We recently purchased prius 2010 v with technology option. After driving it for two weeks car design has caused a life-treating situation for driver and two passengers (one of them being a child) by stopping at the intersection in a non-drivable condition in a way of high traffic in the night. Car had to be blocked out by police for 1.5 hours and later towed to dealership. Later investigation revealed that inability to drive was caused by instrumental panel light dimmer turning off instrumental panel when headlights are switched on. Note that dimmer itself was not operated by the driver (it might have been moved unintentionally some times earlier) and actual act of turning instrumental panel off was triggered by turning on headlights which increased dimming level to "full off" state. This car does not have any "non-electronic" instrumental panel and so is not drivable with it off. In fact both driver and passenger was not aware that car is even on at that time because there is no "drive" shift indicator except on instrument panel, and first reaction was to try and restart the car, which further make drive shift position uncertain. This is extremely unsafe design. Dimmer should not be able to make care not operable. In this car without any non-electronic instrumental panel, it should be never possible to completely turn it off. This function should be eliminated to prevent an eventually fatal accident that is waiting to happen (or maybe already happened). Note that car manual does not mention: 1) that instrumental panel can be completely off with the dimmer 2) that there is a dependency between dimming level and headlights. This issue has been experienced by multiple other users as indicated by these threads: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-audio-electronics/11744-blank-instrument-cluster-panel.html http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-care-maintenance-troubleshooting/9053-when-my-headlights-my-dashboard-dark.html.
2010 Toyota Prius electrical complaints
Page 8 of 8: complaints 191 to 192 of 192, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Tl*the contact test drove a 2010 toyota prius from a authorized dealer. He states that he was wearing polarized sunglasses. He had extreme difficulty reading the instrument panel cluster and speedometer gauge which exhibited dim lighting. The VIN was unavailable. Bl updated 10/09/09 *cn the consumer stated the vehicle has a dashboard display just below the windshield that reports the speed, fuel level and other operating information. The display is a reflected image of a vacuum-fluorescent display inside the dash. Unfortunately, the reflection path polarizes the displayed image so that it is all but unreadable through polarized sunglasses. Updated 10/16/09.
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