Hopefully something here will be useful

Disabling the reverse beep on a 2005 Prius

So first a brief background. In May of 2002 I purchased my first car, a Toyota Prius. In May of 2005 I traded in my 2002 Prius for a 2005 Prius. Between 2003-2004 Toyota made major changes to the Prius, so up to and including 2003 the Prius models are often called "first generation" and subsequently they're referred to as "second generation". I dont know about other cars, but the Prius has a lot of "secret" programming techniques that you can use. As I use more of these techniques I'll document them. The second generation Prius has an internal beep that sounds when the car is put into reverse to alert the driver that he is in reverse. Well, as far as I'm concerned, if the car's in reverse it's because I put it there! So after the first time I put it into reverse and had to hear that annoying beep I decided I definitely wanted to turn it off. Prior to buying the car I had found instructions for turning it off at http://priuschat.com/forums/kb.php?mode=article&k=7. Here are those instructions updated by me where I find useful:

1. Make sure there is no one in the passenger's seat and that nothing is resting in the seat that could trigger the passenger detection sensor in the seat.
2. If your Trip/ODO display is not currently set to the plain odometer, follow the steps below. Otherwise skip to step 4.
3. Power on the car to IG-ON or READY. IG-ON will do for this purpose.
4. Using the Trip/ODO button, set the Trip/ODO display to ODO (not Trip A or Trip B)
5. Power off the car.
6. Now power the car to READY (brake on). This is required so that step 6 works correctly.
7. Within 6 seconds of powering on, press and hold the Trip/ODO button for 10 seconds or more. Do not press the Trip/ODO button before the car is in Ready mode.
8. WHILE STILL HOLDING ODO *after* the 10 seconds, shift the "gear" selector from P to R, then press the Park button. Now release the Trip/ODO button.
9. 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. "b on" is beep on, and "b off" is beep off.
10. Press Trip/ODO to toggle the mode.
11. Now power the car off to exit the toggle mode.
12. 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.

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