At 65 MPH my Prius shifted into neutral ?

[Chuck41]

I could not believe it but I had just filled up with fuel and was about 6 miles down the road when the car went out of CC and started to slow down. My first goal was to get off the road. Before I got stopped I noticed there was no power flow of any kind showing on the MFD. I run a scangauge II and checked for error codes but none were available. One thing I did not do was to look at the dash indication of the where the shifter was indicated. I put the car in D and away we went. Very SCARY !!

The only unusual thing that might of caused this was we received a cell phone call at the same time as the incident. I keep the cell phone in the second cup holder back from the dash.

We have had one other incident that is not explainable. We were at an Auto Parts Store and we could not use the FOB to lock the car. I blamed it on the stores security system.

[Patrick Wong]

Hi Chuck,

If you are on the tall side, is it possible that your right knee might have bumped against the shift lever?

[N3FOL]

I will admit that the shift level is easy to bump. I've done it several times and luckily have not accidentally shifting the car to N while in motion.

[Fraser]

Originally Posted by N3FOL

I will admit that the shift level is easy to bump. I've done it several times and luckily have not accidentally shifting the car to N while in motion.

I'm wondering how the driver's knee could move the shift lever to neutral. It would have had to pull the lever from right to left.

[Neicy]

Neutral is the default gear in the event that the shifter knob is moved out of D or B while the vehicle is moving forward at any speed that would cause damage to the engine. I have bumped it a few times by accident, but never hard enough to knock it out of D. I was once pulling out of a parking space and instead of pushing the power for the radio, I hit the park button. I was just barely moving so the car did as I requested and stopped. Very abruptly. Boy, was that a surprise. My first thought was too many P buttons too close together. My second thought was pay better attention to what I'm doing.

[edthefox5]

Don't know about the neutral thing have never heard that before but no SKS is common. I learned here that your cell phone can interfere with it. Mine does on my belt. I have to turn my waist/phone away from the car to make the SKS lock most of the time.
Your right about the store too. A local TV station reported a store at the mall that had a dead zone all the way around it into the parking lot. People couldn't lock there cars or if could lock couldn't get them back open later. It was there security system blasting the lot with power.The anti-theft devices on clothes reader if I remember correctly.

[narf]

Originally Posted by Chuck41

The only unusual thing that might of caused this was we received a cell phone call at the same time as the incident. I keep the cell phone in the second cup holder back from the dash.

Is it possible that when you reached for the cell phone or the phone controls you bumped the shifter into neutral?