Can the temp display be changed to Celsius from Fahrenheit on the 2008 Prius?

[John in LB]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(viking31 @ Nov 28 2007, 01:55 PM) [snapback]545378[/snapback]</div>

Oh, pleeeze, Daniel, you imply other countries (which ones???) are "superior, more civilized" and don't have their people getting involved emotionally in organized sports such as soccer and such (at least our fans are not known to die in stadium stampedes or get severely injured at major sporting events by opposing teams fans as in many other EU countries), don't have gossip news rags (try wading through any EU magazine counter and find a "real" paper), or have morons or corrupt politicians as heads of a state (don't even get me started on that one).

I've been to many world destinations and one thing I took from my experiences is although governments and cultures may differ somewhat, people are pretty much the same: they still gossip (about neighbors, celebrities), men talk about sports, everyone is always critical of whomever is in charge (they are always "idiots"), etc.

The US and its people are no different.

Rick
#4 2006
[/b]

Thank you.... As Paris burns for a third day....




<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 28 2007, 01:22 PM) [snapback]545352[/snapback]</div>

I'm an American, so I get to call us stupid and backward, which we are. Any people that spends as much time watching TV as we do; any nation that gets as emotional as we do about which group of grown men wins a ball game, or cares as much as we do about what a movie starlet is wearing; any country that would let a certified moron become president, is stupid. And a country still using imperial units is backwards.

And I feel offended when people who disagree with me tell me I should leave this country. I have as much right to be here as you do. But of course, this is Fred's, so we both have a right to offend each other.

But I will concede to you that I should have used the term "resolution" rather than "precision" in describing a scale or instrument that shows finer increments even when it lacks the accuracy to justify them.
[/b]

Thank you for putting a little humor into it... Now THAT's American....

[sea-horsea]

take a chill pill people...like i said..we all gonna die....

[patsparks]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(John in LB @ Nov 29 2007, 05:12 AM) [snapback]545317[/snapback]</div>

This has nothing to do with being an "ugly American". I am just being patriotic to my own country - as you would to yours.

He called Americans backward, stupid, etc... and I find that offensive.

I would expect that if I started demeaning Australians, you would not appreciate it.
[/b]

You may not realise it but the rest of the world either get tired of or are amused by the flag waving antics of the "patriotic American", it isnt pretty either.
Quite frankly I would most likely join in and laugh along. Why take it all so seriously? That's what starts wars you know. Remember the immortal words of the guy who said "All men are created equal", he said all men are created equal, do you think Americans are somehow superior to everyone else?

Australia is a dump, the cities are crowded and the heart of the country empty desert. There isn't enough water and it gets way too hot. Oh, and there are way too many kiwis here! <Kidding> We even have Tasmania where brothers and sisters love each other in un-natural ways but that's a whole other thread.

Remember Australian soldiers adopted the name Rats Of Tobruk when they were refered to as rats during world war 11

But in northern Africa , the Germans confronted a very different breed of soldier. They confronted soldiers without respect for authority or for domineering powers. These soldiers were volunteers without dreams of glory but who instead believed that some things were worth fighting for. They were empathetic soldiers who were infuriated if their leaders brushed aside their suffering or dared express an attitude that any man was expendable or inferior. These soldiers were from Australia and at Tobruk, they gave Hitler his first taste of defeat.[/b]

The Australian response to Nazi propaganda

The Nazis had proven themselves to be supreme masters of propaganda and turned to such methods when success on the battlefield proved elusive. The Nazis had discovered that Germans responded to words of optimism, success, freedom, supremacy and excellence. Consequently, they described the Australians as the complete opposite believing it would lower the Australian moral. They likened the fighting style of the Australians to that of a rat; a vermin that steals from the shadows. The propaganda expressed supreme confidence that the German victory was assured and the Australian defeat imminent as the "rats" were caught in a German trap.

Naively, the Germans failed to appreciate that propaganda that would demoralize a German would motivate an Australian.

Germans called them 'rats', the Australians were not offended. To the contrary, they embraced the description; dubbing themselves the "Rats of Tobruk." It was seen as a sign that the underdogs were indeed making life difficult for the domineering power. [/b]

Parts copied from http://www.convictcreations.com/history/tobruk.htm

Oh and 30 years later we adopted the metric system so we wouldn't be thought of as backward and slow. (just to keep on topic a bit)

[daniel]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(viking31 @ Nov 28 2007, 12:55 PM) [snapback]545378[/snapback]</div>

Oh, pleeeze, Daniel, you imply other countries (which ones???) are "superior, more civilized" and don't have their people getting involved emotionally in organized sports such as soccer and such <...snip...>
[/b]

I'll give you that. People all over are pretty confounded stupid. But that doesn't excuse us for taking jingoism to an extreme. Or for refusing to adopt a rational system of weights and measures.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jon the Chief @ Nov 28 2007, 02:05 PM) [snapback]545419[/snapback]</div>

"For example, would you rather incur the costs of a transmission re-build down the road? The Prius has no transmission. Etc."

As this is post has turned into a celebration of pedantry then it should be noted that all cars have a transmission. The drive from the prime mover (engine) has to have a means to transmit it to the road i.e. a transmission.

The variety that this can take would fill a history book of automotive design. The only car that might claim to not need or not have a transmission would be a steam driven car were the prime mover (engine) is direct coupled and directly reversing.

Jon the Chief
[/b]

That's a symantic quibble. Sure, every car "transmits" the power somehow from engine or motor to wheels. But every automobile on the road at the time the Prius was introduced had a system that changed the gear ratio between engine and wheels by an extremely complicated mechanism in which different-size gears were engaged and disengaged, and this mechanism was one of the most failure-prone components of the car, and very expensive to repair. The Prius has no such system. Nothing ever disengages, and the power split device is a differential, which is a component that almost never fails. Thus the Prius has replaced the most failure-prone component, which is also extremely expensive, with an extremely cheap component that virtually never fails.

It is quite reasonable to say that this radical departure in drive-train design has no transmission in the conventional sense.

Even your steam car example would "transmit" the power from engine to wheels by some sort of rod or shaft or belt or chain. And of course, steam is not the only way, or even a particularly good way, to avoid a transmission by your definition: Some electric cars (including my Zap Xebra) have no transmission. The best would be one with an electric motor in each wheel.

[timriley]

Hmm, I thought one of the main reasons the US is still stuck using imperial instead of metric is simply due to cost? - I thought I read somewhere that it would run into the $billions just to change everything. It's probably not a priority for the US given the $billions needed to finance the national debt, wage wars around the world, reform healthcare, and try to fund the social security system...

Back onto topic though, hmm, I don't expect to find any car in the US with celsius/km, but one poster in another forum mentioned that he was able to get the Toyota repairshop/dealship when he took the car up to Canada to change it. The poster said that "some dealers will tell you that it's impossible to do but don't believe them - just go to another dealer and eventually one of them will be able to do it for you, although it could run you into the $300's". I believe he was referring to a 2008 US-bought Highlander though so I'm not sure if that would apply to the Prius or whether it's really even possible. I guess I may find out in a year's time if I buy a Prius in the US between now and then as I'm hoping to move to Canada then.

[nerfer]

Originally Posted by patsparks

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(John in LB @ Nov 29 2007, 05:12 AM) [snapback]545317[/snapback]</div>
You may not realise it but the rest of the world either get tired of or are amused by the flag waving antics of the "patriotic American", it isnt pretty either.
Quite frankly I would most likely join in and laugh along. Why take it all so seriously? That's what starts wars you know. Remember the immortal words of the guy who said "All men are created equal", he said all men are created equal, do you think Americans are somehow superior to everyone else?

Oh and 30 years later we adopted the metric system so we wouldn't be thought of as backward and slow. (just to keep on topic a bit)

I agree with the patriotism bit. Keep in mind the person who said "All men are created equal" (Jefferson) kept slaves, so the joke is, some are more equal than others. But your point is valid.

We are a country like other countries and I will try to improve it in my small way, but I don't pretend that I am better than a Canadian or an Aussie or a Bangladeshi, etc. because of where I happened to be born or the color of my skin. I respect our flag but if others want to burn it to prove a point, I'm not going to get bent out of shape. That's the proper method of disposal actually, not like the actress on TV after 9/11 complaining that she had put flags flying out of her car window, but would forget and roll down the window and eventually lost several flags on the interstate, to be driven over by other cars. That's not patriotism. A valid way to respect our soldiers is to bring them home safely - I wouldn't attack other people's patriotism because their approach differs from mine, but I would try to educate them on the validity of my beliefs, and be willing to listen to theirs.

But America does have several things going for it. A good set of founding fathers with a progressive system of government for the time. Good resources and lots of usable land. People who are willing to step up to a problem, volunteer and organize to solve problems rather than wait for the government (that has been recognized from Tocqueville to modern times).

But people who think health-care is only for the wealthy, or scare-mongering is okay when dealing with terrorism but not global-warming, or it's okay for the President to secretly go around the Constitution's limits on privacy (which is what got Nixon out) or to hold people indefinitely without charging them of a crime (Gitmo) despite our Constitution and the UN's agreements, then I have a problem.

Okay, I'm ranting here, a little off topic. But these are bigger issues than Fahrenheit vs. Celsius (neither scale is "American" after all). The German Mr. Fahrenheit picked 0 and 100 as the max and min temperature that he typically saw in a year's weather, Mr. Celsius picked 0 and 100 as the freezing and boiling point of water. They don't have sub-units, like quarts to a gallon, so one's really not more logical than they other, except Celsius typically goes with countries that adopted metric measurements and Fahrenheit doesn't. Even the metric system was developed by the French partly for political purposes, although those have been lost in time. If we really wanted to be logical about it all, we wouldn't use a double 12-hour system with base-60 minutes and seconds. What's up with that? That's archaic and backwards (pre-Christian Zodiac and Sumerian traditions), yet we all use it (except some countries like Ethiopia and I think several countries or ethnic groups at least traditionally start the new day at sunset, not midnight).

[daniel]

Originally Posted by nerfer

... the person who said "All men are created equal" (Jefferson) kept slaves, so the joke is, some are more equal than others. ...

What it really means is: "I recognize that my slaves are equal to me." Except that Jefferson didn't. He believed that Africans were inferior to Europeans. So when he said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." he was lying because he didn't consider that self-evident at all, or even true.

Originally Posted by nerfer

... Even the metric system was developed by the French partly for political purposes...

Politics??? You are discussing politics in FHOP. Does this mean this thread now must be banished to FHOPol?

[nerfer]

Originally Posted by daniel

What it really means is: "I recognize that my slaves are equal to me." Except that Jefferson didn't. He believed that Africans were inferior to Europeans. So when he said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." he was lying because he didn't consider that self-evident at all, or even true.

Well, we're definitely getting off topic now. But Jefferson did stop the slave trade (as far as imports) in 1807, banned slavery from the northwest territories (what became Indiana, Ohio, etc.) and apparently wanted to free his own slaves, but he was constantly in debt and couldn't afford to. According to the wikipedia article on Jefferson:

In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for sponsoring the importation of slavery to the colonies, charging that the crown "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere." However, this language was dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia.

[moxiequz]

I wonder why Toyota doesn't include an option to convert to Celsius as a standard feature on the Prius? You could easily make that an option buried in the MFD menus. No physical button to manufacture, can easily bury it under a some obscure menu to avoid accidental switches but it's there for people who want it - boom! Everyone's happy! I think that'd be a nifty little feature.

[timriley]

Well, it's been almost a year later... to get back onto the topic... I finally succumbed to the pressure and we bought a new 2009Prius Touring#6 last night. Husband's crappy 2000 Jetta was costing us thousands every year in repair (will never ever buy VW ever again) so we didn't feel like waiting another year for the 2010Prius and competition from the Instinct. We managed to take it home for $687 above invoice.

Anyways, I'm guessing the consensus here is still that the temperature guage can't be easily changed from F to C even by the service people?