Toyota Prius Review – The Brakes, Likes and Dislikes
Of course there is a lot of talk right now about the 2010 Toyota Prius brake concerns. I want to start of by telling you that my wife and I bought a Prius last month and I thought I could write about it from an owner’s viewpoint. As you may know, the new Prius is the 3rd generation Prius. It has more defined lines, actually I think it is quite sporty looking and quite sporty to drive, and has more interior room as well. I will get to the brakes in just a bit, but first some more of the good stuff.
The top selling feature of this car is the eco-friendly, fuel efficient qualities it has. Imagine being able to get 50 plus miles per gallon average which means you can get that kind of mileage driving around town or on the highway. With the new generation Prius you also can get some pretty good power out of it when you need it too. Imagine a 134 horse power car going 0-60 miles per hour in 9.8 seconds! So, getting on highways and pulling out into traffic is never a problem.
Simply put it in the “Power” mode and you are good to go. Of course, there is usually a trade off with most good things, like more power and that is less gas mileage. So, this feature is not something you would want to use all the time. Most of the time you will want to drive in the ECO mode as shown in the button here. This give you the optimum gas mileage. A friend of mine has owned one now for 7 months and says he gets 57 miles per gallon in ECO mode and about 53 miles per gallon in Power Mode. So, still, that is not too bad. If you drove the car in Power Mode most of the time and drove it with a little bit of a heavy foot, you probably will still get in the high 40’s which is twice as good as most cars of the road, especially when driving around town.
Some other good things is there is lots of leg room both in the front and back and nice storage area in the back of the car. The rear 60/40 seats can fold flat giving you all types of room when you really need it. All safety precautions have been taken into account when putting a child’s car seat in the back seat of the car.
The lighted information center just above the dash can be pretty overwhelming at first, unless you are a tech gadget nut like me, but most people get used to it. You can monitor the car’s performance and gas mileage as well as two trip odometers, how many miles left to drive on the gas in your tank, constant MPG, of course your speed, gas gauge, clock plus you get a read out of what you are doing when you use the sound system, heating controls and display settings which are accessed from the steering wheel.
There is so much more, but now I would like to tell you about a few things we wish it had. First of all there is not much area to see out of the back window.
It has a lot of width but because it come down at such a sharp angle, you don’t see as much of the cars behind you like you are probably used to seeing in most other cars. There is a little section of glass right below rear spoiler that separates the two glass areas and that really helps, unless it gets dirty from rain, mud, salt or snow etc, and then you can’t really see out of it. 
Since the wiper had to be designed to fit the rear glass, it is quite small and only clears a portion of the window. It would have been much better to include two wipers so that the entire window could have been cleared and provide the drive maximum viability.
However, at least for me, once you get used to the way it’s designed, it is not as big a problem as it seems at first.
There is also a lack of armrests in the front seat. I know some cars don’t have them, but when you are used to driving a SUV or crossover car, you need a good place to rest your elbows. There is a center console that works alright on the one side, but the door panels have their flat area a bit low. And, although it does have two cup holders up front, one is covered up by the sliding center console so that if you do want to use it as an arm rest, you can’t use the cup holder at the same time. If you slide it back to used the cup holder then you loose your arm rest and the console slides back into the center area of the rear passenger compartment.
For me though, all the good things far outweigh the not so good things. You just need to get used to these changes and in a little while you will forget about them and make the adjustments you need.
Now for the brakes. So far I have had no problems with the brakes, but you do notice some differences in the braking system in the the Prius then you do in most other cars. Here are the reasons why.
There are two braking systems on the 2010 Toyota Prius. The first is a very conventional set of four disc brakes, 10.09-in. up front and 10.2-in on the rear, actuated by hydraulic fluid pressing on pistons located in calipers…y’know. Brakes. Except these have aluminum calipers and a resin piston, all designed to reduce weight. The other is the regenerative braking system, which relies on the resistance of the electric motors. This does a couple of things. First, it slows the car, but not entirely; you still need those discs and brake pads for that.
Second, while it’s slowing the car, it’s feeding electricity back into the car’s battery system. Recovering this energy is key to any hybrid’s operation. The lower the battery, the more the Prius biases its braking toward regenerative. As a side benefit, since more of the braking is done by the drive-train, brake parts tend to last longer on the Prius. Basically what happens is that the engine will shut down at some point when coming to a stop at low speeds and when taking off again. When this occurs it may feel like you have to push your brakes a little harder or like you care is about to drive off on it’s own, but that does not happen. As long as you use your brakes the way you should when you come to a stop, any changes you feeling with the engine are normal to this type of car and the care really benefits by having a system like this.
So, now that there is a recall on the brakes, from what I have read, it will be mostly a software issue that can be easily corrected and is most likely not an issue on cars that have been sold starting in January of 2010. Most people have said that the brakes cease to work for about a second when they are stopping in ice and snow, or while braking when running over pot holes. I have not experience that, but it is possible my car does not have the problem since I bought it in January. To be sure though, you can check the Toyota website each day and click on the box about the recalls and you will see if this applies to your car and what the progress is in getting the fix.
One more thing, when it comes to driving this car in the snow, you are in for a big surprise. It really drives and handles great in the snow. I took it for a test spin on a Sunday afternoon in a snowy parking lot that had not been cleared yet, and I could not believe it. It felt very stable and I really felt in control of the car. My wife drove it for the first time in the snow the other day, and gave me a glowing report and if she says it drives good in the snow, that is all the confirmation I need.
Like all types of products that get recalled, it does not mean that these are bad products or poorly manufactured especially when the product comes from a car manufacturer that has such a good reputation and high customer loyalty. Yet with all products it is still better to error on the side of caution and safety, but rest assured, all these recalls will be taken care of.
So if you own a Prius, have the recall problem taken care of if it applies to you and then continue to enjoy a fun and sporty ride in a car that gets the best gas mileage in the US and save money at the same time. I know I will.
Rick Maselli is Founder and Editor of LevelAdvice.com and Showroom411.com.
