Dealer run around on seatbelt beep

Reading his first sentence "When we went in yesterday to get the software changes to our Gen.III Prius, on 2 of the 4 we we got the "I don't think we can do that." from the service mgr.", I would take it to mean:

When we brought in our G3 Prius to the dealer, and asked them to make 4 of the customizable changes to the vehicle. Two of them were done without issue or complaints, but the dealer seems to have balked at items 3 and 4 on his list, which must have been:

3.) Adjust auto-off headlight delay to zero seconds (off as soon as you turn off the car)
4.) Disabling the "Seat Belt Warning" sound.

While I have not asked for either of these adjustments myself, I would not think that a dealer should balk at adjusting the headlight auto-off feature. I can certainly understand the hesitancy in the seat belt warning alarm.

First of all you do know that you are able to disable it yourself, automatically. All you need to do is insert the metal seat belt buckle into the little clicker, and voila, it's silenced.

I know that some dealers will balk at the reverse beep disabling, but they should not balk about your wanting to adjust your headlights.

 

Seat belt beep (and reverse beep they already did for you) can be done with a scangauge II, for what its worth. Search for adrianblack scangauge 2010.

If you show them in the book that it is not a safety thing but a personal setting anticipated by Toyota, they should respect your choice.

 

The problem is only Lexus guarantees this for free as a one-time complimentary Lexus Personalized Settings. Toyota has no such offer, but many dealers do it for free anyway. This is why I suggest you take it to a combined Lexus/Toyota franchise (a location where you find both side-by-side), as they're more likely to it for free or without any trouble.

 

As mentioned by Ksstathead you can turn on/off the seat belt beeper and the reverse beeper with a ScanGuage using the xgauge commands posted by Adrian Black.

Even when you disable the seatbelt beeper it still beeps about 5 or 6 times and the warning symbol still flashes. This should satisfy the NHTSA requirement for a seat belt warning. The only thing disabled is the extra beeps that Toyota put in. There is a link to the NHTSA document in one of the other seat belt beeper topics, can't find it right now.

There is, of course, no requirement whatever for a reverse beeper in a passenger car, especially one that can only be heard inside the car.

 

At Cherry Hill (Holman) Toyota I believe I got the same question from the service writer. The fact is just because they work in the shop doesn't mean they know everything. Showing the page from the book may help. I wrote up a list using the same terminology. To their credit there was zero hassle. With so many settings they weren't sure exactly what I wanted & since I wasn't around did their best. I checked things out before I left & found the SKS wasn't set. Took the car back in & the shop foreman changed the setting. They said they will change settings "a couple" of times & when 12v power is lost. This is the way it should work, everywhere, every time.

 

One thing, one of my clients gets requests like this all of the time. It's one of those things that opens up my client to potential litigation. I tell them to never do it. If anything that could be construed as a safety measure is negated by a dealer that ultimately takes responsibility for it, forever. Waiver or not. It may annoy and inconvenience you, it could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not a good trade off.

And look, I'm sympathetic to what you want to do. I just think the dealer is probably the worst place to get that done.

 

if Toyota defines it as a customizable option, they have the responsibility to customize it for me. The darn seat belt warning went off with a heavy laptop case or my 40 pound dog on the seat.. no thanks!

If it wasn't a customizable option, I guess it would be considered a hack..LOL

 

Some dealers are more concerned about a nonexistent lawsuit than they are in serving their customers. I stay away from such places whenever possible.

This may be about lawyers trying to justify their existence by scaring car dealers with stories of things that will never happen. Does anyone know of a successful (or unsuccessful) lawsuit filed against a car dealer who customized a feature that was listed in the owners manual as "customizable"?