Help needed!

Spent most of your time on a burro in the past several years?

Yep, any heavy weight on the passenger seat will cause that light to illuminate. You can always buckle the seat belt to stop it, if that makes you feel better. Same thing on my Camry. Put a gallon of milk on the passenger seat -- and light goes on.

 

Just click/attach the passenger seat belt. Warning will go away.

Yes it's the weight of the bin

 

It's not possible for the 12 volt battery to run down when in READY mode.

At least not until after you run out of gas.

 

I have had my passenger seat belt strapped in with no passengers for years... The sensor in the seat that tells the passenger to put their seatbelt on is worth keeping when you give someone a ride.

 

The HV battery will keep the 12v battery charged if in READY, but if you are in N, the HV battery won't charge. Keep it in P instead.

 

The bigger issue is the short cycling of the engine as it only partially recharges the hv battery during an extended Ready mode without driving. Besides potentially waking you up four times an hour, you are thermal cycling the engine each time and are at a slight risk for carbon monoxide illness.

Family Escapes Serious Carbon Monoxide Illness After Car Accidentally Left Running in Garage – Cardinal News

 

The likelihood of CO poisoning is way lower when camping out-of-doors than inside a garage as in that article. Not completely zero though; some terrain features and types of weather can do weird things with airflow, and there have been cases involving a vehicle parked outdoors.

But simply carrying an inexpensive CO detector in the car is an easy way to deal with the (already very low) chance of such an incident in a camping Prius.

 

One of the most common ways to kill yourself sleeping in a car is when you're in the snow and leave the heater on all night. There's a long history of this problem because the exhaust coming out of the tail pipe can get redirected by the snow pack and make its way inside of the car and you never wake up again.

 

Yes, that's one of the many sorts of terrain/weather circumstances that can make it useful to have an inexpensive CO detector in the car.

 

If you use a CO detector make sure it is a low level battery operated sensor typically sold at hvac supply houses for techs' personal protection. Remember CO is a odorless, colorless gas. The vehicle is a small volume space where one can be quickly overwhelmed.

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Or the better low level CO alarm
CO Experts PG-2017-5 Ultra Low Level Carbon Monoxide Health Monitor

 

Or just have lots of blankets so you don't ever have to run your engine while sleeping... I've slept in my Prius in temps as low as 16 degrees.