Interesting things you learned about the Prius long after buying it

I intentionally played with this on the manual transmission a couple days ago, on flat ground without any gravity slope rolling assist. The only real difference between my Prius and my manual vehicle is that when still rolling forward, the shift stick did initially balk at actually moving into R. But when I continued to insist, it did go into position, and did so without any gear grinding noise. From there, while still rolling forward, engaging the clutch to reverse the rolling direction went perfectly smooth.

Shifting into forward gear while still rolling in the reverse direction was perfectly smooth and balk-free. And so was clutch engagement.

This is not approved procedure on either car, but done softly, it worked smoothly enough. So quite unlike dad's agricultural equipment, I must have those synchronizer rings on both first and reverse.

I won't try this on the stick shift at higher speeds where I have tested it on the Prius.

 

I've discovered how to get the ICE engine to start even when it doesn't want to or even when the car is fully warmed up...works 100% of the time. (I've been testing it.)

Anytime you want the ICE to come up, just put the car in park and push down on the accelerator...that's it! It will come on. Of course, if the car is fully warmed up, it won't stay on for very long.

This is especially useful when doing oil changes and you just need the ICE to run for a bit so you can check the oil level on the dipstick. (For doing a coolant/transaxle drain and fill, you will need to put it in Maintenance Mode.)