Long posting drought

I stumbled across my own blog on Google today. I had forgotten all about it. I was surprised to see that there are still hits on this site everyday, consistently. It seems mostly for the disabling of the reverse beep (I don’t blame everyone).

An update on my car; it is still in pretty good shape. I was rear-ended in August of 2008 which equated to $7,000 in damages, luckily the insurance of the person who was at fault covered all of it and my car looks as good as new.

I am happy the warmer weather is coming back as I am sure all of you are too. The car gets significantly better MPG during the warmer seasons (if you keep your air cooling to a minimum). I was averaging roughly 44-46 in the winter months and I’m back up to the 51-52 mpg again. I am still very happy with the performance of my car!

The Prius3 was released recently too. I personally really like the looks of it. It is right around the same mpg range. I was a little surprised Toyota didn’t go with a plug-in option or Lithium Ion batteries. I guess the technology still isn’t quite there? Those two options would significantly increase the mpg for the car. The latest feature is the Solar powered fan ventilation. I think this is a pretty cool feature and could help out the mpg in the hot summer months as well. From my understanding the fan kicks on once the cabin temperature hits 68 degrees and is powered by the solar panels on the roof of the car, a very “cool” idea (pun intended).

Please share your comments and opinions on the new prius or any prius modifications that you may have done to your car! We’d also love to read about your current MPG numbers and any tips/tricks you do to increase your mpg.

Prius EV button Install

I successfully installed my EV button today that I bought from Sigma Automotive. The install went very smoothly with only a few very minor setbacks, in terms of time.

First, I had a little trouble getting the H14 plug out. It took me awhile to get out and seemed to kind of be stuck in there… however with persistence it was out and ready to be hooked up.

Second, Getting the dash on the drivers side apart. You have to be very forceful yet deliberate in getting the driver’s side vent off as well as the dash to come apart. I had particular trouble on the dash right by the steering will. The panel didn’t want to unsnap, but after applied pressure pushing in on the upper panel and pressure pulling out on the lower panel it seperated, you must pull pretty hard to get it to come apart.

Lastly, with routing the long wire across the cars dash it is best to thread the coat hanger, I found, low and right inside the panel once you take apart the glove box. This gave me the most success. When I tried sliding through a little higher and back further the wire was far out of reach by the time it reached the driver’s side.

These are the main particulars when doing the EV button install and actually it is a very simple install. I have no prior electrical work experience and was able to do it all… taps, disassembly/assembly, and soldering a connector onto a long wire for the HV ECU pin.

For the long wire you must find on your own. I simply had some extra ethernet cable. I stripped the cable and unwound one small cable from the ethernet bundle, roughly 5-6 feet (I trimmed some during the install, better too much than too little). I then stripped a quarter of an inch of one end and crimped and soldered a pin connector from the flasher plug. I had absolutely no trouble inserting the pin from the flasher plug into the HV ECU plug, it fit perfectly and snug.

As far as the wiring goes I tapped all the wires. The Sigma kit comes with the EV button, wire harness, and 4 red/white wires. From there I tapped pin 1 to the white/black dimmer wire (ground), pin 2 to the gray dimmer wire, pin 3 to the red dimmer wire, and pin 4 to my long ethernet wire I made. The job was as simple as that.

The EV button fits into the middle slot, or just to the left of the dimmer switch. If you apply a small amount of pressure from the inside the cover to the middle slot will pop right out. I will upload a picture of the finished result a little bit later. Sorry I couldn’t take pictures during the install. However, with the instruction already posted in Priuschat.com you should have no problem doing this install yourself.

Also, the button does light up and glows green when you have your headlights on. However, it does not light up when it is on and darkens when it is off.

If you have any questions about the install please drop me a line, I will be more than happy to help you. And as of course my install was on a 2007 prius so if your prius is older I’m not sure if any of the wiring is different.

Apple Releases Windows Capable Safari 3

Okay, so I know that this is mostly a blog journaling my Prius experience but I was happy to hear this news. I haven’t bee keeping up-to-date with my Apple news so I don’t know if this was supposed to be a surprise or not but I was surprised. I have used both a Mac and a PC for a few years now (before the existence of bootcamp, in which case people only need to buy Macs) and I have to say that I think Apple has a far more valuable product than Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc… Apple’s products are capable of doing all of the things the PC is capable of but Apple does everything with more style (and for those lingering things a PC can do which a Mac cannot… enter: BootCamp once again). I swiftly downloaded Safari 3 on my HP laptop running Windows Vista and it is great. I get lost a feel like I am using my PowerBook while surfing the web now.

I would encourage everyone to at least give Safari 3 a shot. If you don’t like it, it is simple and easy to uninstall. It is much more along the lines of a Firefox2 than a IE7.

You can download your copy of Safari 3 here.

Let me know what you think of Safari, especially if you’ve never used a Mac before.

My Heated Leather Seats

I have been asked about my seats before and to anyone wondering I love them. I couldn’t imagine a prius without leather seats and the heated option is just a nice bonus. I guess that is because since I was young my family has always had leather seats in our vehicles so I’ve just grown accustom to them.

Anyway, there isn’t really much to explain in terms of HOWTO or “modding”. The Toyota dealer installed the seats in my car before they ever delivered it to me. I was told that since you cannot get a Prius with heated seats that they took the seats out of a Camary and put them in my Prius. Regardless of whether this is true or not I don’t know and frankly don’t care because the seats match the interior color perfectly and the heated functions both work very well.

I’ve updated my Picasa Web Album titled “Prius Pictures” showing 3 shots of my seats. One shows the heated seat button and the other two are just general shots. So, check out my pictures and let me know what you think of this “mod”.

Prius Heated Leather Seats

MFD Display Hood

The third “mod” I did to my prius was buying a MFD Hood for my display to help block the terrible sun glare that you experience at times. You can find this item at PriusHoods.com for $26.99. The hood works well although there are still times when the sun is just right that you get a bad glare, however the hood definitely reduces those times. It also makes the interior of your car a lot better and it looks straight from the factory. Most people think it came from Toyota.

I have uploaded 3 images from slightly different angles on my Picasa Web Album.

MFD Display Hood Web Album

So, head on over to that site and tell me what you think of my MFD Hood!

Disabling the Reverse and Seatbelt triggered Beeping in your Prius

So, this is the first thing I did when I got my Prius home from the dealer. I can’t stand the annoying “dump-truck” reverse beep in this car. Luckily there is a way to turn this beep off. So lets get right to it.

Disabling the Reverse beep

Turn your car either on or to “IG-ON” mode (IG-ON is pressing the power button twice while your foot isn’t on the brake)
Next cycle through the ODO button (if your car is already displaying ODO you just have to hit it 3 times TripA,TripB,ODO)
Turn off the car
Now while applying pressure to the brake hit the power button (aka start your car)
Within 6 seconds after starting push and hold ODO button for 15 seconds
After 15 seconds have passed while still holding the ODO button shift from P to R, then back to P.
Let go of ODO button
On trip display you’ll see either “b-on” or “b-off” we want b-off.
Press the ODO button until you see the display reading “b-off”
Power off the car

Congrats, you’ve successfully disabled the “dump-truck” beep from your toyota prius!

Note** If you disconnect your 12v battery anytime after doing this procedure the car may reset itself and turn the reverse beep back on. Simply go through the steps again.

Disable the Seatbelt Beep
If you’ve ever put anything heavy in the passenger seat you’ll know what I mean by “annoying seatbelt beep”. The procedure to disable the seatbelt beep is the same as the reverse beep except for one step.

When you get to the step where you would start the shifting process substitute that with the buckling/unbuckling of the appropriate seat. Also, you must have someone or yourself seated in the passenger seat while disabling the passenger seat.

Following these simple steps should result in successfully disabling those annoying beeps that your Prius has.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the procedure please leave a comment below!

Intro

I’ve decided to start up a blog based on my Prius. I received a 2007 Magnetic Gray package 6 Prius as a graduation gift from college. I don’t think I could have made a better choice of car. There are many modifications you can make to the car as I have found out as a member of PriusChat.com. I have already done some very much “beginner” mods to my prius and I plan on doing slightly more complicated mods in the future.

I wanted to start this site more for myself as a kind of log for me to keep track of any projects I do with the car and to keep an online database of my mileage numbers.

I will slowly start to add articles referring how to do certain modifications to your car as well as some driving tips as I become more acquainted with my car.