I screwed up!

You think with all off the conservative measures Toyota has made to protect us from ourselves (nav/radio/bluetooth lockout), you would think they would've stuck with the time proven shifter design that locks into a mode (like a traditional shifter) so there's no way to mistaken what mode it's in.

It's still my opinion the joystick snap-back-to-center needs to go. Why the complexity (using a separate park button) into this well-known system?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Jul 5 2006, 03:09 AM) [snapback]281318[/snapback]</div>

I don't think that most people look at the shifter to see its position in an automatic car--there is always a display somewhere on the dash. As there is on the Prius. All you have to do in ANY car is use your eyes to confirm what you think SHOULD be actually IS. I like the small space the Prius joystick occupies--it leaves lots of other areas for other functions. (On my package 3, there is no radio lockout, by the way--I believe that only bluetooth and nav have lockouts, which also have have hack workarounds if they bother you). I wouldn't like a shifter on the floor--I like all of my storage spaces way too much. And I wouldn't like it on the steering column--It would make too many things up there, and I wouldn't want to give up what IS there. I really do not want my car protecting me from stuff that I can very easily train myself to deal with. My new driver son has been stopped lately 2x by cops because he keeps forgetting to turn on his headlights. His explanation is "My night vision is so good I forget about the headlights." My position is, this means you are a bad driver. There's a large number of things that you just need to do automatically when you are driving and if you don't/can't remember all of them MOST of the time, well, maybe you should not be driving. NuShrike, do you really find it that difficult to look at the dash display in your Prius? If so, you need to get a different car, or give up driving, because the display on the Prius is the closest thing to a true heads up display you can get without the windshield projector. And don't try to go anywhere with the "time-proven" thing--there would be no innovation in anything if new things weren't tried.

My ONLY complaint about the non-locking gear shifter is that, since I use a gps that isn't built in, and I have to run the power cord from the "lighter" position outlet, and I like to have the unit to my left on the windshield mount, if I am not careful, the coiled power cord can get caught around the shifter...but that's not a safety issue, since I can't get the car out of park when that happens...

Use your eyes. Yes, sometimes you will be distracted, but it is all part of the retraining we are all having to go through to drive the Prius the most efficiently and effectively we can.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Jul 5 2006, 05:09 AM) [snapback]281318[/snapback]</div>

The locking is a joke. I've encountered quite a few automatics that can be knocked from drive into neutral just by bumping the handle.

 

So sorry to hear about your accident! Glad nobody was hurt, though.

And this car really does need an outside reverse alarm. I look very carefully before backing up, but in a parking lot sometimes a pededtrian appears out from behind a parked SUV. And the pedestrian has no audible indication that my car is ON and about to move. People are used to hearing an engine if a car is capable of moving. They need to hear something from the Prius. And the beep that trucks and construction equipment (and even motorized shopping carts) make is familiar and recognizable.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Jul 5 2006, 09:13 AM) [snapback]281354[/snapback]</div>

IIRC, the US requirements for automatics require that all positions have locks except between neutral and drive, which therefore requires neutral and drive to be adjacent on the shifter. I'd have to go look up the regs to confirm (they are somewhere on the web if anyone really cares) but at a minimum, they mandate "extra effort" to go anywhere other than neutral from the drive position, presumeably to make it easier to regain control from a stuck throttle, but that is mere speculation on my part.

Vince

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rufaro @ Jul 5 2006, 05:49 AM) [snapback]281316[/snapback]</div>

I think this is very good advice.

I can remember at least 3 times getting out of the car and having it BEEP at me. Car in park, and Fob leaving results in an instant warning !

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jul 5 2006, 06:58 AM) [snapback]281377[/snapback]</div>

And annoying as hell in quiet residential neighborhoods late at night and early in the morning.

 

I guess I'm confused why the parking brake held when you got out of the car and then released itself later?

As to reverse beeps, I think a nice jet engine sound would be nice for the outside reverse warning.

Maybe we should all have printed checklists for when we get into a car or leave it like in a plane!
But I try to at least always set the parking brake first so it holds the car, then press park, then check my mpg for the trip, then shut off the power.

But habits don't work if something distracts you at the wrong point maybe.

 

I originally turned off the reverse beeper, but now it's back on. I actually prefer it OFF, but when other family members drive the Prius they may not know that they are in reverse and i sure don't like running that risk.

Bottom line: Reverse beep on not for me, but for other drivers of my Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rufaro @ Jul 5 2006, 05:22 AM) [snapback]281336[/snapback]</div>

Very clever and well-researched you are with your misdirected ad hominem straw-man when you're the noob poster here. You have no idea what kind of driver I am nor what I'm capable of, and I'm not the one saying "I need the reverse beep!" ...

Expounding on a belief that a design that doesn't rely on batteries or computers for a design on safety on the latest technological marvel such as the Prius is obviously wasted on you.

Your latest pointless post has made its point. Welcome to my killfile (if you don't know what that is, look it up).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Jul 5 2006, 06:13 AM) [snapback]281354[/snapback]</div>

And locking can not be a joke. What barrel-shift key lock, mechanical clock/watch, or manual stick shifter has regularly failed on you? Just because an implementation of a design can mechnically fail doesn't mean the idea itself is at fault. I personally feel having a modeless joystick is too much of a paradigm shift for some people, isn't really much of an advancement. It's still a somewhat mechnical shifter, and proves such a design is at least more random vibration and bumping tolerant interface than say a bunch of dash buttons and such. Just because solid-state has been the latest marvel of reliability in the last few decades doesn't necessarily make it better.

Why not push the joystick in, or pull it out as "park", for instance? What else can Toyota do to improve on this to be more error-proof?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike @ Jul 5 2006, 10:52 AM) [snapback]281518[/snapback]</div>

<div align="center"></div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rufaro @ Jul 5 2006, 04:49 AM) [snapback]281316[/snapback]</div>

that's too funny rufaro, i always do that my wife thinks it is excessive, and you know, i've really never had a good reason, ... until now ..., it just seems like the right thing to do!



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tomdeimos @ Jul 5 2006, 09:41 AM) [snapback]281397[/snapback]</div>

Here in the city with our endless beautiful hills ^_^ I've noticed that a little gas will reverse the car with brake applied, but on the other hand it takes a lot to go forward with brake applied, so I guess I'm saying the brake may not have release all the way until it hit the curb on the woods side or a big jolt to the wheels, or ...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TJandGENESIS @ Jul 4 2006, 11:50 PM) [snapback]281268[/snapback]</div>

I think pretty much every car manual "recommends" using the parking brake. It's more of a legal consideration than anything else, if you ask me...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(iluvmacs @ Jul 6 2006, 12:46 AM) [snapback]281821[/snapback]</div>

Maybe. Or maybe the engineers know what they are talking about. I know that since I started putting the parking brake on first, then putting the car into park, the car no longer 'settles' backwards. It stays firm. When I used to put the car in park, then apply the brake, it would shift a bit.

I know it may sound odd, but I happen to think that these engineers know a thing or two about the car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tbstout2 @ Jul 5 2006, 09:44 AM) [snapback]281475[/snapback]</div>

Any car afficionado, I'd imagine. Any owner of a classic Corvette or a brand new BMW or someone who's finally managed to save up enough to buy a shiny new Yugo, could relate to the anguish of a soul who's just seen his own car damaged, even though it's an entirely different car than he himself ever would have chosen.

 

i also go to park mode EVERYTIME i come to a stop unless on one of those severe hills we have around here. but my reason is because i dont want to waste the additional electricity by keeping the brake lights on needlessly...ya cheap i know, but currently at 60 mpg with 615 miles on the odo so laugh all you want