Putting into Neutral before Park?

Hi All

New owner of a IV here. Dealer advised the following procedure for parking car:

1. Come to a stop, foot on break
2. Put car into Neutral, make sure Neutral is lit up
3. Then press the Park button.

They said this is better for transmission. Didn't see a mention of it in the manual, and have no problem doing this, but curious if anyone does similar. Or are you just coming to a stop and then hitting the Park button, skipping the Neutral step?

Never heard of it before, I rarely even press P. If you turn your Prius off, it is in P. I only use the P button when I am in a drive through and want to focus on my banking, not my car.

I second what Jimbo said. I am on my second Prius and can't remember ever using neutral. I usually put the car in park before turning it off, but sometimes I forget and just shut it off. I do use the parking brake about 99 percent of the time too.

Just keep in mind that the dealer probably knows less than you do about a Prius simply because you come on here and seek out knowledge. A lot of them are lazy, greedy, slick, and not too bright. Obviously there are exceptions.

When we got our first Gen 3 Prius, our dealer told us to put the car in park before pushing the stop button. We learned quickly that pushing the stop button put the car in park, with one less step. I have never tried neutral, park, and stop and see no reason for the first two steps. The neutral step could be disasterous if you we're interrupted during the shut-down process and walked away from the car in neutral.

Hmm, interesting. Dealer was an exception to the rule -- knowledgeable, nice, and competent with the car. Anyhow I'm still learning about the car. I'm sure this will all make more sense when I drive it a bit more.

By the way, when I am playing & learning with features on the car (radio, nav, etc.) is it perfectly fine to do this in ACC (Accessory) mode (hybrid system not powered on)? The caveat being don't sit there for hours and drain the whole car battery like any other car?

I wouldn't use the acc feature when playing with your new toys, the 12v in this car is a small one, used mostly to power up the electronics only. If you are going to be fiddling with the nav and other toys for more than a very few minutes, just leave the car on and the computers will take care of the batteries.

Ditto. To be more specific, leave the car in READY mode (READY light on), NOT IG-ON nor ACC.

Like JimboPalmer, I've never heard the "advice" about going to neutral first before (I've had my Prius since January 06 and am rather active here on Priuschat. I seriously doubt that helps anything. I wouldn't bother.

Such a helpful forum. Good to know about not to tinker long in ACC mode. At first I was working in READY mode, then saw the battery graphic dropping, and started to worry, and so went into ACC for a short bit. I've since read more about the system, and just as you said, it's better to stay in READY mode and not ACC. Lesson learned.

So if I'm sitting in the parking lot while the wife runs into the store for 15-20s mins, and I want to run the radio and/or A/C unit while I'm in the car waiting for her, then I just leave it in READY correct while I'm using the radio and A/C?

What reason would anyone want to use ACC or IG-ON anyway?

Does that AC compressor (not merely the fan) even work outside of READY mode? It can drain the HV battery very rapidly, so you want READY and Park to allow the engine to resupply the battery. (Don't use Neutral, as it will disable the generators.) With climate control and lights off, the radio alone should be a smaller concern with a greater time allowance.

But READY will force a cold engine to start within about ten seconds. When I'm spending a few minutes in a cold car in a closed garage, such as when configuring the car or GPS or entertainment system or ScanGauge, READY is the wrong mode to use. The 12V battery won't face much stress, but the exhaust fumes are a bad idea.

Interesting thing about the park button... The 2 year old in me wants to push the park button while driving down the freeway... In the near half-million miles I've driven in my life I've never done anything as insane as that and at the same time I bet if I hit the park button at freeway speed in a Prius nothing would happen, right? Maybe if I knew the answer I could move on to other random thoughts about my car while driving? ;-)

I think I accidentally engaged park at 2 mph once and the experience made me cringe for days...

When I have to park on a hill I stop, put the car in N push the parking break in, let off the break and let's the car settle then park or ig off. This saves a load on the parking actuator when you go to take it out of park.

Me I just turn the car off with my foot on the brake, then engage the parking brake before lifting my foot off the brake, don't think you need the extra step of going to neutral.

Besides the beep warning, it also instantly goes into Neutral. Shifting to Reverse at highway speeds produces the same result. Should one ever want Neutral right now (e.g. as an extra tool to stop an uncontrolled runaway acceleration, if that should ever really happen), these are faster ways to get into Neutral, bypassing the normal one second delay.

Thanks... Never thought I'd see the day I could shift to park or neutral or reverse at freeway speeds and have it all go ok... I guess times have changed huh?