Prius Brakes Fail In Japan and U.S.A.

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

And the hits, they keep on coming. Now, brakes of the Prius flake out.

Japan’s transport ministry has received 14 complaints about problems with brakes on Toyota’s latest. The ministry has asked Toyota to investigate the complaints, says the Nikkei [sub.] “Those are purely reported cases, so we still need to investigate to find out where problems really exist,” said a ministry spokesman, who said that the number of complaint over such a short time-span “more than usual.” There is more in the U.S.A.

As of Tuesday evening, the NHTSA had received 102 complaints about the brakes of the new Prius hybrid, says the Nikkei [sub.] The complaints center around the brakes cutting out for about one second when driving on slippery roads. Toyota is “looking into the technical aspects,” said a spokesperson.

In the pedal-gate dept., Toyota will recall a combined 180,000 vehicles in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa due to faulty gas pedals, says the Nikkei [sub]. According to a Toyota spokesperson, the total number of vehicles to be recalled in all regions stands at 4.45m vehicles. That’s not including the ones that were carpet-bagged.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Blowfish Blowfish on Feb 04, 2010

    As reading from all u folks wrote about these High tech Traction control, its very much a double edged sword which can cut backward too, or being a Victim of your own charm. It also sounds like a Pilot friend who told me these F14/16 when launch from a flat deck. The Pilot has no control but sat there look pretty and pray the plane will be faster than the stall speed by a wide margin. That will for sure Air borne. And for the first few secs u no need to do anything but to hit the ejection button should the untowards had happened by then some red lights will be flashing. He only had a sec or so to hit the Eject button, or else he could have the Eternal swim. I had read quite a bit about the issues of these TC, which rendered u totally stuck when u need the power most. A friend almost became a Popsicles too, he got outside of his truck to do something, suddenly unbeknownst to him, the power door lock decided to lock up his truck! If this is in town close to other drivers he'd be OK, but being -40 in the God forsaken place. Luckily the good Lord had sent someone to passed by and drove him to to get help. So as Plane who fly by the wire, where a Computer will arbitrarily make dogmatic decision on your behalf. As one bloke here mentioned that he drove a Electronic Joystick controlled Fork lift. Once I had operated a Bobcat Excavator with Electronic Joystick control, is not as linear as the old fashion that run via the manual hydraulic valves. When the throttle is low the machine is not responsive, when revved the engine, it became kind of twitchy, or felt like u can drank 3 cans of Red Bull. The Bucket just flies around kind of dangerous too. “Accelerating hard from a standstill with the wheel turned leaves you feeling momentarily “stranded” and exposed to the oncoming traffic. I have learnt to allow for it.” My ‘04 Smart Fortwo Brabus does the same thing … the only parking lot entry/exit lane at my office connects to a 50 mph road that carries much surface traffic that connects the expressways of two adjoining nations; in edition, due to visibility limited by a guardrail on the left and a stand of conifers on the right, there is a stop sign just before a bike path (which runs parallel to the 50 mph road) and a slight upward wngle on the exit side it has a slight upward angle; all in all a nice combination of factors…

  • Blowfish Blowfish on Feb 04, 2010

    I take our body can detect the change of speed much faster than the computer does! Our semi-circular canal, when over stimulated can get very nasty to our brain perception too, worse are the Meniere disease is another topic by itself. It used to be a very prominent effect on early ABS motorbikes, where the high center of gravity cause much larger weight transfer during braking. Hit a bump large enough to unweight the front wheel a bit while hard on the brakes, and ABS cutting the brakes made it feel like the bike was taking off, about to wheelie, while in reality it was just getting back to its neutral, non decellerating stance for a moment.

  • MyGore MyGore on Feb 11, 2010

    Why have people only just started talking about Toyota glitches? Back in the 90s we drove a Carina. After 3 years the cam pulley fell out, and I was told I was lucky to be alive. My colleague had the same thing happen to his Carina a couple of weeks later. They never did a recall, but gave us a lot of hush money in free repairs for two years. But it kept stalling and the automatic choke needed to be repaired 13 times till we got rid of it. Price after 5 years; zero. The Ford Taurus we bought after that had no major problems, and we got half our money back 5 years later. We bought another Ford , and have been very happy with it.

  • MC-7 Rusty MC-7 Rusty on Feb 16, 2010

    Wouldn't HAVE a "Taurus Turd-Mobile" if you GAVE it to me...a JUNK trans and a heat-intolerant engine that you PRAY does not lose the sorry-@$$ cooling fan from a dead temp sensor, fan control relay or the fan motor crapping out! I've fixed a SLEW of them...far too many. I never have liked FWD, anyway. I would opt for that 3.0-liter RWD turbodiesel Toyota HILUX pickup instead! Notice that the HILUX is conspicuously NOT on the "no-no list" of other Toyotas, like the tree-hugger's Prius is("Help PRY-US out of it!"), with its looming problematic, complex hybrid technology issues, and the rest of the "problem kids" that are coming out of the woodwork now. The HILUX is 'high tech', but not so much so as to have "low-brow" loss of common sense and solid quality. Toyota had better learn HARD and FAST to be much more careful about going so far with increasingly complex ultra-computerization, and bypassing the operator/driver's control of the vehicle. That will NEVER sell or sit well with the majority of us. Let all the goofy tree huggers live in caves, WALK or ride friggin' HORSES if they truly want to be so "green"! I'm so tired of having their leftist, control freak agendas and lopsided green ideologies FORCED onto me, and at my ever-increasing expense and loss of liberty and choices, to boot! Enough is ENOUGH! ;)

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