Mine did something weird today

[KCPrius]

I dropped my daughter off at a friends house, and as I was backing out into the street, I shifted from R to D, but it was in neutral. I pushed again and nothing. Then I pressed P, the tried to shift...nothing. I tried turning it off....nothing...it wouldn't turn off. I have SKS, and decided to put the key int he slot. Still wouldn't shut down. After a couple of minutes, it finally shut down, then started and drove normally. No lights on the panel to indicate any problem. It's been fine since. But I'm going to mention it at my next oil change. Anybody else have something like this happen? For what it's worth, the outside temp as in the low teens.

[Robert Taylor]

After five days of ownership I can tell you that I have read some of the manuals, the short forms and I am working my way through the full owners manual.

There are instructions there about holding buttons down firmly for a second or so if I recall correctly.

I do find that the deliberate effort to power up the car and shift to reverse is becoming quicker as I make these motions routine. It is possible that you are being a bit too quick. Maybe too quick for those temps.

Could be an early indication of problems to come.

The manual states that if something corrects itself in warning lights below 60 seconds or temporary flashing that quits quick, do not worry about it.

Bill Gates products are not as reliable as the systems on a Prius and this is the most technology laden car in the world.

[Tideland Prius]

try different combinations like turning off with your foot off the brake and the transmission at P for example.

I've had a situation when i turned on the car and shifted into D too early. The READY light never came on and I couldn't shut down til I was in P and foot off the brake. So don't panic and just try a system of solutions.

[DanMan32]

I would have thought you were experiencing the IG-On lockup problem, but more careful reading of your post, you were already driving therefore already in READY mode.
Maybe you didn't pull the shifter left before pushing down for drive? Pushing down without going left is B, and you can't go from R to B, it will go to N instead.
i have moved quickly from R to D, even with a slow creep backwards, so it can be done.

It was suggested in another thread about the Ig-On lockup that maybe we are pressing the power button too fast, and to hold it down for 1/2 a second. I have yet to see it lock up when I do that.

[KCPrius]

Dan...you're right, I was already running. And I may have rolled back in N, but then it flat out wouldn't go into gear. I pressed P and it did go to park, but then it wouldn't shift back....nor would it turn off. I tried all kinds of combinations, and after about two minutes, I pressed the power button and it did shut down. Immediately after that, it started and went about it's business as though nothing had happened.

The only OTHER thing I did...my friend asked how you start it, so I showed her, (that the "engine" was "running" with no noise), then shut it back off. A couple of minutes later is when it displayed this odd little tick.

[DaveinOlyWA]

seems to me that if it does this, you need to hold the power button down for like 3 seconds to shut down in a reset situation. what you describe sounds like a computer lockup situation when all the controls stop working.

well just like your home computer that locks up, sometimes a hard reset (power cycle) is neccessary, however some computer models dont come with a reset button so you need to hold the power button down for 3 secs or so to power down

[TonyPSchaefer]

Does holding the (POWER) button really reset anything? I tried it once on a lark but as soon as I pressed the button, the car turned off. I kept holding it but could not tell that anything was happening.

In my mind, I had compared the practice, as you have, to reseting my home PC. Except that with my PC, you know something has happened after a few seconds. I didn't get that same sense of accomplishment with Priapus.

[DaveinOlyWA]

resetting the Prius means to power cycle it. many have reported strange goings on with their car (computer) that was fixed by a reboot (power cycle or power off, power on)

i use the computer as an analogy because from what ive heard from others who have related issues with their Prius that apparently required no other action other than a power cycle, that the car, rightly so, is a computer on wheels.

in the OP's case when a momentary touch of the power button didnt immediately produce the desired results, my suggestion to hold the button down, i believe, is one that has been suggested before.

[jayman]

Hate to say it, but as the technology becomes more complicated, you can expect a large proportion of the problems to be software in nature.

I spend a large part of my time troubleshooting odd software problems in industrial process control, and it can really be vexing at times. Although there are many automated test tools to reliably uncover the obvious issues, you can still encounter an odd problem from a different permutation of errors.

Say you have an explicit exception throw or catch to reliably recover from an exception resulting from "A." Say you build additional error-detection to deal with "B" and "C." You also deal with permutations like ABC, BAC, and CAB, since your logic testing has uncovered these permutations to be the most common.

What happens if CBA comes along? Or BCA? Rather than an explicit exception, it could be a general exception, and this could ripple until your stack locks right up. This is a very simple example, imagine a complex control algorithm with many variables.

I've had to deal with those evil +400 MB stack dumps too, and they truly suck. Although they are essential to uncover problems, as usually you will unearth a pattern. I get very p***** off when a field service person casually erases the dump "But it's working fine now!"

I've noticed some forum members claim to ignore the MIL or other error indications. I think it's really important that even if the problem "cures" itself, to still swing by your dealer and have the tech pull the codes before they become erased.

My local Prius tech mentioned that if the MIL or any other error light came on, to stop by ASAP so he could download the codes and send them off to Toyota. According to my local Prius tech, Toyota strongly desires to receive these MIL codes and dumps from the field, so they can perform additional testing in their labs.

[DanMan32]

Prius has an emergency off. While in motion, you can press power for 3 seconds and it will either turn off, or ig-on with neutral. Probably latter to maintain neutral, powering off would put it in park.

One person has tried it.