OK first I come from the last 4 cars being Sports Sedans so I understand there will be a difference in ride and braking, but that aside do you find the TCH brakes a bit soft and unpredictable. I know there is the transistion from regen braking to physical braking, but the brake feedback is never "planted" or "stuck". Maybe I have been away from Toyota for too long, but just the lack of feedback and confirmation makes it awkward. Those of you that noticed, yes I was in a wreck with my TCH and I am not going to blame the brakes, but rather my not being fully familiair with them. While my TCH was being repaired I drove 3 different rentals and they all felt like what I would describe as "normal". My TL when you felt like the car was stopped it was, the TCH it seems like you have to assert more pressure than I would assume to get the car to stop and then it varies from time to time, is it me or do others feel like the TCH brakes feel "different".

 

They do feel different, but IMO not so much that it's difficult to adjust to them. No question that they don't provide the feedback of the best brakes out there on sports cars or true sports sedans. But I wouldn't put them outside the range of typical family cars. I drive over 20,000 miles per year in rental cars of all types, so i'm always having to adapt to different brake feel and response, throttle tip-in, steering feel, etc. The TCH is on the squishy side of what I'd consider the normal range, but I think Toyota did an admirable job of giving it any reasonable feel at all when in regen mode.

 

Coming from a Land Rover Discovery Series II, the TCH brakes feel like a brick wall. That is mostly because the brakes on the Disco felt like you were stepping on an angel food cake. I don't think the TCH brake feel like a sport's cars brakes, but then again i would not expect them to be. You have convince me to try the brakes in a panic situation, as I don't know how they would feel at that time since I have not had the displeasure of being in one of those situations. Luckily, the MPG challange has adjusted my driving style so I am less (not totaly eliminated) likely to be in a panic stop situation.

 

I'll admit that I have jumped on the brake pedal once very hard. Fortuneately I was on a backroad and no one was behind me. Good thing too since I went from about 30 or 40 to 0 in a couple of car lengths or so.

The nav screen had me a bit distracted and I was approaching a stop sign at an intersection. I jumped on the brakes when I realized that I was supposed to stop. I was going straight and I'm sure the ABS had to have kicked in on dry pavement, but I came to a stop just over the line.

This is the first car that has a complex display, and it takes some learning and dicipline to ignore it and concentrate on driving. I've learned the lesson now.

 

Not watching the instant MPG gauge is the hard part.

I watch that a bunch trying to keep it at a steady 45 MPG on the HWY.

 

I guess I find that sometimes you lean hard into them and it is like stopping on a dime, liek it goes to hard braking and other times you lean hard and you find yourself having to lean harder becasue it is not braking hard enough, very strange feedback. I'm impressed with all the technology undeneath in this car and know it is impressive, but feel the braking needs a beeter consistent feel.

 

It seems to be easier for me to look away from the dash. We all learn to glance at the dash and keep our eyes on the road, so watching the FE gauge isn't something that I do a lot.

It was harder for me to figure out the displays on the screen especially when the different displays have so much information that changes as we drive. Now that I'm accustomed to the displays it’s much easier to glance at them and pay attention to the road.

I have tried to glide, but that does take a lot of work splitting attention between the display and driving the road. I've only tried this on very quiet traffic days, so I'm not able to do it much at all.

 

Glide, yeah right. I find that to be an almost impossible task. There is a VERY SMALL THROTTLE POSITION (did I yeall that loud enough) to get it into glide mode.

I don't think I will ever be that into fuel economy to work that hard at pulse and glide. I do want to get a kit to alow plug in and e-mode running.

 

Pardon my ignorance - what is "glide" - is that some NAV thing?

 

"I think Toyota did an admirable job of giving it any reasonable feel at all when in regen mode"

Exactly. This drive by wire takes getting used to. As far as braking is concerned, I always feel a slight delay under hard braking and it seems to get too grabby towards the end. I find that I can get a better feel of the brakes when I drive with my shoes off. Even then, I still have to work to come to a smooth stop.