Accident Involving Prius

The California Highway Patrol officer who responded to an emergency call about a runaway Toyota Prius described the driver as visibly shaking and said he "appeared to be in shock" once the car came to a stop, according to the police report released Wednesday.

The Prius' driver, Jim Sikes, called 911 on March 8 after he said his accelerator became stuck as he tried to pass a slower vehicle. In the police report, responding Officer Todd Neibert said he "could smell the heated brakes which indicated they had been used extensively" and said he saw the brake lights periodically illuminate as he came upon the car.

Prius Accessories:

Prius Chassis Stiffener Kit (Fits 2004 to 2009)

Prius Rear Bumper Protector (2004-2009) Toyota OEM

Prius Electric Only Mode Option for (Prius 2004-2009)

Eventually, Neibert used the patrol car's public address system to instruct Sikes to apply the brakes and the emergency brake at the same time. "The driver ... was visibly shaking and breathing deeply," the report said. Upon searching the car, Neibert found "a large amount of brake dust and brake pad material in and around the wheels," the report said.

David Justo of Toyota Motor Sales headquarters, described in the memo as Toyota's residential hybrid expert, said that if the gas pedal of the car was stuck to the floor, and the driver applied the brake, the engine would shut down.

The memo said before Sikes' vehicle could be tested, technicians had to replace rotors, brakes and pads, as the pads and rotors were worn down.
Early evidence points to driver error as the reason a 2005 Prius sped into a stone wall on March 9, according to federal investigators.
The statement suggests the driver may have been stepping on the accelerator, instead of the brake, as she told police.

Investigators from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration inspected the wrecked 2005 Prius on Wednesday and extracted data from the car's event data recorder.

No other cars were involved in the accident. Police said the driver, whose name has not been released pending the investigation, has a clean driving record.

A team of six inspectors from Toyota and two from NHTSA spent several hours taking photos, measurements and downloading the black box data from the car, which has been at the Harrison Police Department since the accident.

The 2005 Prius was part of Toyota's November recall to address the risk of pedal entrapment in the floor mat.

Summarized from CNN

Read More..

Toyota Complain: Doubting the Prius?

NHTSA said that it has received nine new complaints alleging fatal crashes caused by sudden acceleration in Toyota cars since Jan. 27. As of Feb. 3, when NHTSA launched its investigation into problems with the hybrid vehicle, the agency had 124 complaints on file. "The agency is quickly gathering more data on all of these additional complaints to help guide our examination of sudden acceleration, the Prius braking system, as well as other safety issues."

Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman said the company is responding "more aggressively and more quickly" to customer complaints.

"We are taking steps to implement more stringent quality controls, investigate customer complaints more aggressively, keep open lines of communication with safety agencies and respond more quickly to safety issues we identify."

Since November, Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles, including 8,000 Tacoma trucks and over 400,000 of the popular Prius hybrids, for problems ranging from brakes and acceleration issues to faulty manufacturing in other areas.

The Toyota Prius is a car that, right from its 1997 launch, came veiled in a frosty penumbra of disbelief, of incredulity. Yeah. Toyota said one thing. Now there is a Prius recall, something to do with brakes that don't brake. Not simply because Prius sounds like pious. First, make people hate it.

(Taken from the CNN)

Read More..

Prius and It’s Cruise Control

The Toyota Prius sometimes accelerates while in cruise control, rocketing past the set speed and sending drivers on wild rides, according to some owners and auto safety experts.

The computer guru blamed the problem not on floor mats or a sticky accelerator pedal, as Toyota has maintained, but on bad software. An exasperated Wozniak expressed frustration with his efforts to contact Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based group focused on car safety, said his group has received about 10 cruise-control complaints from Prius owners -- roughly 5 percent of the overall complaints his organization has received about the hybrid.

The Prius is among the 8.5 million Toyota vehicles recalled in recent months for problems related to gas pedals and brakes. Just this week, Toyota recalled hundreds of thousands of 2010 Priuses for problems associated with its brake system.

CNN spoke with several owners of previous Prius models who say they were experiencing the same problem: When they resumed cruise control, the car took off as if it had a mind of its own and resisted when they slammed on the brakes. A spokeswoman for NHTSA refused comment for this story, saying the government agency is looking at the Prius braking system but not potential cruise-control problems.


Feds and Toyota too close?

Towns asked in a February 3 letter to Toyota CEO Yoshimi Inaba.

Grover Walton repeatedly slammed on the brakes of his 2008 Toyota Prius on a road trip to visit his granddaughters in South Carolina last October. The car lurched back and forth, and gained speed.

The incident began, he said, when he hit the "resume" button on his cruise control, thinking he'd speed back up to around 63 mph. The car got up to 75 mph.

The car wouldn't shift into neutral. The car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Many automakers have had cruise-control problems over the years, including Ford, which last October added 4.5 million older model vehicles to a recall over a faulty cruise control switch that could overheat.

It's not surprising to him to hear of Prius owners complaining about possible cruise-control problems. Hybrid vehicles are among the most complex. The cars have separate electric and gasoline engines and a regenerative braking system that uses energy from the car's wheels to help charge its battery.

Finding the root cause of the problem, Friedman said, gets tricky. "If you test them independently, they all work perfectly well."


Owners: It's not the floor mat

Barbara Walton never uses the cruise control any more, and she stays in the right lane just in case she needs to pull over quickly.

The dealership that fixed the car blamed the problem on floor mats. "Initially, we thought Toyota would be pretty receptive," her husband said. The problem has not resurfaced.

(Taken from CNN: By Christina Zdanowicz and Wayne Drash)

Read More..