Is instant death for G3 Prius preventable?

Interesting question!

 

If I remember correctly P will not engage if you are driving faster than, say, 10km/h. N will not engage unless you keep it in N for 2-3 secs - so a kid would really have to keep it there a while, and just bumping into it will not do.
For R I don't know - never tried it. It will likely not work.

My guess is that the phrase in the Owner's Manual is essentially legal CYA stuff.

Other more experienced PC users/driver can surely comment on this with more (technical) details.

 

You actually believed that?!
It's there to prevent successful lawsuits only. The warning has no basis in reality.

If you are moving at some -reasonable- speed (probably faster than a few MPH) the car will shift into "N" and beep at you. No damage.
If you are moving slower than a few MPH the car -will- shift. Shifting to "R" while moving forward does no damage. There are no gears to grind, no clutch to slip. Reverse is electrical only. I do this just about every day, backing out of the garage and shift to "D" from "R" while moving. No damage. The car just changes drive direction.
If you are moving slower than a few MPH and you shift to "P" the car will come to an abrupt stop as you jam the park locking mechanism. It's slightly possible you could damage it. Many have done this with no damage. A few have managed to damage the part.

 

The P issue is the parking pawl engaging the flywheel detentes, I believe. There wouldn't be detentes in the transmission, as with a regular car.

Here is the real test - rent a Prius!

 

Nice attention grabber, " Instant Death" but in the real world nothing but fiction and will most likely remain that way.

 

If you are moving and hold the shifter in N it will go to N after 1 second, it will then coast to a stop. You still have power steering and power brakes. No problems doing this.

If you are moving and put the shifter in R it will go to N unless you are moving slowly then it will go to R. No problems with this either.

If you are moving and put the shifter in P it will go to N unless you are moving slowly then it will go to P. It can make a "clunk" when you do this (I have done it by accident) so I avoid pushing P until I am stopped. If you are moving faster than about 5 MPH or so it will just go to N so that isn't a problem.

No "instant death" the car looks after itself.

The Prius Owner's Manual is not very good and in several places they appear to have cut and pasted information from manuals written for other cars.

 

To be fair, the rent a Prius idea to test should also rent another car with an CVT transmission and repeat the test.

Please post the results; I'm interested in knowing what happens.

 

It's not commonly known that if you shift to R, N or P while in D and moving, the Prius instantly transforms into a Deceptacon with you in it, leading to instant death. The killer shift strikes again.

 

Hi All,

Despite what the manual says, I do not think there has been a documented episode of somebody doing this, and the car becoming damaged.

That said, if you push any car into neutral, with the gas pedal depressed, on the highway, its going to overrev the engine, and possibly damage the engine or the transmission. But not with a Prius. Consequently, this section of the manual appears to be a carry over from standard car manuals.

Its well known amoungst hypermilers, that the 10K rpm MG1 mechanical limit (versus the 6500 RPM control limit) will be exceeded, if the car is coasted down a hill starting below 40 mph (to get the engine cutoff) , going into neutral, and alowing the car to exceed 65 mph down hill. These are Gen 2 Values. Gen 3 values will be slightly different.

Attempting to shift into the other gears at highway speeds will just ellicit a beep from from the car, with no change in operation.

Shifting into neutral at highway speed, engine running, will result in the engine continuing to run, which then allows MG1 to run at a much slower speed, which avoids any hazard to MG1.

Shifting into Neutral at highway speed in warp stealth (engine turning over at 1000 RPM, but not fired), I am not sure what will happen.

Most of use do not do N glides above the car's stealth speed. So, we do not shift into N above 40 mph, for the Gen II or 45 mph for the Gen III.

 

There have been several cases of the "parking lock" mechanism being damaged. They -may-, however, have been damaged by an under-informed tow truck driver. It's not a "pawl" by the way. It's a gear. It looks like a hypoid gear from an oil pump. The assembly is actually external to the HSD, bolted on for ease of replacement. It doesn't engage a flywheel (there is no flywheel with a ring gear in a Prius).
Lots of misunderstanding of this part. Just goes to show how reliable it really is and how hard it is to break.

 

Donee, doesn't it go into neutral if you hit reverse or park at highway speeds? I remember I think pEEf saying he does this since it's actually quicker than waiting the 1 second or so for neutral to kick in. To be honest I'm not sure without going out and testing, I usually use N itself. In either case there's definitely no damage to the transmission.

What will happen is you get a "no arrows" state, though I realize that visual representation is not available on a Gen III. You will be getting in the hundreds of mpgs, but not infinite, since if you are in warp stealth and go into neutral a small amount of gas will be burned in that state. I do this if one foot is getting tired and I want to switch to the other quickly without losing momentum.

Interesting to note, if you're in neutral down a nice hill, you'll accelerate a good clip faster than if you were in warp stealth.

 

Hi MwaP,

I believe a momentary tap, it just beeps. One would have to hold it for a few seconds to get neutral.

Do not know what would happen with no-arrows. That is almost impossible to do around here, even in a Gen II.

Simple rule, just do not do a N glide above the warp stealth speed (40 mph in a Gen II, and 45 mph in a Gen III). And avoid letting the car get above those speeds once in an N glide. And you cannot damage the transmssion.

 

Shifting into R or P at any speed above 5 MPH or so will put the car into N and it will simply coast to a stop. I have done so several times. Yes it is quicker than going to N because the 1 second delay is eliminated.

 

I've tried every combination of this with the Gen II Prius and it won't let you do anything stupid. I assume the Gen III is just as smart. One of the few dumb things about the Prius is the owner's manual. Toyota really needs to hire a writer.

Tom

 

Well I must applaud you for actually reading the user manual.

It is done so infrequently that people forget some of the garbage in there.

 

My wife actually tested the Park button while on the freeway. She isn't particularly familiar with driving our (G2) Prius, and was trying to adjust the vent knob just above the park button. She says that it beeped, and then lost all power. When she got to the side of the road and tried to figure out what had happened, she discovered that the display next to the speedometer showed that the car was in neutral. Shifting back into Drive solved the problem.

I think there is a legitimate claim that having the Park button so close to the vent knob is a poor ergonomic design.

Her usual car is an older BMW 325i with a manual shift. It was interesting that one of her comments is that she found herself speeding in the Prius. The car just goes fast without any particular feedback of its speed. The manual shift, hard suspension, and analog speedometer on the BMW certainly keeps you aware of what the car is doing.