How to Prevent Brake Failure/Other Problems?

I have not heard any such reports. What I do hear is owners who did not expect the pause between regenerative braking and friction braking. it feels like a small skip in the brakes but as you push harder they are right back as friction brakes.

Can you cite web sources for a more total failure?

 

I can't recall any total brake failures reported here on PC. It is likely what JimboPalmer said above.

If your pads/shoes are in good shape and you are not getting any DTC codes indicating a component failure you probably are not going to experience any issues braking. I'm on my third Prius, no braking issues on any of them.

 

congrats and welcome! what?

 

Well it cuts down spam some. Intelligent spammers notice they get no links and no traffic. Sadly that leaves us with the other kind.

 

those were all made up by hummer drivers. no worries. and please disregard that all of our 2005 drivers are no longer with us...

 

Welcome to PriusChat, a community that knows a whole lot of stuff about the Prius. If you search through the forums here, you can find many threads about brake issues—both about real ones that are well known, and about certain kinds of report that get recycled from time to time elsewhere.

The real, known issues aren't very exciting. Every Prius model back to the first has had a split-second dropout you can sometimes feel under light braking if you hit a rough road surface that prompts the computer to switch from regenerative to friction braking sooner than it had planned to. The best thing to do about this issue is go brake lightly on some rough road on purpose until you've learned what it feels like so it won't surprise you, and then just drive the car.

Other issues known about the brakes are the tendency to be rough/noisy/grabby for a while right after sitting in wet weather (just make a couple normal stops in neutral, cleans 'em right off), and sometimes a tendency for uneven pad wear because of sticking slide pins (just check 'em every tire rotation or so, barely adds ten minutes to the whole job).

The brake system is computer monitored and will light a warning light on the dash for any detected problem. When that happens, a code reader can retrieve the specific reasons. If you get a warning light, get the codes read, get the problem fixed, they're your brakes.

The computer also controls a high-pitched warning beeeeeeper under the dash, and when it detects any especially severe problem in the brake system (and only a few, especially severe ones), it will both light the warning light and sound the beeeep. If that ever happens to you, it does not mean "keep driving and complain about the obnoxious beep." It means "stop driving now, or at least move very carefully out of traffic, get the codes read, and get the brakes fixed."

If you look up NHTSA reports about Prius brake problems, one of them that you'll find is my favorite: reported by an owner who was driving down the highway, had the warning and alarm beep go off, and then complained to NHTSA about a horrible safety problem because a few minutes later, still on the highway, with the beeper sounding the whole time, it seemed harder to stop than it should be!

Even that car came to a stop though, and the driver came through uninjured and able to post a pretty funny NHTSA complaint.

-Chap