Toyota Acknowledges Design Problems In 2010 Prius Brakes, Modified Models Built After January

I agree. But Toyota needs to get a new PR department. How on earth could they have allowed this photo to be splashed across the front page of the LA Times main section is beyond me. Talk about agricultural engineering!
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-02/toyota-recall_52020336.jpg

 

You were traveling 22m/s at a distance of 10m from the car in front of you. That is less than half a second travel time.

Average driver reaction time is about 2/3 of a second.

If you had hit the car, you would blame it on the Prius' braking hesitation when you hit the pothole?

 

Wait a minute!
(for us folks stuck with non metric systems)....

You were traveling 50 mph and only had a 30 foot gap between you and the car in front of you? That is following too close....WAY too close. You nearly hitting the car in front of you isn't a vehicle/mechanical error, this is driver error.

You should be following a minimum of 150 feet (50 m) from the person in front of you at those speeds, under clear dry conditions (your velocity x 2 seconds). I realize that not many people adhere to that, but if they did, the number of rear end accidents would decrease dramatically.

 

Wow is this a thread about the Woz and his cruize control or the braking issue?

 

Looks like Jolly Paul beat me to it.

 

Interesting quote (link to article below): "NHTSA said it opens 100 investigations every year and there are currently 40 open defect investigations, three of which involve Toyota."

Can't say I've heard much about the other 37 investigations that DO NOT involve Toyota. In all fairness, we need to hear about those as well.

Toyota checking 2010 Prius brakes; mum on recall - Yahoo! News

 

Great Skit! I love Jon Stewart, and this was hilarious!

 

Unfortunately, 150 feet is not quite possible in the busy Toronto Highway. We have twelve lanes of traffic that motorist keep cutting in front of you with a 3 feet gap. 30 feet is already a very large gap (Even for our speed limit of 100km/h). All motorist keep 30 feet and some crazy people even keep as close as 5 feet. And because of the amount of potholes on the highway, I already gave up trying to avoid them.

 

My coworker who got her 2010 Prius back in July and soon thereafter reported the 'bump' phenomenon just gave me her Prius to drive to test it for myself. Then she drove to show me what she felt.

The road is concrete slabs with significant expansion gaps that are not at all even. On the best days it can feel like drive on RR tracks. It's the typical slowing down scenario followed by a right turn down a small ramp to a parallel access road. Going from 30 mph to 20 mph braking lightly to turn right I couldn't notice anything when driving myself. When she drove I closed my eyes as Blind Guy did in order to cancel that input.

Expansion bump, Expansion bump, Expansion bump, slowing, Expansion bump, turning, bump "THERE" she said, turning back onto the access road.

Yes there was a bump that I felt and heard but I didn't lurch or feel the car take off. It was very similar a the prior expansion bumps, in fact that's what I thought it was, but she 'felt' it in the controls. I felt nothing different as the passenger.

I couldn't replicate the 'feeling' as the driver myself but then I may just press the pedal harder and miss it. After experiencing it the first couple of times she now recognizes what it is, when it might occur and adjusts for it.

 

Thanks, what a help!

 

Feets don't fail me now.
This is why the lack of a rocket launcher option on the Prius is a problem. Crazy urban freeway traffic sucks.

 

this is a thread about all kinds of safety concerns. the only real problem is determining what we have here. someone stated that 4 accidents actually happened due to this braking issue and i would like to know if that had been determined without a doubt and no other factors contributed.

we also have someone telling us (Woz) about a "safety issue while traveling probably 20 mph over the MAXIMUM posted speed limit and complaining because the car did not accelerate to 90 mph in an acceptable manner for him. should he have had an accident, what are we blaming?? the car for not reacting properly at 90+ mph??? but at the same time, the disengage switch and the ability to cancel CC by tapping brakes functions just fine...

or we have another driver who complains about his brakes reacting in a bumper to bumper traffic moving at nearly freeway speeds. granted, it happens all the time and many times, one has no choice but to go with the flow, NOT!! fact of the matter is, if you rear end someone, unless you have total brake failure, you were simply too close.

i live in an area where freeway traffic is heavy (mostly because we have very few choices (i am at the southern most tip of Puget Sound and there is one main road going each direction, northwest and north east) but despite the heavy traffic, i still maintain a safe or nearly safe following distance. and sure, i get a lot of people cutting in and out (like it does them much good, on a jammed freeway, you are lucky to gain a minute every 10 miles)

one thing that i can attest, nearly everyone violates the letter of the law while driving and the excuse that "I can handle driving 10 mph over speed limit" or "i can zip thru the lanes with minimal clearance" etc without creating risk is BS...Period.

i witnessed an accident by a older woman who reacted when two cars racing down the freeway freaked her out. they did not touch her and they went past her before any collision could happen, but it still caused her to have an accident. to this day, i dont know if the racers got in trouble, never did hear anything about it and i scoured the local papers for over a week after the incident.

so, now Toyota will come out with a fix that will obviously have friction brakes playing a much greater role in the transition at least that is what most here seem to think so have to ask this question...the switchover from regen to friction brakes has always been very well known in the 2004-2009 MY, so what is the cutoff for the 2010? i have one and i cant really tell, in fact, i can regen by the MFD at speeds as low as 3 mph so i have to say that regen braking is not what needs to be addressed.

as one parting shot, i am not defending Toyota because i am a blind, no holds barred Prius enthusiast, (i am but not a factor here!!) i am simply stating that this is definitely an issue to investigate but has been blown way out of proportion in a lame assed excuse for some careless driver to sue Toyota for easy money.

 

i think you will find most of them are people with unrealistic expectations of product performance crying the blues

 

FYI,
Following is a copy of my post.
-----
Japanese Nikkei Net reports this.
Toyota to recall Prius about brake problem fix (Japanese only)

Toyota's intension was the fix will be done as SSC, but the US government pushes to be considered it as more serious problems.
Then, it looks Toyota decided to do a recall for the Gen3 brake problem fix.

Toyota is also investigating brake problems on other hybrid models.
Maybe, other hybrid models will be listed on the recall at the same time as Gen3 Prius or sometime later.

Ken@Japan

 

Yes, I seem to remember feeling the same thing on my 2006. That's why I never thought of it as an issue on my 2010.

Was this issue raised for the gen II Priuses?

 

There is a big difference between 150 feet, 90 feet and 10 meters, the latter is what you posted earlier. You can drive 150 feet behind the person in front of you. Of course, people will view this as an invitation to enter the lane you are driving in (please note that I didn't refer to it as "your lane", but instead as "the lane you are driving in"). YOU can't control the way other people drive. YOU can control how YOU drive and YOUR driving behavior.

I am hammering this concept of personal behavior responsibility into my children (10 and 8 years old) now, because soon enough they will be driving and will be subjected to the psychology of driving with others.

The psychology of people "getting ahead" of you by driving faster or entering "your lane" is difficult issue for many people to overcome. Following too close and then hoping you have a quick enough reaction time and efficient enough brakes to slow down a 1.5 to 2 ton vehicle doesn't leave a lot of room for error. At this point, human nature would tend to want to blame the equipment (brakes) rather than ourselves (following too close). Some will even try to deflect blame or even rationalize the behavior (if I leave too big a gap, some one will jump in).

Overcome this psychological barrier, you will live a much longer, healthier, and happier life because of it.

 

If you think about it, the people that will jump into a reasonable gap that you leave in front are the same idiots that will ride your nice person if they don't have that gap. I would rather have them in front of me than behind me.

 

I have heard not to buy any car the first year of it's redesign, and the 2010 may be an example. The 0% financing on my 2009 drew me in, otherwise I'd be driving one too. I hope the other Prius' don't have a problem. I'm still mystified over this floor mat recall I received, they told me not worry about because of the floor mats I have with the clip.

 

The problem is present on all vehicles utilizing electric drive components that don't have all wheel drive.

That being said, this may really help grow the technology of the car and perfect the transition between regen and friction brakes.

 

This whole story just reminds me of that advice. CR once had article on the subject, and the 2nd gen RAV4 was an example they used on how much reported problems can spike from the previous design's, or manufacturer's, typical reliability. No one is immune to it.