Prius Hack: Enjoy the Silence

...This week's post goes out to other North American Toyota Prius owners who, like me, fail to see the logic of having the car beep on the inside when driving in reverse! Are you a 2004-2008 Prius owner suffering from this cacophony? If so read on... while the instructions below have been available on the Internet for a while, I regularly meet Prius owners who are unaware of this and are begging for a way to put an end to the annoyance.

BONUS: a variant on this hack, detailed below, will also turn off your seat belt warning beeps if you so desire. Happy Prius Hacking (ecofabulous takes no responsibility if you choose to apply these tips and then back into a tree or get a ticket for forgetting to buckle up).

Instructions (from our friends at PriusChat.com):

1. Power on the car with your foot on the brake to IG-ON or READY. IG-ON will do for this purpose.


2. Using the Trip/ODO button, set the Trip/ODO display to ODO (not Trip A or Trip B ).


3. Power off the car.


4. Now power the car to READY (brake on). This is required so that step 6 works correctly.


5. Within 6 seconds of powering on, press and hold the Trip/ODO button for 10 seconds or more (there is no indication... just count).


6. While still holding ODO *after* the 10 seconds, shift the "gear" selector to R, then press the P button. Now release the Trip/ODO button.


7. If the last step was successful, "b on" or "b off" should be displayed in the location where the Trip Odometer or Odometer is normally displayed (front dash area). "b on" is beep on (default), and "b off" is beep off.


8. Press Trip/ODO to toggle the mode.


9. Now power the car off to exit the toggle mode.


10. Power the car on to READY and confirm the reverse beep status by shifting to R. The beep should not be audible if "b off" was selected, and should be audible if "b on" was selected.

Seatbelt beep: The driver and passenger seatbelt reminder chime can be disabled or enabled using similar steps. Instead of shifting from P to R to P in step 6, simply buckle then unbuckle the appropriate seatbelt while continuing to depress the Trip/ODO button. - ecofab

Updated  3.22.2009. The above is also listed on Wikihow with some caveats:

• To re-enable reverse beep, repeat the procedure. "b off" will be displayed in step 7. Toggle it to "b on" in step 8.


• Please note that this procedure will work ONLY on a North American model Prius, not on any other model.


• This procedure will not work if a passenger (or any other object) is sitting in the passenger seat. However, there is some discussion about whether this tip is actually correct. It may work just fine whether or not someone's sitting in the passenger seat.


• To disable the seat belt beep use same steps as above, but instead of shifting into reverse, fasten the driver's seat belt and then quickly press "park".


• The reverse and set belt beeps are there for your safety. Be aware that if you turn them off, you will not be warned that you're in reverse or that someone's not wearing their seat belt.


• Whether you disable the reverse beep or not, you should be aware that it is only audible inside the car. It does not warn pedestrians that you are reversing your silent car.