Put it in H!

So as I mentioned in my last post I’ve gone and bought a car. It’s been a bit of an adaptation to get used to driving a lot., the biggest problem being to remember that even though I’m not feeling tired I may actually need to put fuel in the tank. Hey, years of cycling have conditioned me in many strange ways. I still recall the first time I was driving a car after a couple of years of serious biking, I found myself pointing out potholes and glass to the cars behind me with little effect.

So now that I know to watch the fuel gauge things are getting a bit easier, but no thanks to the dealer who showed me the car. As I may have mentioned the car I got is a Prius; I could claim it was all for the environment but let’s face it, 50 miles per gallon at over $3 a gallon just makes sense. Anyway, the Prius has a bit of a unique transmission and the shifter is no less unique; you simply move it to R, D or B and let it go back to the starting position and you’re done.

But hold on a second; I understand R, that’s reverse (with ANNOYING beeping), and D is for drive, but what the fuck is B…is that back without the beeping? Or maybe just the beeping on it’s own? Well, according to the dealer it’s for something way cooler than that, it’s for “Boost”, you know like Knight Rider (he actually said that). And with that he shifts it to B and sure enough the engine sounds a lot louder and meaner. But at that point I should have noticed something, the engine sounded louder, but we didn’t start moving any faster. But I was still in the process of recovering from brain cell loss due to the new car smell, a.k.a. industrial solvents.

The night after I bought the car I was home reading the manual. Deirdre will attest to that fact, as I never read the manual before doing anything so she was shocked at the sight. Once I get to the section on the transmission I found something interesting. I was right about the D and R functions, I’m pretty clever aren’t I, but B was in fact not for “Boost”. There was only one line explaining what the B was for, it was described as “Engine Break”; the description read, something to the effect of “used to slow the vehicle, do not used for extended periods of time.”

Now I’m no mechanic, but I have a feeling trying to accelerate while using an engine break is not a good idea. So in retrospect I guess it makes sense that the position is labeled B, because with dealer advice like the kind I got B will most certainly “break” your car.