Government investigating engine stalling in Toyota Prius - GreenHybrid

Jason · #1 (**permalink**) 06-01-2005, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Federal safety officials say they're investigating reports of Toyota's popular hybrid Prius car stalling without warning. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it's looking at about 75-thousand cars of the 2004 to 2005 model years.

A statement from Toyota Motor Sales says the probe is "not a recall." The company says it's cooperating with regulators. It says the investigation is in "an early stage" and officials are just trying to find out if more study is needed.

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/pro...601&ID=4858260

lars-ss · #2 (**permalink**) 06-01-2005, 11:14 AM

Gentleman and Ladies, just for your info. This from an Edmunds.com Forum today. It indicates that only 11 reports to NHTSA have been for "vehicle lost power" problems. That's out of the total Prius cars sold in 2004 and 2005 so far, which is about 97,500 cars. 11 failures out of 97,500 cars is .0001128 percent of the cars. Seems pretty insignificant to me at those numbers.....this data reinforces my opinion that this is getting overblown.

Quote:

"I searched the NHTSA reports myself. I actually found 14 reports; however, 3 of them were duplicate entries. So there were really only 11 vehicles reporting that "VEHICLE LOST POWER" problem. The following are summaries of all the NHTSA reports and links so you can read through the details yourself:

fuel gauge (November 29, 2004)
highway stability (April 1, 2005)
crosswinds & tires (March 19, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (April 19, 2005)
brake problem (April 12, 2005)
back seatbelt (December 30, 2003)
navigation accuracy (December 10, 2003)
cruise-control (December 15, 2003)
brake problem (May 2, 2004)
tire traction (May 9, 2004)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (June 16, 2004)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (July 18, 2004)
tire wear (September 23, 2004)
brake light assembly (August 10, 2004)
back seatbelt (October 15, 2004)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (October 29, 2004)
* duplicate entry, same vehicle (October 29, 2004)
* duplicate entry, same vehicle (October 29, 2004)
brake fluid (November 23, 2004)
tire blowout (November 22, 2004)
accelerator stuck (October 12, 2004)
air bags (December 28, 2004)
* duplicate entry, same vehicle (December 28, 2004)
fuel guage (January 1, 2005)
backseat latch (February 4, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (February 24, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (November 1, 2004)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (March 30, 2005)
* duplicate entry, same vehicle (March 30, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (April 17, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (April 20, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (May 2, 2005)
VEHICLE LOST POWER (May 7, 2005)

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

hybie1 · #3 (**permalink**) 06-07-2005, 12:07 PM

Better move your decimal point 2 places to get 0.01128 percent. Basically 1 per 10,000 vehicles.

mootmom · #4 (**permalink**) 06-24-2005, 01:42 PM

My husband had this exact problem with his '04 Prius, it stalled right in the middle of a busy freeway, very worrisome although easily fixed once it got towed to a dealer. It never occurred to either of us to "report" it anywhere after it was fixed, so I'm guessing others reacted the same way and the figures lars-ss reports are likely under-representative. Where/how were we supposed to have reported this and to whom?

Schwa · #5 (**permalink**) 06-24-2005, 02:32 PM

Affected vehicle owners have been notified, it's a recall for a firmware update. I haven't seen the official recall, but the news reports on the subject mention that 24,000 people have been notified.