Do you think your GEN II has a brake problem.. Please vote..

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At 60,000 miles the rear brakes were brand new, they had never been properly adjusted by the factory or the dealer, I'd call that a problem..., the fact that when going over rough terrain and applying the brakes makes them not work(no brakes whatsoever) is icing on the cake...
better mileage

 

My Gen II "floats" when the front wheels lose traction. You can tell that it is the transition from regenerative braking to friction braking. It can be disconcerting, but it's not dangerous. All I have to do is brake harder and all is good.

Tom

 

It doesn't bother me either. But it scares my wife sometimes.

 

It happens when going over a bump with my foot on the brakes, usually downhill. When I know the bump is there I can correct for it by taking my foot off the break as I cross the bump.

The opposite happens when going over a bump while climbing a hill. The car accelerates. I chalk it up to traction control.

 

I've never had a problem, nor has my spouse. We live in California where the last time a road was repaired was 1974, so there are plenty of rough spots, potholes, etc.

 

None of those choices. Here's my answer.

No - But it would be appropriate to have it checked, just in case.

Chuck

 

Low speeds in braking when I hit a bump the pedal sort of floats before it grabs again. Usually the same spot in my commute where the road has been repaired a few times and I'm applying the brake to stop at the stop sign.

 

I'm beginning to get mad at Toyota. I have a 2005 and am very familiar with the brake issue. I don't think it is a safety issue, but it is there in gen 2 cars and has been known for years. Now Toyota only acknowledges an issue with the 2010 Prius. This is simply unacceptable and dishonest.

 

I need another choice. Like this:

By hypermileing, one never uses the brakes, as this wastes energy ... so I anticipate signal changes, travel off hours to avoid traffic, and never exceed the speed limit, much less, push hard on either the gas or brake pedals. This helps achieve mpg's well over the epa:





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Well I actually had to use my brakes, once, HARD, I was going about 40mph downhill to work. Some knucklehead pulled bonehead move of the decade in front of me, he was about 60 to 70 ft in front of me, turned right onto a side street, promptly made an immediate U-turn, ignored the stop sign and pulled with out looking directly into my path!!!

Holy Crap, I slammed the brakes damn hard, all that happened was the car SLOWED down real fast, completly in control, and I generated many kW according to the MFD!! I stopped about 2 feet from the drivers door, he just stared at me with his jaw down to his lap!!!

If I would have been driving the M1A1 4Runner, the clown would have been KILLED!!!
Big Red would have plowed through him like a knife thru butter, and it would have been his fault.

My Prius brakes WORK JUST FINE!!!

 

The gen II Prius obviously has exactly the same brake "issues" as the 2010. We don't need a vote. We need Toyota to admit it.

 

My brakes work fine. I was rear ended two days ago by a man in a 2010 Honda Civic who's brakes clearly were not as good as mine. The two cars in front of me slammed their brakes on, so did I, guy behind me did but needed about two inches more to avoid hitting me.

The problem here is not with the Prius brakes themselves - I find them to be quite strong. The problem is, had I hit any sort of pothole or bump in the road (where a repair had been done, for instance) when I slammed my brakes on then I would have rear-ended the guy in front of me and it would have been ugly. Every time my car hits any imperfection when I am braking I lose brake power for 1-2 seconds.

It should be noted that a car traveling 60MPH will travel an additional 90-180 feet before being able to apply braking force due to this issue. 90-180 feet is a lot, so this is something Toyota should be taking seriously with the gen2 Prius as well as the gen3.

 

I've encountered what I would call a "disproportionately weak brake response in relation to pedal pressure" in my 2008 Prius while moving at low to medium speeds (~15–40 mph) under specific conditions.

While braking on certain patches of road that engage the traction control, the feeling of the brake pedal changes. The amount of pressure that would normally result in soft to light-medium braking instead results in little to no braking. In all cases, pressing harder on the pedal gives the feel from the brakes I would expect. In some cases, I've chosen not to brake harder to see what happens, and normal brake sensitively seems to take a second at most to kick in by itself.

I've encountered this disproportionate brake response less and less often the longer I've had the car, but I'd say on average it's happened every month or two. There are certainly specific spots on certain roads where the likelihood of it happening is higher than on others.

Feelings of "floating" and "loss of control" do describe the sensation of this disproportionate brake response. It's pretty similar to a situation in which you actually don't have traction. The difference is that in a situation where you don't actually have traction, pressing the brake pedal harder isn't going to do anything to stop the car. In the disproportionate brake response situation, pressing the brake pedal harder does apply the brakes. The only time I can distinguish between these situations is in good weather on a paved road, where I'm fairly confident there's nothing on the surface that could make the brakes feel the way they do. In rainy or snowy conditions, there's no way to tell the difference, but the solution regardless is to press the brake pedal harder.

The first few times I encountered the disproportionate brake response I was a bit frightened, and I did think there might be a problem with my specific car, but I read the reports of others describing the feeling here on PriusChat so I stopped worrying about it.

At least insofar as I've encountered it, I'm not very worried about the disproportionate brake response for the following reasons:

• It only happens when I apply light to low-medium pressure to the pedal
• It has never happened when I apply hard-medium to strong pressure on the pedal, which I would do in a real emergency
• Applying more pressure engages the brakes to the degree I would expect.

That being said, the feeling is certainly disconcerting, and is something Toyota really should improve. I do see situations in which it could cause fender benders. If I chose to wait until I was quite close to the car in front of me and apply a light-medium brake pressure that would normally stop me just behind the car in front of me, and I were to encounter the disproportionate brake response, engaging hard braking with a hard press might not be enough to stop in time.

I would appreciate it if Toyota could improve the brake feel/response in this situation, as it's one of the few things that has always bothered me about my otherwise great car. However, I would never go so far as to call this a safety hazard (at least in my experience of it), and I hope this "area for improvement" doesn't hurt Toyota's reputation if it's misreported as part of what's becoming a "safety fiasco".

 

My '08 also seems to loose braking when I hit a bump especially going downhill. This feeling of no brakes I can attest to the 'VSC' of the vehicle...since I also notice that the amber VSC warning light lits up for a few seconds and then goes out. This tells me my tires are slipping. So far, I can say that my '08 has no real brake problems. (knocking on wood) Our '10 does have the brake problem issue and is intermittent, but real scary if you really want to slow down.

 

Not only Prius. The Civic Hybrid that I owned for almost 5 years before I got the Prius did exactly the same thing when hitting a bump while braking. So when my Prius did it, it was no big deal. Felt just the same.

 

The amber light is not VSC, it is traction control. Slipping tires trigger traction control. VSC is triggered when the car fails to follow steering input.

Tom

 

i've felt something similar when going over train tracks and trying to brake. the car feels like it slips or something. i thought it was normal and don't really give it a second thought. i just try not to brake when going over bumps.