To get the mileage that car has , you have to shave weight. In the Prius case, its a drive by wire and from what I have read the brake problems are in the computer, so flashing the eprom should take care of that issue.
Declan
Tow Truck > Camry
I liked my 2001 Camry but that damn tow truck ran a red light and my car didn’t survive.
2008 Avalon and not overly concerned. I have scheduled the fix but it seems the panic reported in the news is more media inspired.
Ditto.
Mine is a 2001 Toyota Corolla. Before that I had a 1990 Corolla. Next I hope to by a Yaris.
Everyone in my family and everyone in his family owns Toyotas. We are the Toyota family. Asians love Toyotas - they are reliable, cheap, and run for miles and miles. My old car made it within a hair’s breadth of 200K miles and when I donated it, was still running. Currently I am just over 100K miles on this one and it’s going strong.
Recall doesn’t bother me. Toyota’s a good car, especially for someone in my income range.
2010 Matrix we bought after news of the brake problems, a day or 2 before they stopped selling them. Our 5th Toyota, bought to replace the Matrix we just gave to our eldest daughter.
It is a fine car. And to the extent there is any problem, I am confident Toyota will fix it. I’m not worried at all - of course, it is my wife’s car! 
Who am I to talk - my car is a Corvair! 
I have a 2007 Prius and I think our braking problems are the same thing as what’s being described as the problem with the 2010 Prius. If I’m braking and hit a bump the brakes stop working for a moment and that damned yellow warning light flashes. I actually feel vindicated because when I would mention this in the past couple of years to the dealer they shrugged it off. I’m taking my car in next week to get this looked at- still driving it.
They tried that the first time it happened, and it worked. The second time it didn’t, and they had to consult with Corporate to narrow the problem down to either a sensor or the computer (which has an acronym, but I can’t remember it).
Drive-by-wire is very good; but in such a critical system, there should be a hydraulic/mechanical fail-safe. For all I know, maybe the single-brake phenomenon I experienced was the fail-safe, and randomly choosing which brake ensures the driver has some stopping power until he can get to a shop. It certainly gets the driver’s attention, where an all-brake fail-safe mightn’t. But I’d still have an all-brake failure mode, and maybe an annoying horn (like a stall warning horn on an airplane). And I’d have a hand-brake instead of the push-on/push-off parking brake.
Let me reiterate though, that I’m very satisfied with the car.
You’re not off base there. Recently there was a local accident involving a Camry, the driver blamed the brakes, the news media all reported on that but in a print report the police said that it had nothing to do with the car, it was driver error. But the media frenzy doesn’t find driver error interesting enough. It’s like how every dog attack is a pit bull until you read the details and find out it was actually a chow.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forced Toyota to stop selling vehilces. That’s what caused the media coverage, not the other way around.
Course the NHTSA said Nader was wrong about the Corvair, yet people still claim it was “unsafe at any speed”!
I have a 2009 Prius. I think I may notice the momentary give in the brakes at a very specific intersection - one where the approach to a traffic light has a hump and some railway tracks. I’m not sure I even noticed a reduced stopping distance - it just felt funny. Otherwise the car performs admirably, is fun to drive and gets the advertised gas mileage.
I am happy enough. This particular model is not currently scheduled for recall but it wouldn’t surprise me if that changes. I too plan to drive it for a very long time so resale value is not important.
I think this puts a significant dent in Toyota’s reputation, and with the improving quality of Detroit based brands we’ll probably see a more even playing field. I think the improving quality is enough to level the playing field over time, but this sort of thing surely speeds that process up dramatically. Very badly handled on Toyota’s part - they’ve wasting the lead in quality impression that they’ve built up over many years.
I have a 2005 Corolla, and my husband drives a 1999 Tercel. They are both the best cars either of us has ever had, and we would buy Toyotas again in a heartbeat. Toyota has a couple of problems, and that is somehow worse than Detroit systematically putting out crap decade after decade? Nuh uh.
Resale value isn’t important to us, either. We plan to drive both cars until they fall apart (well, Jim plans to get a sports car in a year or so, but we might just keep the Tercel when he does because it’s paid for and it’s still incredibly reliable).
It’s worse because when you buy a new car, you aren’t going to buy one from the 80s or 90s.
Tritto. I suspect the bug is a delay in handing off control to the other braking system under certain conditions.
The only thing that annoyed me is that if I had waited a few more weeks to buy it, I might have gotten another couple of hundred bucks off the price. But my Saturn was not even in good enough shape to drive 17 miles to work, so I didn’t have a lot of choice about timing.
Same car, same year, same opinion exactly.
2007 Yaris, which isn’t affected by any recalls yet. I absolutely love it, and I’ll keep buying Toyotas for as long as I am able to.
2005 Corolla. When I first got the car, I was driving it one day and the gas pedal got stuck to the floor. I slammed on the brakes, but since the gas pedal was stuck, it just slowed me down. I managed to get the car to stop and had to drive home. It hasn’t happened since, so either the mat was stuck to the pedal and holding it down somehow or I was very lucky. Either way, I’m happy with my car now that it hasn’t pulled another Christine on me.
I had a Toyota Tercel back in the 80s and it was piece of crap.
This is my 3rd 4Runner and have loved them all. I had a 1999, 2001 and now a 2003. After doing a lot of internet research, I’ve discovered that a huge number of 2003 4Runners have transmission problems, mine included! I’ve been having problems with the transmission slipping since spring of 2007. It slips out of gear while stopped when it’s cold.
Hopefully, it will hang in there for a while longer. I definitely don’t have the money for repairs.