NHTSA Complaint #11665104 — 2012 TOYOTA PRIUS

The brake booster and brake booster pump assemblies had to be replaced at the dealership. Parts are not available for inspection as far as I know. We were warned by the dealership that we should not be driving the car because the brakes could completely fail at any moment if we didn't have parts replaced. That would have been dangerous for us and anyone else sharing the road with us. On a Sunday, leaving our house and driving down our street, three lights turned on on the dashboard display - traction, brakes, and ABS - and the brakes felt softer and less responsive than normal. After having gotten a diagnosis and repair estimate from the dealership, we carefully drove the car home to consider our options. We tried to get a second opinion from a trusted mechanic, but it sounded like the parts we needed were tightly monitored by Toyota and the original estimate for the repair from the dealership was above $3,000. After a few days, the dashboard warning lights turned off and the brakes felt back to normal. The whirring noise which had been happening roughly every 4 seconds had slowed to roughly every 10-12 seconds. We were told that this turning off of the lights sometimes happened, but that the issue was still the same. Prior to these lights turning on, the car had been making a lot of the whirring noises for some time, but it had never thrown the codes before that would have been picked up by a mechanic. At the time, we didn't recognize the sounds as a sign of an impending commonly recognized failure - only after doing some research did we find that this was a very common problem for a lot of Prius owners, especially for the given year and number of miles we had. There is an "extended warranty" for this part and repair, but while we were within the mileage limit, we were outside of the time limit and we were told at the dealership that Toyota would be inflexible about paying for the repairs.