Just rotated my tires on my SE phev, but now l have a puzzle. I jacked up the car on 4 jack stands and proceeded to rotate the tires. The car was in park (the transmission gear selector was in P) and l had the parking brake engaged. Since the wheels were off the ground, l noticed that the fronts would rotate when l tried to tighten the lug nuts at higher torques. But the rears would not rotate at all because of the parking brake. This puzzled me, so after l lowered the car and drove it once around the block, l put it in P without the parking brake engaged and turned the car off. Then l tried to push the car by hand, but after rolling forward maybe 1 cm, l could feel the parking pawl stop the car. But then l could not figure out why the parking pawl did not lock the front wheels when the car was lifted. Any idea why? Something to do with the front differential perhaps?
I had the same experience with a 2005 Prius the other day... It was concerning because there was a light slope where I had to do the jacking... Made me nervous and no idea why parking wouldn't work to hold wheel when its up in the air.
Did they turn the same direction, or in opposite directions? The parking pawl should be on the engine side of the front differential. When the car is rolling on the ground with normal traction on both front wheels, they normally can spin only in the same direction, so there is no need to block the opposite direction spin component. But do remember that when one front wheel is off the ground, the other front wheel won't contribute to keeping the car stationary.
Just noticed it on a 2007 on jack stands too and figure it out. The parking system locks up the car ability to move forward or backwards with both wheels. However it doesn't lock the differential so if you spin one wheel forward the other wheel will spin backwards. As long as both wheels move in same direction the parking system as got you covered.
