Sometimes when I'm in reverse, the brakes work smoothly. However, once in a while the brakes act extremely 'jerky' when I am backing up. Am I the only one and can someone explain this
No, you're not the only one. I had this happen to me just recently. I was backing out of a tight area, and I noticed my brakes were particularly grippy. Not sure what to make of that either, but I felt kind of silly backing out so jerkily with several other people around waiting for my spot!
I think the same thing has happened to me, on 2 occasions. I just tapped the brake lightly and came to a very abrupt stop when backing up slowly. In every other instance, backing up seemed normal. I have no idea why it happened.
I've experienced this as well. At first I thought it was occurring when I was backing out of a driveway that was downhill while backing up. Tonight it occurred on what I believe was a level driveway. If tonight's driveway had any incline, it was VERY slight.
I doubt that it has to do with the slope. In both cases that it happened with me, it was backing out of my driveway. Then there have been dozens of times backing out when it didn't happen.
Someone in another thread had a solution that I tried and it worked: when this occurs push 'park' button, pump brakes hard a few times and then get back into reverse w/o jerky problem. Thanks who ever you were!
Yup, happened to me several times. No matter how light I was on the brake pedal, it jerked. Thanx for the cure--can't wait to try it.
Had that happed to me too. I'm beginning to think that it happens when you put the car in reverse without your foot on the brake first or while in park without your foot on the brake first. Put your foot firmly on the breake and then shift to reverse and you should be okay each time every time.
It is very unnerving when the brakes grab so tightly. It has happened to me several times on both a sloped driveway and flat ground. Pushing P and pumping the brakes a few times seems like an unsafe way to solve this issue. If you are on a slope pumping only makes you jerk down the hill and look like a idiot. Last night it happened as I was pulling out of a parking space at Sonic. As luck would have it, there was a group of men just hanging out a couple of spaces down from mine. I got some really odd looks from the entire group. This is not the type of public exposure the G3 needs. No one would buy one after seeing it jerk backwards like that. Has anyone contacted Toyota or their dealer report this problem?
I am not sure that we have established that this is a problem. I seemed to have this occur a lot to me for the first few weeks, as I got used to the car. Now having over 5k miles on it, I no longer have that happen to me. I do not think that it is an issue of braking system pressure, or anything else, just some minor adjustments of the foot pressure on the pedals. My wife the other day, drove the car for the third time (it is my commuting car), and I felt her do it. I explained it to her, and then she tried again, PROBLEM FIXED! (If only the other issues she had with ME were so easy to solve... LOL)
Read an evaluation of the 2010 Prius on Car Connection today, this review was on a production 2010 model (they had also done a review on one of the prototypes prior to this one) and they also found the brakes to be grabby periodically in reverse. They found their solution was once the brakes started to grab, to stop, put the car in "D", pull forward a foot or two, put the car back in "R" and continue, it fixed the condition EVERY TIME! David (aka Blind Guy)
This has happened to me on 3 occasions. I thought it was me at first, so I tried to go very light on the brake, but it kept doing it. Pretty weird.
As others have noted, this mainly happens to me at Sonic. It must have to do with turning off the car for a short time.
Our three week old 2010 Prius has had five episodes of the brakes grabbing while slowly backing out of a parking space. It felt as if the brakes were suddenly applied very hard, as if the Brake Assist feature (designed to add additional braking force when a panic stop is detected) had engaged. On three occasions, shifting into D and creeping forward cured the problem. The other two times the brakes grabbed in D also; turning the car off and back on to Ready returned the car to normal operation, like rebooting a computer. I called the Toyota Customer Experience Center at 800-331-4331. They had not heard of this problem, put me on hold to check with someone else, and subsequently said they were told this was normal but I should let my dealer know about this. Of course, I can't agree that this is normal and I will be taking the car in for its complimentary 1000 mile check up in a few days. Perhaps if more of the PriusChat forum members experiencing this grabbing brake phenomenon contacted Toyota, the corporation might take this seriously and come up with a solution. Anyone else get any feedback from Toyota?
Again, I am not sure that this is an issue with a Hybrid, as opposed to just needing to learn how to drive it differently. I know that they 3 people I know who also mentioned this to me have since indicated that they have not seen this since learning to drive the car a little differently than they do a 'normal car'. That said, it is not like the Hill Start Assist braking, and it does not trigger in an emergency at all. They are designed to be operated only when you are stopped, and apply additional braking pressure. Doing this once will toggle it on, and a second time will turn this off. It can be identified by a audible beep, and a flashing yellow(orange?) icon on the left hand edge of the dash display, which looks like a little car sliding (as it is also the traction control icon). The 'reboot' you describe here also happens if you simply take the cart out of gear (to N for example), and right back into gear. Keep in mind that unlike in a traditional car, in which you are always fighting against the car trying to inch forward or backwards when in gear and stopped, with the Prius, when you apply the brakes when inching along, it also stops pulling the car along, and that can make the brakes simply feel as though they are locking up. Wait a few weeks more and see if this 'resolves itself'. For me, personally, I have not had it happen after the initial 2 or 3 weeks that I was learning to drive this car. This is also the case for the folks I know who had experienced similar 'issues'.
Happened to me twice in the first week with the new car, and not since. Some of it may be getting used to how it works. I still think most of it is related to rust on the brakes that accumulated during the trip from the factory. I've noticed similar grabbing on previous cars after they'd sat for several days in damp weather, though of course the problem's gone after the first good stop, since there's no regenerative braking to help protect the rut.
