When i first bought my prius, 2011 gen III, when i would start the engine it would start quietly, now no matter if i have full battery or low battery as soon as i gear into reverse, the engine starts up? How do i get it to not do that... also, when would be a good time to drive in eco mode and why have the button there -becasue the dealership told me just to drive it in normal mode... please help, Thanks
Is your engine starting in reverse when everything is already warmed up or just only with a cold start? As for ECO mode, I keep the car in that mode all the time because my commute is a traffic jam going to and coming from work and it keeps the gas pedal in a less sensitive mode.
you can use the ev button, but i don't know if it works when the ice is cold. and you probably are misremembering about it starting quietly, or perhaps it's the coler weather.
El Dobro - i believe its when i first start the car; a cold start if you will, but im in the Sun shine state?
well, no i actually remember very vividly that it was quiet when i started it up and the weather is not at all cold her in the southern east cost.
well, it is operating the way it should now. i don't know what the problem was before. the ice has to go thru it's warm up stages. how long did you drive before the ice came on when you first got it?
Normal, mine does the same thing whether it's warm out or not at the first start. I would say it's warming up the engine for emissions control. When I reach work and start looking for a parking space to back into, eveything's warmed up, so the engine doesn't come on at all.
A cold start is based on anything less than optimum engine operating temperature which is approximately 185° F. The sunshine state isn't quite that hot.
right. i was responding to his first question regarding the engine starting quietly, by which i think he meant, the engine not starting and the car moving in electric. i was suugesting the ev button as a way of doing that.
On cold starts, the engine should fire up within about ten seconds of READY, but the gas pedal can force it to fire earlier. EV mode can delay engine start until a certain speed is reached, but only when the coolant is above 68F, which happens only about five mornings per year here. Use whatever mode you want, it is mostly a driver preference thing with a bit of fuel economy differences thrown in. Some drivers have left in in ECO since day one. Mine is in that mode more than 90% of the time. Some others hate it and use PWR all the time. EPA testing is performed entirely in normal mode.
Could be 0 degrees C and the engine won't fire up if I start the car, then hold the EV button within 5 seconds of starting. I normally don't get out of EV mode until I get out onto the street to keep noise to a minimum.
That is because you don't have a U.S.-market car. This threshold temperature is different in the U.S. (and possibly Canada) than in the Rest Of World.
Firing up now is normal. Not firing up originally was abnormal, at least for my climate zone. If it was normal under certain conditions, the answer will have to come from someone in a warmer climate, more similar to OP's Florida.
as you said, fuzzy, that 68 degree thing could make the whole difference this time of year in florida.
Could it be that your A/C is on when you start the car? Temperatures in the Iowa have dropped into the 30s-40s at night, and when I start up my 2011 Prius in the morning, the ICE doesn't kick in until about 5-10 seconds later, same as it did in the summer.
