I purchased my v used, and I need some help to determine if my braking issues are normal or a defect. When driving in "ECO" mode and I normally brake, I do not get a predictable or linear feel to the brakes. At times I will get a panic stop and other the brakes will seemingly take more time and distance to stop like it is not engaging. Has anyone else encountered this issue and is it normal?
No it's not normal. Have them checked. Normally people get more than 100k miles sometimes 200k miles on the actual brakes because of the amount of electric regeneration braking that happens.
The US schedule for complete brake inspection is every 30K miles or 36 months (whichever comes first). This is not the "visual" inspection, listed every 5K miles; it's a traditional, pull off the calipers, inspection. Are you following that?
My dealer just checks the pads at oil changes and nothing has ever been done to the brakes. The panic stop part bothers me, the other problem could be your hv battery if full which then disables the normal 90% of the deceleration that occurs through regeneration. Again, have it checked rather than guessing. Finally there is an inverter firmware update for some of these cars which is free and worth verifying.
Look at your brake fluid level. If the level is low, this may reflect on the thickness of your pad. Then again if someone topped off your fluid, then all bets are off!
I've found that a "float and grab" behavior occurs when wheel slip occurs under braking (typically, over wet pavement features like untextured metal grates or wet painted road markings) or when one wheel unloads, such as over a sharp bump.
That might or might not be what the OP was feeling, but yes, that's a common PriusChat discussion topic back as far as the first gen. Detecting the slip or unloaded wheel, the car switches from two-wheel regen to four-wheel ABS to keep better control. Under light braking, the hydraulic brakes weren't much in the game yet so it takes an instant to bring them in, but the car dials back the regen braking immediately to minimize skid risk, so there's a little spot of less braking before the 4-wheel ABS has fully taken over. -Chap
Non linear brake pedal feel. Sometimes very grabby, other times delayed grab. First ruling out - brake operating temperature, time/ temperature of day, road surface. Could be an air bubble in the system. Could be known issue of pad pins worn out. So 1) Have brakes bleed and fluid replaced. 2) Remove wheel and pads to inspect pins. 3) Also inspect condition of the pads wear. 4) Inspect rotors for warping. That would be my two cent comments, good luck.
