A Single Beep When Opening the Driver’s Door on a Prius

Not to be confused with a single beep when turning off a Prius, you might also encounter a single beep when opening the driver’s door on a third generation Prius (either to get in or get out of the car). For several days and pouring through the owner’s manual I’ve been trying to work out what was causing this mystery beep.

Well, I finally worked it out. This single beep happens when the sunroof is not completely closed.

Our sunroof was maybe 99% closed so from inside and outside the cabin it looked like it was shut but pushing the close toggle did result in the familiar noise of the sunroof closing up properly. After that, the beep was no more.

18 comments

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    • dan on May 27, 2013 at 07:41
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    thank you thank you thank you!
    oh, toyota. why couldn’t you just have a voice telling me what’s wrong instead of the only-subtly different beeps?

    1. Not a bad idea at all! The latest Prius does have text to speech which is used to pronounce address book names so this could be used for other things including warnings and notifications.

    • Brad Brown on January 5, 2014 at 08:46
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    Boyd – Thank you so much for the sun-roof closing solution to the Prius beep when entering/leaving the car. I tried replacing the battery in the key fob and every other thing I could think of. After reading your comment, I cycled the sun-roof once, heard the “clunk” and the beep disappeared! Thanks again – you saved my sanity!

    Brad Brown

    • Linda on March 31, 2014 at 04:33
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    Thank you! This has been driving me nuts the past month! I mentioned it when I had it in for routine servicing at the Toyota dealer and was told ” it is supposed to beep when you open the door” even though I was sure this was new. I saw this post, ran out and checked the sunroof, and sure enough, click, door beep is gone. I am not getting senile yet!

    1. With so many gizmos in the Prius I think you can be forgiven for forgetting about the sunroof! 🙂

    • Elisha on June 16, 2014 at 06:46
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    This post was a god send that saved my sanity after one-beeping my way through the week every time it opened by door! Thanks so much.

    • Cliff on October 1, 2014 at 01:32
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    Thank you – your answer saved me a lot of time going thru the manual!!!

    • John on December 15, 2014 at 07:06
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    Thank you so much! I too was told by not one but TWO dealers that “it’s supposed to beep when you open the door.” I made one dealer show me the beep on a new Prius on the lot. Of course it didn’t beep. His response? “This one must be broken; we’ll need to get that fixed.”

    I wonder how long that took.

    • Jason on March 11, 2015 at 23:56
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    Thank you for this! I was losing my mind trying to figure out why that single beep would occur when opening up the drivers door! You are awesome!

    • Joseph Shaw on February 13, 2016 at 04:44
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    Thank You!!! I was just searching for why this had started happening on my 2015 Prius….you saved me a lot of time by posting this. Thanks!

    • Samantha on July 6, 2016 at 22:39
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    I am in awe of your wisdom! Just had the same issue on my 2015, and had no idea what was wrong, since there was no indication on my dashboard…no light or message or anything! Just went and re-closed my sunroof…no more beep! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

    • Sis Hoskins on August 31, 2016 at 07:14
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    Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was going crazy trying to figure it out, never thought of the sunroof!

    • Bruce Solka on March 25, 2017 at 09:26
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    Outstanding…read this, cycled sunroof no more beep! Thank you, thank you, thank you….and I really like the first commenters suggestion about a voice notification.

    • Sail on October 4, 2017 at 01:47
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    Thanks a lot. Had this beep for past couple of weeks and I did what not… filled gas, checked tyres, banged doors, stared into headlights… finally saw your solution.

    • Shashank on May 14, 2018 at 11:42
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    Thanks so much. Going nuts trying to figure out what is wrong.

    • Jenny on October 24, 2018 at 04:13
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    Thank you!!!!!!!!

    • MD on December 22, 2019 at 11:42
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    Thank goodness you posted this! This single beep has been driving me nuts for months. I saw your post and cycled the sunroof, no more beep. Thank you again!

    • Allison Bradwell on December 29, 2019 at 05:39
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    MY HERO! None of the ding dongs on the phone with Toyota had any ideas

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