Putting car in park at stoplights

I can't imagine any advantage and can think of several reasons not to.

Icarus

 

Forget park.

The ICE is shut down so there is no direct fuel savings there. As for the battery, as long as there are no yellow arrows on the MFD nothing is pushing on the wheels. If you see the yellow arrows, and are not moving, just push the brake a little harder.

Of course you could always shut off the AC while at the light but that would do little, since the car would start to heat up, and when you started up again the AC would have to work harder to get it back down, thus using more fuel.

 

Hi All,

I have mentioned with the Prius I am now using drive-through restraunt lanes for lunch time now.

With the mycanscan I can see battery current. At one restraunt that takes a long time to deliver the food, I noticed that if I put the car in park, then I can take my foot off the brake. This drops the battery current about .4 amps. Presumably this is the brake light load.

At a traffic light, your not going to take your foot off the brake, so there is no advantage. But be sure your pressing the brake hard enough to get the car to cancel the yellow arrows.

 

I think however even if he did remove his foot from the brake at stoplights the .4 amps that it might save would result to about as much real life fuel economy savings as using the restroom to lighten yourself up before heading out.