power you might as well simplufy the equations and just always have a little extra juice.
     
  6. haiyue

    haiyue New Member

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    I like the idea with the neutral - I do that now with the current situation. The reason why I am so annoyed with it is because I used to race Electrathon vehicles (electric powered go-karts) and I've associated the Prius with a silent vehicle like the Electrathon racers.

    And of course, in Electrathon racers, there is no idle creep, which is why I dislike the idle creep so much on the Prius.

    I absolutely agree that it's a safety issue with the notion of leaving the car in the wrong gear (like reverse) and hitting the gas and getting into an accident. But then, I actually don't mind that reverse beep so much as the creep, so that helps me there.

    I will look more into this - there might be something I can do with regards to the ECU about this. I'll have to look into the electrical wiring diagrams to figure it out.....
     
  7. GeekyDragon

    GeekyDragon New Member

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    Only problem with Neutral, is that when you're in Neutral the hybrid system won't recharge. This could be a problem if you're there for very long.
     
  8. DanMan32

    DanMan32 Senior Member

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    It's in the HV ECU programming. Don't know what you expect to get out of the wiring diagram. They don't provide the schematics of the ECUs.
     
  9. jeromep

    jeromep Member

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    Auto creep is good! Very good.

    Auto creep is a side effect of the hydraulic system used in regular automatics. Ok, so we all know that. But the side effect is that automatics are easier to drive in hilly cities and are easier to drive in stop-and-go situations. Downtown Seattle is very nasty to drive around in sometimes, and when you are at one of those crazy nearly vertical streets coming up from the waterfront at a stop, well you really do want auto creep there to keep you from really rolling back instead of just a slight roll back.

    In stop-and-go traffic, nothing is worse than having to man a clutch all the time to move forward and then move feet around quickly to come to a stop. In those situations it is much easier to drive with one pedal and one foot rather than having to use both feet and 3 pedals.

    So, Toyota chose to simulate auto creep, just like they have simulated hydraulic brake pedal feel using a "wet" brake-by-wire system. I couldn't imaging a vehicle which is sold as an automatic not feeling like an automatic when I drove it. That just wouldn't make sense. Frankly, all of these very natural feeling simulations are a modern miracle or very high engineering thought.

    hayiue, congratulations on owning a Prius. In spite of the theoretical possibility of removing the electronic creep functionality, I hope you enjoy what the rest of us who are crazy about automatics have come to love.
     
  10. DanMan32

    DanMan32 Senior Member

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    I would be interested in finding out what it's like to not have auto-creep or regen coasting. Would be neat if we could adjust the amount of each, or even turn it off. But it would have to have hill hold, as it was supposed to.
     
  11. rcroft

    rcroft New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(haiyue\";p=\"97865)</div>
    Except if you then take your foot off the clutch, you then have manual-lurch-stall.
     
  12. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    This was one of the first things I griped about a few months
    ago too. THANK YOU for posting that federal NPRM -- that makes the
    rationale a whole lot clearer, even if it's sort of locked into its
    own little automatic-transmission world. Notice how the issue of
    manual transmissions is never dealt with ... in which the
    fact still remains that a driver could suddenly lurch a car in the
    wrong direction by being inattentive. But the idea of
    maintaining a certain set of cues that the slush-box crowd has gotten
    used to over the last 60 years has a certain value, I suppose.
    _
    And by now, my own dance between Drive and Neutral is
    wired into muscle memory. I don't creep unless I mean to...
    _
    _H*
     
  13. gschoen

    gschoen Member

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    Given that the car is marketed as an "automatic CVT" it should behave like an automatic, especially since auto trans are prefered in the US.

    With a stick shift, as you release the clutch you feel the motion of the car, giving the driver an indication of travel. I'm much more aware of what gear I'm in with a stick, especially at a stop, since I know I'm going to be shifting! (and every stick car I've driven makes it a special chore to shift into reverse so you don't do it by mistake.) They say driving stick gives you a much better feel of the car and road, and I agree completely.

    But my Prius is still more fun.
     
  14. molain

    molain Junior Member

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    I've never heard of anyone with a real electric vehicle complain about a lack of creep, and the fact that my Prius wastes precious battery power to try to pull forward, even as I'm applying the brake (until I come to a complete stop) quite perturbs me. Creep is not a "feature" of automatics, it's an unaviodable flaw that results from the nature of the torque converter in the transmission. The Prius doesn't need any flaws built into it.

    That said, I've learned several tricks when driving my Prius, and the short of it is that Neutral is my best friend. For example, the car stops regen and tries to creep at 7MPH or under. Therefore, when slowing, I try to get the car to go into neutral just as I drop from 8 to 7 so I don't waste any electricity :)

    Furthermore, I've discovered that the car won't change engine state while you're in neutral. So while the car's manual argues that "neutral won't charge the batteries," which is true, it also allows you to go over 40MPH without using any gasoline. Then, when you need to put on the brake, just pop it into drive and you get your regen. Or if you're close enough to 40, use the friction brakes to lose a couple MPH, then pop it into drive & you stay in EV mode.

    Now... if I could just overcome my warranty fears, I'd add EV-mode too and be all set!

    -Ben
     
  15. rocco

    rocco Member

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    Creep is good when your teaching your 15 yr old 98 lb teen to drive too :)
     
  16. mudmanrv

    mudmanrv Member

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    It makes sense - yet it doesn't.
    It makes sense that creep is what the majority of us are used to...
    however, it doesn't make sense that - a hybrid vehicle is about saving energy - granted more fuel than eletrical....
    yet it 'wastes' it with something like creep. If I'm sitting in a drive-thru - I don't need to blind the guy behind me with the bright LED tail lights... I could just goose the pedal when I need to move forward... but on a hill, I could either engage the hill assist- which should stay active until i hit the gas IMHO ... or they could have added a tilt sensor - and anything over a certain degree off level - engage it for me. that way, I could have the no energy -setting still on the flat...
    and have creep or hill assist active on a grade greater than say 2% ...

    sounds like a new priuschat shop mod item.... should someone feel compelled to develop it.
     
  17. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i would love it. when i pull into my garage, it's a downhill pitch unfortunately, i try to ease up to a certain spot. trying to use the grabby brakes to move an inch at a time can get interesting! but if i put it in neutral, it doesn't roll.
     
  18. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    When I want to move smoothly at a controlled speed below the creep speed, I apply the parking brake just enough to cancel the creep. It's real handy for going slowly and smoothly through a car wash blow dry. That might work for your garage maneuvers too.
     
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  19. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i will give it a try, thanks!