ABS module or sensor failure on the 2007 Toyota Prius
5 crashes 5 of the 38 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When abs module or sensor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2007 Toyota Prius report ABS module or sensor failure at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 27,500 miles and a quarter after 82,500 miles, from 35 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 165,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 160,360 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
34% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,640 miles | 27,371 miles | 50,000 miles | 83,000 miles | 166,000 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
Of these reports, 5 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $500–$2,400 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 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 265; the 2007 has 38. 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.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota prius. The contact stated that his complaint pertains to the anti-lock braking system on all vehicles. He stated that when driving on a road that is wet, icy, or contains snow, he has to slam on the brakes and depress the brake pedal to the floor in order to stop the vehicle. He stated that the tires lock up one by one, which takes all control of stopping the vehicle out of his hands, as opposed to pumping the brakes and maintaining some control over the vehicle. When the ABS is activated, the vehicle shakes, bucks, wiggles, jerks, and makes a lot of noise. The contact did not want to provide any vehicle information other than the year, make, model, and mileage information. The current mileage is 4,000 and failure mileage was 3,000.
While backing out of my parking space at work, my brakes went to the floor and barely stopped the vehicle. Alarm was going off, so I pulled forward just enough to see if the brakes were working at all and they were probably 98% gone. I parked, got towed to dealer near my home with aaa. I later found out that a pair of ABS skid control relays (2 88263-21010) caused the problem. Nothing mechanical failed. These relays caused my entire braking ability to be lost. I believe this is an unsafe design as there is no mechanical connection available at the pedal if you have this electrical problem. Some mechanical brakes should be available. The emergency brake is on / off only and no in between. I would like to find what legal remedies are available to me as I am considering changing to a safer vehicle due to this design flaw. As in power brakes, if you lose the power brakes, you can still stop the vehicle, though difficult since there is still a mechanical hydraulic system in place even with a failed power booster. *tr the consumer also stated the master cylinder failed. Updated
I am writing to report transient failure of the anti-lock braking system in our 2007 toyota prius. Since may 2008 we have noticed episodic accelerations during light braking (at intersections for instance) when the car encounters pot holes, grates, railroad tracks or slippery pavement. We seem to lose control of the vehicle momentarily. Only with heavy brake pedal depression does the vehicle come to a complete stop. Until january 2010 we thought this was a unique feature to our vehicle and we were hypersensitive to its idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, in january 2009 this defect lead to a low speed motor vehicle collision wherein my wife was unable to stop the vehicle when another driver abruptly pulled in front of her. No one was hurt, thankfully, but both vehicles were damaged. All other nearby drivers were able to stop in time and no other collisions occurred. On december 4, 2009 this same vehicle was involved in another low speed motor vehicle collision when a driver ahead suddenly stopped to avoid a pedestrian. The prius was unable to stop in time (even under heavy brake pedal pressure) and collided with rear bumper of the car…
Also reported on the 2007 Toyota Prius
Headlight failure or clouding
Other lighting problem
Other brake problem
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 38 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 abs module or sensor failure happen on the 2007 Toyota Prius?
Across 35 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 27,500 miles and a quarter after 82,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is abs module or sensor failure on the 2007 Toyota Prius?
38 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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