Victor said:
I expect at night I will turn it off from time to time, at least on short trips. What is this about turning off the MPH display? How? Ive never heard of this, and cant see why either.
The UK Prius is different than the US Prius. I suppose that the European Prius is closest to the UK Prius...
In the US, there is a little dimmer wheel (rheostat?) near the driver's knee on the dash. When the headlight switch is on, the dimmer wheel will dim the interior dash lights, including the MPH/odometer display, all the way down to black/unlit. There is also a soft button on the LCD screen to turn the display back to full brightness or "Day Mode" when the headlight switch is on.
My understanding is that the UK Prius does not have the dimmer switch. (In classic UK Prius, the dimmer switch would manually raise/lower the headlight level.) The Day Mode soft button works the same. However, the UK Prius has a button (I think they press and hold the MPH/KPH button) to change the interior/dash lights from full bright to a single dim option when the headlight switch is on.
There's a humorous story of a older woman who got a grealy discounted classic Prius because the salesman thought that the spedometer didn't work. The woman continued driving like that, until another happy Prius owner (the person who related the story) approched her one day to inquire about her car and swap stories. He turned up the dimmer wheel, as she didn't know what speed she was driving or what gear she was in.
It's kinda scary the first time or two that unbeknown to you the dimmer wheel is turned down on you, and you're driving and suddenly notice no spedometer display! Quite frightening, until you remember and fix the dimmer wheel.
I think that all Prius have the "Screen Off" softbutton for the LCD screen. That'll only turn off the display of the Energy Monitor or the Consumption Screen. If you press the audio button, or the map button, or whatever the climate control button is on the 2004, that screen will come up momentarily for you to use it, then go blank again.