Well it happened.

Peter Granzeau · 2011-01-01T18:02:20+00:00

I drove my wife over to the grocery yesterday (about 4 blocks) to dosome last minute shopping in my '06 Prius. We went in, did ourshopping, got back in the car, and it was locked somewhere between onand off. When I went to turn it on, all the red lights came on, butthat was it. When I tried to turn it off, it wouldn't turn off all theway. I called the AAA for service, and sent my wife home in a cab. TheAAA got there with one of those flatbed trucks. I noticed that by thistime, the 12V battery was dead, so the first thing we tried was a jump.No luck. The car was still locked somewhere in no-no land. The nextthing was to try to get the damn car onto the flatbed. If he's had anormal wrecker, he could have picked up the front wheels and been offand gone in 20 minutes, but nooooo, he had to get the car onto theflatbed. It took him nearly an hour of backing and filling to pull thecar, front wheels locked, up onto the bed. Off the car went to thedealer, too late to see the service department until Monday, and I tooka cab home, too (I couldn't climb up into the truck to save my soul, I'mtoo old and weak.I'm going to sell the damn Prius and get a car that I can get intoneutral if I need it, at the very least. Maybe a Ford Fusion (NOT thehybrid).--Regards, Pete

Well it happened.

Jan 01, 2011 23 Replies

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Tom Cole 15 years ago

Sometimes the Prius can get stuck in a mode where it won't turn fully on or off.

The trick to solving this is to repeatedly press the power button with the brake pedal pressed firmly down, then again with the brake pedal released fully.

This problem happened to my wife's '03 Prius and I had to talk her through this procedure over the phone to get her going again.

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Daniel who wants to know 15 years ago

???!!!

The '03 (which is an NHW11) doesn't have a power button, it has a regular key.

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Tom Cole 15 years ago

You're thinking USA.

This Prius was imported from Japan to New Zealand by a prior owner or car dealer, and is an NHW20. It was first registered in Japan in '03.

(Second-hand car imports from Japan are quite common here.)

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Daniel who wants to know 15 years ago

Gotcha, thanks. The US likes to push things out ASAP for some reason, and cars are no different. Where I am at least on December 26 the Christmas candy gets moved to the clearance bin and the frigging Valentines candy goes up on the shelves. It's maddening sometimes.

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