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Possible brake failure?

Discussion in 'Prius c Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Jack1971, Dec 19, 2013.

  1. Jack1971

    Jack1971 New Member

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    2013 Prius c Two, bought brand new with 15 miles on it 5 weeks ago. A few times when driving, I noticed the brakes seemed weak, like they weren't stopping the car very well even at low speeds (My driving is mostly in town on residential streets, so I'm rarely going over 35 MPH. Even so, I'd have to really mash the pedal all the way to the floor to get the car to come to a complete stop, otherwise it would keep moving forward. Several times I ended up about 5-10 feet past the line, sticking the front bumper into cross traffic. Luckily no one hit me. I chalked it up to the quirks of a different car than the one I was used to, and figured if it kept happening I'd take it to the dealership.

    On Monday, my wife was stopped at a red light. The light turned green and the car in front of her started to move forward. After a few hundred feet, he suddenly slammed on his brakes. She said her brake pedal went all the way to the floor, and the Prius didn't slow down at all. She hit him going about 25-30 MPH and totaled the Prius. She's an excellent driver and I've been with her before when she's had to panic-stop. She's never driven a car without ABS, so she is used to pushing the pedal hard and keeping her foot on it. She wouldn't even know how to "pump" the pedal. She swears the pedal just went all the way to the floor and the car didn't slow down at all. Thankfully, she's okay and no one was injured.

    Knowing there have been brake issues with previous-gen Priuses, I tried googling to see if anyone had any brake issues with a 2013 c, and this is all I could come up with:

    priuschat threads braking-issue 113257
    (sorry, I had to do it that way because the forum wouldn't let me post a link)

    Does anyone know of any other reports like this? I realize there are a lot of factors and possibilities that could have contributed to this accident, but if there's a brake problem with this model, it needs to get some attention before someone else gets hurt or killed.
     
  2. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Did airbags deploy? If so, then the crash would have been recorded on the event data recorder / black box, which should show the brake pedal position and lack of deceleration. Even if airbags didn't deploy, it still might have been recorded. Please have this data read out.

    There have been scattered reports of transient brake failure in the Liftbacks, but no critical mass has developed. (Search in the GenIII and GenII forums, you should find several threads. I don't recall others in the 'c' forums yet. Don't limit searches to any particular model year, possible incidents are too scarce for that.) If your incident led to a recorded crash, then that recording is likely the best set of evidence and clues yet to what might be happening.

    Did you wife apply her fully body weight to the brake pedal? Or at least 112 pounds? If so, then that would be prima facie evidence of a failure to meet NHTSA passenger car brakes regulations, which set minimum performance standards even when the power assist has completely failed. Go directly to the NHTSA defect reporting site: Report Your Safety Complaint

    If she used just normal braking force (or something similar) and didn't apply a lot extra once the pedal felt like it hit the floor, then she erred, and the brake failure issue becomes murky. But it may still be worth reporting. Any transient assist failures, even if they still meet the letter of the law, still should be wrung out of the system, because the surprise factor will lead to more crashes.

    Please follow up on this, don't let it drop.
     
  3. Jack1971

    Jack1971 New Member

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    Yes the airbags deployed. She said when she saw the car in front come to an abrupt stop, she stomped on her brake pedal and it went all the way to the floor without resistance. She kept her foot on it the whole time and her car never slowed down, just coasted right into the other car.

    Already filed a report with NHTSA.
     
  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i'd say you have enough anecdotal evidence to have the dealer take a look at it. personally, if i hit the brakes at slow speed and wound up in the middle of an intersection? it would have been towed to the dealer from there, not chalked up to quirkiness. but that's just me. glad your wife is okay!
     
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  5. rcortespr

    rcortespr Junior Member

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    I totally agree!
     
  6. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Please don't involve just the dealer. If the wife's description is accurate, then this incident is much more important than that, and needs to go all the way to corporate and to NHTSA.

    Please make sure the data recorder gets preserved. There have been persistent nagging hints of a problem, but not enough evidence to separate system failure from operator error. The recorder could potentially provide that evidence.
     
  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    he said he filed with nhitsa in post #3. i wouldn't waste my time with corporate unless the dealer balks. i'm not even sure nhtsa is necessary until discovery process is complete, but it doesn't hurt i suppose.
     
  8. Jack1971

    Jack1971 New Member

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    Not quite that bad... I didn't end up in the middle of an intersection, but it was pretty unnerving how the brakes didn't respond the way I thought they should.

    The car has been moved to State Farm's local facility for inspection and damage assessment. We told them about her account of the accident and they are going to try to recover the data from the EDR to see if it corroborates her experience. We want to have something of substance before approaching the dealer or Toyota corporate.
    I'll post updates as we get them.
     
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  9. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

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    Please post as soon as you find out... don't delay as you might have to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you go through Toyota Corporate and they do find something. If you have already given us the info, they can't do anything about it. :D
     
  10. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I can't think of any legal way for them to use this to hide safety defects, such as a systematic braking failure mechanism that would violate NHTSA passenger car braking requirements.

    Non-disclosure agreements are generally voluntary civil agreements, where the party agreeing to not make the disclosure gets something useful in return, e.g. useful business information, a paycheck, or a legal settlement. It is not unilaterally forced.

    Think of it as a golden handcuff -- without some gold, there is no handcuff. Though some people may get themselves into situations of being caught by the short hairs.
     
  11. mahout

    mahout Active Member

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    First, you should have gotten to the dealer immediately, if not quicker. Any time brakes act 'funny' do not drive that vehicle !
    Your car had all the indications of air in the brake lines or a leak. That is a situation that is more likely poor maintenance because the owner or dealer (if he very recently performed an inspection) let the brake fluid get too low in the reservoir and lt air into the lines. Did your brake light come on? If not, probably, but not conclusively, there was enough fluid and the line or lines had air in them for some other cause..
    Unless the lines had a leak and thus the responsibilty of the dealer or toyota there is no liability to Toyota or the dealer. If you can get to the car now check the level of brake fluid in the reservoir; if its low then you may have a case against the dealer or toyota; even then you may not have a case because you failed to address a critical problem promptly. Owners do have a responsibility for maintaining vehicles; such cases include tire pressures, brake fluid level, gasoline level as well as others you will find in your owners manual.
    I can vouch for Toyota's brake deign. Few drivers use their brakes as hard as I do on track braking repeatedly from 100 mph and my Prissy has no problem and with Hawk pads which have a bit more friction than the OEM ones against the rotor for stopping sooner. I doubt the brake designs are at fault; unless there is a leak in the brake lines I don't see a prblem with the brakes design.
    Sorry to lose your Prius, hope you get another without much hassle.
     
  12. mahout

    mahout Active Member

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    Again, your car had all the indications of air in the lines. You were negligent in not addressing a serious prblem immrediately; brakes are not ever to be regarded as 'just something'.
    The least you should have done was inspecting the brake fluid level and calling your dealer.
    Owners of vehicles do have resposnsibilitiy for maintaing their vehicles.
    Filing a report with NHTSA was a bit premature.
     
  13. mahout

    mahout Active Member

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    Ask their inspector if you can check the car and check the brake fluid level; ask them if they will check the brakes lines for air.
    If your Prius had very recently been in the hands of someone else, such as the dealer, you probably cannot assign blame elsewhere.
     
  14. mahout

    mahout Active Member

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  15. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    How does this follow? Does lack of a leak absolve them of all possible design defects?
     
  16. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

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    I never said that the OP wouldn't get anything in return... I was just saying that we wouldn't know the result.
     
  17. Jack1971

    Jack1971 New Member

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    The car was brand new. So unless the dealer was servicing the brakes on a brand new car, the last person to touch the brake system would have been at the factory. If there was air in the lines, it either came that way from the factory or there was a pinhole leak somewhere. The brakes did perform adequately, for the most part, it was just a few times at the end of braking when the car was already almost stopped that it seemed like I had to really stomp the pedal to the floor to get it to come to a complete stop, but even when I did that, the pads finally gripped and it stopped. I tend to brake early and gradually to save the wear on the pads, and even more so because of the regenerative braking in the Prius, so to me it was more of an annoyance to have to do a "hard" stop and have the car lurch at the end when it should have been smooth like every other car I've owned. That's why I thought maybe it was just a hybrid thing... like switching between regenerative braking and hydraulic.

    My wife never noticed anything alarming either in the 5 weeks we had it, except that she said it took longer to stop than our old car (Honda CR-V), so she had started leaving a few extra car lengths between her and the car in front. The first time either of us noticed anything truly wrong was the day of the accident. That was the first time either one of us had hit the brakes in a panic stop situation, and that was when they failed. If there was anything that seemed dangerous we would have taken it in to the dealer immediately, because we have 2 small children and their safety is the most important thing to us.

    If there was a mechanical or engineering defect in the car, Toyota would be responsible whether or not we took it to the dealer for inspection. And just because your Prius and many others do not have a problem doesn't mean there isn't one. A flaw or defect in the braking system wouldn't present itself in every single vehicle. The key is to look for multiple instances of the same thing happening and then being able to rule out operator error. There are a few reports of 2012-13 Priuc c's having the same problem - total brake failure in a panic stop scenario - including one open NHTSA investigation #DP13-002 of a 2012 Prius c where the driver reported the pedal went all the way to the floor with no braking.

    I'm not looking to get rich from some frivolous lawsuit here. I just want 2 things: 1) to prove that my wife wasn't at fault so our insurance rates don't go sky high, and 2) to prevent anyone else from getting hurt or killed if there is a design flaw in the vehicle.
     
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  18. sosarahsays

    sosarahsays Member

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    The car was brand new with only 15 miles on it. I am very good at taking care of my vehicles and checking fluids regularly, but if I bought a brand new car I would probably assume it was in perfect working order and all the fluid levels were fine until at least the first fill-up. OP has only had the car five weeks. I don't think it's unreasonable for him to have expected everything was in order and not been under the hood already.
     
  19. That's really unfortunate...I know with my car mine was delivered from 150 miles out of state so any weird issues (i.e. brakes) would've been noticed and adjusted at my trusted dealership. New brakes are supposed to be pretty stiff...
     
  20. Tiamaybe

    Tiamaybe Junior Member

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    I was just about to post something similar about my 2014 Prius C! I was going along with traffic today at about 40mph (on a bridge) and a truck stopped in front of me. I hit the brakes, but, they went almost to the floor never stopping just sliding. I was standing on them when I slid into the back of the truck. Not sure if the car is totaled yet. I’m ok, but, I keep replaying it and the brakes never completely engaged at all! I was wondering if there had been previous issues too??