AtWhatMileage
Glass · 10 owner reports

Other visibility problem on the 2006 Toyota Prius

Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 10
With an odometer reading 7
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 29%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $150–$1,400
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 20th

When other visibility problem gets reported

There are 10 reports of other visibility problem on the 2006 Toyota Prius, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 20th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 7 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 54,000 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $150–$1,400 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 200 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 65,000 miles.

By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 35; the 2006 has 10. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl*the contact owns a 2006 toyota prius. The automatic window up control rolled up the driver side window and would not stop until the window was completely up. The window would continue to close even if there was an object in its path. This failure has occurred numerous times. The contact has not spoken with toyota. The VIN and engine size were unknown. The current and failure mileages were 49,922.

49,922 miles NHTSA complaint 644647 filed 2007-11-02

My 2006 toyota prius has a problem with headlights going out intermittently. Toyota says they replaced lights after we insisted there was a problem. They noted problem was caused by a short that they say nothing about fixing. It took 2 visits to get problem resolved due to intermittent nature. I think this is a defect and dangerous. They need to address this problem. There are numerous postings on web of this and all indications are that lights and control modules have problems. I am writing to national center for dispute settlement, but think odi needs to step in. Thanks. *tr

26,344 miles NHTSA complaint 731700 filed 2009-08-17

When closing the rear hatch on my 2006 toyota prius, the inside rear view mirror came crashing down, taking a chunk of the windshield with it. My car now is missing a piece of windshield and the mirror. Contacted toyota--they said since the car had too many miles on it and was off warranty, they wouldn't fix it, although they agreed it shouldn't have happened. To me, it seems to be a manufacturing/materials defect that toyota is not willing to admit. The mileage is irrelevant for this type of defect--it can happen at any time. *tr

74,192 miles NHTSA complaint 747813 filed 2009-12-11

Also reported on the 2006 Toyota Prius

Headlight failure or clouding

668 reports median 47k

Other lighting problem

315 reports median 50k

Other brake problem

133 reports median 52k

Other electrical problem

73 reports median 80k

Other speed control problem

63 reports median 44k

Loss of braking

49 reports median 54k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 10 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 10 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other visibility problem happen on the 2006 Toyota Prius?

Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other visibility problem on the 2006 Toyota Prius?

10 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed