Why is the valet trying to destroy my battery?

Ford the A/C have a fuse you can pull?

For decades most vehicle steering columns will lock-up if the key is not in to prevent the steering from locking up. I would assume that among tow trucks it is common to keep the front wheels able to turn left or right.

 

i never use valet, i knew one

 

Valet oh no that'll never happen nobody touches my car I don't care if they're young kid or old just doesn't happen they're going to sit there with the air conditioning on talking on the phone doing whatever it is people do you see what people do today you watch them everyday you think when you hand them your car it's different because it's your car oh no no no that's not how this works let's be clear. I don't care if I'm going to the concourse D Elegance. They're not parking my old nice person Prius or whatever I'm driving forget it

 

Never valet. Never!

 

Why do you need to turn off the AC? When the HV battery drops to a certain level, your engine will kick on and charge it up. I'm sure the last thing on the Valet's mind is destroying your battery, they are probably worried more about their comfort.

 

Valet is not the problem... Problem you have is that as NiMH battery packs get old they naturally lose capacity and you need to deep cycle several times to restore capacity, but Toyota decided they'd rather rip you off and have you buy a new battery pack as soon as possible and not require deep cycling, so your pack is designed to work all the way down to 50% capacity before warning lights come on to tell you to replace battery pack.

You can learn more about this here: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) | Hybrid Automotive and if you're interested you can build the expensive equipment that company sells for $100: Build Hybrid Battery Maintenance Gear For Under $100 | PriusChat

I suspect the valet leaves your car on without driving it for longer than you normally would and if it's hot out and they turn the Electric AC on it's gonna drain your low capacity battery pack real quick.

Best solution for this beyond restoring battery capacity is buying a lithium upgrade pack. I can sit in my car on a hot day with AC on and not driving and not drain the battery pack...

And just last Sunday night I used my headlights and car left running to be able to see well enough to clean up storm debris on a really long driveway for almost two hours. Had I been using a Toyota NiMH battery pack the car just sitting there in ready mode would of drained the battery many times and I would of had to breathe car exhaust fumes when the engine starts to charge it back up. That's not healthy if you're breathing heavy doing hard labor. But because I have a Lithium upgrade the engine didn't start once the entire time!

If you use my affiliate link to buy one of these packs I can offer you unlimited tech support and walk you thru the install: https://projectlithium.com/?ref=9qLPw

 

The problem is that the valet doesn’t know how to properly shut down a Prius or other hybrid Toyota platform. Putting it in neutral and applying the parking brake is all they may think is needed. The engine being off not reflecting that they still need to turn the car off. I’ve made this mistake when I left the car on and started to walk away. Fortunately, the car beeped because it couldn’t detect the fob in the car.

 

You seen those climate change coooks on tv sitting middle of traffic to stop cars persuading us to solve their problem by buying a $65,000 vehicle. This is just another form but directly destructive to your half green friendly vehicle

 

Prius is quirky, for sure. I remember having lunch with son and daughter-in-law, DIL needed to borrow our Prius. Off she went with fob, 5 minutes later the phone call came to my son, and he walked her through stuff. Tesla, I've yet to drive our daughters, don't think I ever will, fear it...

 

i had a hard enough time with a bmw with a regular key. had to ask the 85 year old owner how to start it