Ok silly question....the book says not to have your car on idle for long periods of time like sitting in a parking lot...blah blah blah......how can a person program there phone and address stuff or just play with the system while not driving...with a full gas car you turn the key once and bam you can play with radio and stuff.....is there a half way point or is on on and off just off? Hope this has made sense....don't wanna kill the car on day 4......have been yelled at by seat belt for passenger side......very vocal car......
You can idle your Prius indefinitely without harm. Just make sure you are in P or D, not N. In N the engine cannot recharge the battery. Otherwise, the engine (ICE) will come on as needed, charge up the battery a bit, then turn off. Some people have done it for days, subject to how much gas they have in the tank. Don't sit for long periods in ig-on or whatever they call the accessory mode in the Prius. When you do that you are drawing power from the little 12 V battery, and it won't last very long. Tom
Also, if you just want to play the radio, you can use ACC mode, but after an hour the car will shut off to protect the 12V battery. If you want to run the A/C or operate the windows, etc. it is best to be in "Ready" mode, so the car can recharge the HV battery if it needs to.
And you can get into that mode by hitting the Power button once without having your foot on the brake. 2x puts the car in "Ready" mode.
