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drive to neutral

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by susieb.garyb, Apr 29, 2010.

  1. susieb.garyb

    susieb.garyb New Member

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    2008 Prius
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    08 model. 30000mi. After warming up, it occasionally repeatedly slips from drive to neutral. It then won't stay in drive unless I manually hold it in drive. It will occasionally stay in B but not always. The D and B backlight also disappears occasionally. After holding it in D for at least a couple of minutes and maintaining speed, it will again grab D. Happens in town and highway. I've taken it to Toyota twice but they say since they can't reproduce the event they can't offer a fix.
     
    #1 susieb.garyb, Apr 29, 2010
  2. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    This could be a problem with the shifter lever and its associated switches.

    Tom
     
    #2 qbee42, Apr 29, 2010
  3. Politburo

    Politburo Active Member

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    Make sure that they have documented your visits. Otherwise they'll might suddenly be able to recreate the problem once you roll over to 36,001...
     
    #3 Politburo, Apr 29, 2010
  4. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    They need to take a look at the shifter signals going back into
    the hybrid ECU, particularly the "select" set of lines. Sounds
    like something is falsely telling the ECU that the lever has
    slid over to the left end, which in the absence of the up or
    down "shift" signals means you wanted N. Might be the shifter
    unit itself -- not unheard of as a problem over time.
    .
    _H*
     
    #4 hobbit, Apr 29, 2010
  5. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    I agree that the shifter unit is the likely culprit.

    I attached a couple of photos showing you what a new one looks like as well as the spot in the dashboard where the shifter lives.
     

    Attached Files:

    #5 Patrick Wong, Apr 29, 2010
  6. susieb.garyb

    susieb.garyb New Member

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    If they can't reproduce a problem in the "select" set of lines and don't offer to replace the shifter, I won't get a fix from Toyota.
     
    #6 susieb.garyb, Apr 30, 2010
  7. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    How often does it happen susie? Could you wait until it's playing up and then drive straight to the dealer.

    BTW. Probably unrelated as this was a "jumping out of reverse into neutral" issue rather than from drive to neutral as in your case. But anyway I remember reading a problem that someone here once had that turned out to have an amusing conclusion. As said their problem was that the car wouldn't "hold reverse" and kept jumping to N. It turned out that they had chosen their shift lever as the ideal place to hang a small rubbish bag, they removed the bag and low and behold problem fixed. True story. :D
     
    #7 uart, May 1, 2010
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