Wild Rides in the Prius

Hi All: In this week's edition of the Seattle Weekly (free coffee house news about town rag) there's an article by Paul Knight ([email protected]) about some pretty serious glitches in the Prius. Rapid, un-explained acceleration is the common thread. One lady had her Prius accelerate to 90 mph with no input from her, and she ended up charging through a park and landing in a riverbed. There have been multiple incidents, some injuries, but no fatalities cited in the article. Model years affected are 2004 to 2009.

Toyota has been playing a classic "saving face" game with owners who have filed lawsuits, claiming that the problems have been driver induced. Several responses from Toyota claim that the drivers had too many "unsecured" carpets and that the carpeting was snagging the accelerator. I checked my carpet arrangement and found this argument somewhat suspect; I've had an extra mat over the OEM optional mat for four years with no problem.

I remember reading about events like this in Priuschat, but was wondering if such incidents are on the rise and maybe somehow related to the age of our cars.

Bob