Alternatives to beeping backup?

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Are there any aftermarket alternatives to change the obnoxious beeping to something different? I was in a friend’s Kia hybrid recently and that backup beeping isn’t nearly as bad…

2

Forgive me, what car do you have that has reverse beeping as standard equipment. Or is that a state or local rquirement?

3

Mary, are you referring to the sound of parking sensor’s ? Our Volvo has them and it keeps us from backing into unseen objects . If that is what you mean I can’t see why that is a problem .

4

We lived in Malaysia for 5 years. All cars and trucks there have to have the beeper by law. Ours was not that noisy but very accurate; the beeping got louder and more frequent as you approached an object. like a tricycle behind you. A definite safety feature and it has saved many kids from being backed over.

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5

Oh, I guess that would help! I have a 2008 Prius.

6

I’ve never heard of an aftermarket method to change the warning sounds a car makes. Part of the reason is the manufacturers make this function difficult to fiddle with. For example if you try to turn it off by removing a circuit board, very likely some other function won’t work either. They’ll run the power to say the radio through that circuit board, even though it has nothing to do with the radio. But if you remove the circuit board to turn the alarm off, the radio won’t work. You’ll have to consult a Prius specialty forum I think if you can’t get more help than that here. .

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7

…and it has an external back-up alert like a delivery truck or fork lift
or are you talking about the park assist that is warning you that you are too close to something?

8

Not Park assist, it’s the beeping that you hear inside the Prius when you are in reverse, should really be audible outside the car not inside.

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9

It’s the backup beeping. It also has an inside beeping, but I figured out how to turn that one off

10

I’m pretty sure you can’t disable the external back up beeper. It’s a safety feature since most hybrids are extremely quiet when they’re only running on the electric engine at low speeds

11

Being annoyed by the backing beep is better than backing over a child .

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12

Or where I live, semi-deaf seniors!

13

But… you want to deactivate this safety feature?
:roll_eyes:

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14

You’re going to fit that description some day, so I would watch your tone

And you might be hearing impaired even before you’re a senior

I seriously doubt anybody here is going to give you any advice, in regards to disabling a safety feature meant to protect pedestrians and other motorists . . .

15

It’s not an external beep. The Prius is weird. We had one at work for awhile. When you put it in reverse it emits a steady high pitched tone inside the cabin and keeps doing it until you take it out of reverse. It’s annoying.

OP, I don’t know of any way to disable it.

16

Ack! I am disabled and live in the community - my tone is dry humor. That’s how we get through our predicaments :stuck_out_tongue: pthhhhht back atcha :smiley:

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17

Not disable. “Alternatives” to the high-pitched beeping. A creative, non-OEM sound. Some kind of sound (I especially notice how the car is amazingly quiet it is when I’m at intersections), that isn’t as grating, and is better-sounding. Maybe from the soundtrack of Blade Runner: “Backing up…backing up…” in a soothing voice. :laughing:

18
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19

You’d have to figure out where the sound is coming from. I’m not sure if it’s piped through the audio system or if it’s just powering a standalone beeper. If it’s the latter, then find the beeper, remove it, and replace it with something else. If it’s the former, you’d have to figure out where the tone generator is and if you can bypass it.

All in all, you stand a fairly good chance of breaking something if you try this.

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20

You may want someone to help you with this but there is a way to disable the beep on your generation of Prius (found on Priuschat)

NOTICE : This works for the 2nd generation Prius. So far, we have no found a solution for European models.

To eliminate the beeps from seatbelts and reverse, follow these steps:

  1. Power on the car 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…

Note: The Repair manual page states that if the the 12v battery is disconnected, the beep will reset to the default of on, and this procedure will need to be performed again - I have confirmed this to be true!. The repair manual also is not clear that Trip/ODO should remain depressed while shifting.

Additional Note: The driver and passenger seatbelt reminder chime can be disabled or enabled (respectively, defaults are driver on and passenger off) 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. Might want a helper for this one!

ttps://priuschat.com/threads/disabling-the-reverse-beep.37380/

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