Hello everyone, I've been looking around trying to find other posts related to this, but have yet to find one that seems to fit this. It seems every time I get in something such as a drive-thru, I find it somewhat difficult or at least get an uneasy feeling about slowing the car down gradually. Such as a few hours ago, I was at a fast food restaurant. After making my order at the intercom, I let off the brakes (not touching the accelerator pedal) and let the car ease up to the window. As I approach the window, I lightly press the brakes to start slowing the car down. Only problem is, with the amount of pressure that seems right to me, the car is not slowing down. After increasing pressure, the car will rather abruptly slow down quick enough that I feel like I'm getting looks from all around from people thinking I don't know how to drive. Has anyone else experienced this? I have had the recent recall with the brakes applied to the vehicle already.
That's by design (regenerative braking versus mechanical braking systems). You have to get accustomed to how much pressure to apply. I've had one for 3 months and I still tend to not brake hard enough when attempting to apply gradual pressure to come to a stop in such scenarios.
I have this same “problem”, I think it is more like feature. Sometimes brake pressure is different than usually, it is have to be something to do with electric brake pressure motor. But again, I do think that this is not problem, just keep your mc coffee out of your lap when pressing brakes…
Sounds a little odd to me. I got used to what Vinnie97 described pretty quickly. Occasionally immediately after startup, especially (but not exclusively) if engaging reverse, the brakes are really grabby for a try or three--again, different than the OP's description. CM, has there been any change in things since you got the recall, or over time, for that matter? Is brake fluid level full? Good luck, T
If fluid level is too low, brakes does not get pressure at all. This problem is that brakes are taking contact too fast. If electric pressure motor goes on when you are braking, pressure goes up and car stops at shorter distance than usually.
Thanks everyone for your replies. Fortunetly by the time I get my Mc Coffee, I'm on the road again. To be honest, it has seemed to be a bit more noticeable since then, but that could just be my bad memory. I'm not where I can run outside and check the brake fluid level, but I suspect this isn't the issue being that I got my first 5,000 mile service at the same time as the recall work.
Another thing to look at is your brake rotors to see if they are rusty or not. Since the Prius only uses the disk brake below about 7 mph, the brake pads do not get a lot of use and can develop a thin film of rust. If they are rusty, they will tend to "grab" more. To get rid of the rust, in a safe place, get up to some speed say 25 mph or so, put the car in neutral while braking. When going to neutral, this will disable the regenerative motor braking and allow you to use the disk brakes for a full stop. This will get rid of any rust on the brakes.
At "Mc Coffee window speed" or anything much under 5 MPH you will be using the friction brakes only. Rregenerative breaking on the Gen3 cars starts going away about 7 MPH and is nonexistent below 2 or 3 MPH. So you may have a grabby brake or maybe your brake pads just need to wear in a bit more. Most of us don't use the friction brakes very much so it may take 5K or 10K miles to wear in a set of brake pads as opposed to 1K miles or less on a non hybrid car. I have noticed even with well broken in brakes (I have 23K miles on my 2010) my brakes are not as smooth at very low speeds as they are on non hybrid vehicles. Not really a problem just a hybrid quirk.
