2012 Prius v (lowercase v)...brakes failed tonight

edit** Purchased our Prius in november of 2012, but our car is actually a 2013 v (lowercase v for the Prius v wagon) five w/ ATP



Hey folks,
Was driving home with the wife and kids tonight and was stuck in stop and go traffic (luckily). About a half hour into our drive home, the brakes completely failed. At the time, we were traveling about 6-7 mph and had about 10 feet of buffer between us and a big rig. Stepped on the brakes and car wouldn't stop. I thought maybe my braking foot was touching the gas pedal so i took my foot off and stomped on the brake again. Pressed the brake pedal fully to the floor and stomped on it a couple more times to no avail. Finally rolled into the rear of the truck and turned off the car with the power button. Luckily, after we passed the accident scene, the freeway was practically empty for the rest of the way home. I am having the car towed to the dealership tomorrow. Will see what they find, but if they tell me all checks out, we will most likely trade it in for something else as we no longer trust hauling our 3 and 6 year old around in this thing anymore. We only have about 17,000 miles on this car(w/ ATP). Already reported it to safecar.gov. Any ideas as to what would have caused this? Is complete loss of brakes a hybrid thing?

 

No pothole. Roads were clean and smooth. For a second or two, I thought maybe the big rig was rolling backwards since my brake pedal was already fully depressed and I don't recall any lights coming on. I had full control as far as power steering and everything else. The collision was so small, the only damage to our car is a bent license plate. Would a non hybrid car be less prone to brake failure?

 

Thanks for the links. I've experienced the 'loss of brakes going over the bumps' thing with my 2008 Highlander Hybrid and have become accustomed to it. Will update once i hear something from the dealership tomorrow.

 

Contacted corporate and have a case opened. Car is still waiting to be towed, but i have been told that my dealership isn't even allowed to touch or look at the car using their techs since it has to do with product liability. They said it could even be weeks before toyota motor sales sends their own tech out to see what might have gone wrong. Not what I really wanted to hear since dealership can't even facilitate a rental car since it's "out of their hands". This is Longo btw..."world's largest dealership". Hopefully, corporate will ok a rental if it's truly going to be weeks before my car is even looked at.

 

Yes, the brakes seemed to work as normal on the way home. I tested the brakes periodically and even tried using the parking brake to slow/stop. The car was brought in, but Longo doesn't even want to help with a rental at this point and says everything has to now go through corporate. I did ask more about the brakes and the service manager did state that even if electrical were to fail, i should have had the ability to stop...just no power assisted braking.

 

Just an update. Not satisfied at all with how Toyota is handling this. It's been over a month and we are still without a car. No loaner either. Corporate sent out their own tech to check the car and test drive and said they could not recreate the brake failure. The case rep told me I could pick up my car. When I asked if this happens again and either my family is injured or someone else, who would be responsible. Her only answer is that they have a legal department for that. I could not get a straight answer from her whether she was telling my my car was safe. Still waiting for the letter about what they found from the event data recorder. I'm not sure what of anything they will pull from that. Hopefully they can see that brakes were applied multiple times before the sudden deceleration/stop from hitting the big rig in front of us, but I'm not sure what to expect since we were going under 10mph at the time.

 

Yes. We reported it to nhtsa, contacted the federal trade commission, better business bureau(but there is no entity for Toyota in the state of California we were told). Will be contacting consumer affairs tomorrow. We finally received the letter from Toyota legal and they're saying they found no manufacturing defects and they looked at the event data recorder. However, I've been asking for those results and have not yet been provided with what was pulled off the EDR. For any litigation to take place at this point we would have to have at least two instances of brake issues if we were to go after Toyota using the lemon law. One failure is enough and am totally considering never buying a Toyota again.