Car in neutral while running

That changed on the third generation for the 2010 model year, all second-generation cars have the belt driven water pump. But they also have an electric water pump circulates coolant to the heater core and back, so the end result is the same.

There are a total of four water pumps the second-generation cars, three of which are electric.

 

Or he lives in a place where he doesn't need to run AC much during a pull-through car wash.
Or his traction battery is not yet displaying the frailties of advanced age.
Or he is reasonably good about entering the wash with a reasonably charged battery, e.g. showing 6 bars instead of 2 or 3.

The low battery issue in tunnel car washes has always been a sometimes thing, especially in hot weather, not a most-of-the-time thing.

 

You were asking about running the car with the transmission in neutral, and this was brought up as an example of how quickly the battery can die. Is that not directly relevant to your question?

 

Correct. You question only concerns the electrical destruction of your car battery via N; trying to use N in a car wash involves the physical destruction of the car suspension. (and car wash, in newer generations. Instead of staying in N until the battery dies, newer Prius generations shift back to P to save the battery. So your car is drug through in P, not good for the car wash or car)

 

Besides which, you never told us the color of your car. What the heck does the parking brake have to do with draining your traction battery?

If the car is in READY and in neutral, the system will use power from the traction battery which the engine will not replace while it's in neutral. Plain and simple. Everything else is irrelevant. From page 15 of our '07 owner's manual:

"Be sure to put the hybrid transaxle in “P” when parking.
In “N”, the hybrid battery assembly is not charged, even if the gasoline engine is operating. You cannot run your vehicle if the hybrid transaxle is left in “N” for a long time because the hybrid battery assembly will be discharged."​

RTFM. It's just that simple.

 

I think @jerrymildred meant RTFM. TFM is here.
https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47509U/pdf/OM47509U.pdf

Page 121

 

To write it another way:

1. All on-board electrical generation in a Prius is done by the transmission.
2. The Prius transmission cannot ever physically disengage gears.
   
3. So the only way to neutralize the engine's output is to cut the electrical power between the transmission and the rest of the car.

 

Threads in forums like this tend to "wander" a bit.
You got your answer very early in the thread so I didn't feel too bad about a hi-jack.
Especially since it was essentially the SAME situation that you were asking about.

 

Thanks for catching it. Glad I saw it in time to fix the typo.

 

Above is quote from: Car in neutral while running | PriusChat

Above is quote from: Car in neutral while running | Page 2 | PriusChat

@DWJM2513 , could you respond to my question; was that your objective, simply to keep the engine running? Does anyone know if that's true: the engine won't shut down in Neutral??

And as I said above, putting the car in Maintenance Mode is the way to go.

 

It is true, the engine starts and stops with the help of the Motor/Generators. As they are unpowered in N, the engine can neither start nor stop in N.

(This dates me) I think of an online conversation like cigarette smoke, at first it is a straight line, then it wanders wildly.

 

Honestly just do what you want at this point, it’s obvious you don’t want to listen to everybody on this site telling you not to do it. One thing I would like to add about your oil theory is that that only happens when the car sits for longer periods of time. The oil clings to the parts quite well in between the few minutes the engine is idle. Let us know what happens though. So many people request information but never share the results around here.

To everyone trying to convince him. The system has a moron warning system, hopefully he figures it out from that.

 

Maybe something's up with his transmission, lurching?

Still, this is a scenario I never encounter: any time I'm shifting into gear I've got my foot on the brake.

 

Yeah I'm also curious about this 'lurch,' whether it's just the normal bump from an engine start, or something else?

 

I felt a lurch as well, and it's very normal. The engine is started from the sun gear of the planetary gear set, in the ring is attached to the final drive. Which means there’s also a torque applied to the final drive whenever the engine is started.

Remember that these cars have a very well established reliability history. The engines are almost unheard of to fail without permission. The exception to that, of course, is when they are run out of oil or overheated. That would not apply in your situation, and there are enough 500,000+ mile cars out there to dispel the myth that starting and stopping causes undue wear on the engine. Likewise, transactional failures are exceedingly rare, and I've never heard of a failure in the parking gear.

Battery failures happen, though and idling in neutral is just asking for one.