Tran problem

[combsad7]

My 2008 Prius with 1772 miles would not move today after filling it with gas, no I did not overfile the tank. The parking break green light stayed on, my car would not go into Drive, Reverse or nutural. Had my car flat bed to a Toyota dealer.

[efusco]

Not much to go on there. Let us know what's found. Did the car go into "ready"? did the ICE start up while in Park? Any other lights on the dash?

Were you able to shut it down completely? What happened, in detail, when you put your foot on the brake and pushed the start button?

There have been scattered reports of oddities causing problems very early in the life of the car, but nothing consistant.

[donee]

Hi Combsad7,

The car will not go into gear if any of the doors are ajar, or one of the door switches is not working correctly.

Its premature to assume this on my part, but that is most likely what happened.

[hschuck]

[quote=donee;643525]The car will not go into gear if any of the doors are ajar, or one of the door switches is not working correctly.
quote]
I had not heard this before. Thinking that was a good feature I went out and tested it.

In my 2005 with a door ajar (warning light on) the car went to ready and shifted to reverse normally; shifting to neutral or drive also worked but a large red triangle with [!] was desplayed along with a long beep; shifting back to reverse was normal and truned-off the triangle. . . . I still think it's a good feature; it may be implemented differently year vs. year.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by combsad7

My 2008 Prius with 1772 miles would not move today after filling it with gas, no I did not overfile the tank. The parking break green light stayed on, my car would not go into Drive, Reverse or nutural. Had my car flat bed to a Toyota dealer.

Interesting - assuming that you had depressed the brake pedal when attempting to shift, my guess is that the brake pedal light switch has failed or is out of adjustment.

It must not have been easy to pull the Prius up onto the flat bed while the transaxle remained in P.

[combsad7]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

Interesting - assuming that you had depressed the brake pedal when attempting to shift, my guess is that the brake pedal light switch has failed or is out of adjustment.

It must not have been easy to pull the Prius up onto the flat bed while the transaxle remained in P.

Yes, tow driver put pads under the wheels and pulled my Prius on the tow truck, it took a long time to load my Prius on the truck. There were no doors ajar, the ready light was on, no warning lights. I tried turning it off and on with my foot on the brake. Looked in owers manual, could not find any help. I put the smart key in the key slot on dash, still remained in park. Brake lights do come on when I press the brake petal. ICE did start up.

[donee]

Hi All,

I had forgotten about the brake pedal/power-on button thing. I did that too when I first had the car. My assumption at the time was I was doing something wrong, not the car was broken. And just fiddled around until I got the car to work. Later I found out I had forgotten to press the brake peddle.

Hschuck, I will have to double check my 2006. I do remember the beeping hysterics the car makes when one starts it with a door open. But do not remember actually trying to put the car in gear with all that noise going on.

Once the car is on, and one opens a door, that is another thing. They do not want it to go out of gear, while driving down the road, and somebody should pop a door open accidentally.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by combsad7

...Brake lights do come on when I press the brake petal...

OK, this indicates that the brake switch is properly adjusted. Hence, the problem is either with the shift selector lever, the hybrid vehicle ECU, the transmission control ECU, or the shift control actuator assembly that physically locks the transaxle.

Since you did not see any warning lights, this probably means no DTC were logged. You indicated that the green LED in the Park switch remained turned on. (If the LED was blinking, that would signify a malfunction detected by the system.)

My guess is that the shift selector lever failed; please let us know the outcome.

[patsparks]

I've had a situation once or twice where I have been a bit quick with the power button and not hit the brake until I was already touching the power button, also very brief touch of power button and it seems to trick the system. It wont go into gear and it wont turn off. I needed to hold the power button in to shut it down, the way you force a frozen PC to shut down then reboot it and all was fine.

Did you have trouble shutting it down after this happened?

[bwilson4web]

Pure, unadulterated speculation since I do not have an NHW20: could the parking paw fail and/or been overloaded? If you put the car in "Park" on a slope, in theory, a steep enough slope could "lock" the parking paw and the motor might have a little trouble getting it disengaged. Alternatively, a parking paw sensor might fail and thus not let the car go into any 'gear.' ... Just my wandering imagination as I wait for the aspirin to kick in.

Bob Wilson