Loss of braking on the 2010 Toyota Prius
28 crashes 6 injuries 34 of the 302 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 loss of braking gets reported
Owners of the 2010 Toyota Prius report loss of braking at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 2,000 miles and a quarter after 16,000 miles, from 251 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 1,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 98,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 97,500 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
80% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 miles | 1,500 miles | 5,000 miles | 15,500 miles | 98,000 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, 28 a crash and 6 an injury are 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 $400–$3,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Unexpected total loss of propulsion after driving on wet road conditions at approx 35 MPH. . 2010 toyota prius with enhanced stability control. No response from gas pedal. Needed to come to a complete stop and restart vehicle to obtain power. Lights and dash display remained on but vehicle had no power to move. Had to coast several hundred feet avoiding traffic to come to a complete stop and "restarting" vehicle. Esc/trac squiggly symbol appeared on dash momentarily. On other occasions I have noticed when stopping on loose surface materials or stopping when driving over uneven pavement that the vehicle unexpectedly lurches forward in a most unpredictable and unnatural way almost as if there were no brakes and the vehicle momentarily attempts to accelerate. The first condition could easily cause an accident in heavy traffic or on a busy freeway since control of the vehicle was not returned to the operator until the vehicle was totally stopped and then shut down and restarted. My sense is that the enhanced stability control and trac system is overly responsive to road conditions and is slow or inhibits the return of control of the…
Unexpected total loss of propulsion after driving on wet road conditions at approx 35 MPH. . 2010 toyota prius with enhanced stability control. No response from gas pedal. Needed to come to a complete stop and restart vehicle to obtain power. Lights and dash display remained on but vehicle had no power to move. Had to coast several hundred feet avoiding traffic to come to a complete stop and "restarting" vehicle. Esc/trac squiggly symbol appeared on dash momentarily. On other occasions I have noticed when stopping on loose surface materials or stopping when driving over uneven pavement that the vehicle unexpectedly lurches forward in a most unpredictable and unnatural way almost as if there were no brakes and the vehicle momentarily attempts to accelerate. The first condition could easily cause an accident in heavy traffic or on a busy freeway since control of the vehicle was not returned to the operator until the vehicle was totally stopped and then shut down and restarted. My sense is that the enhanced stability control and trac system is overly responsive to road conditions and is slow or inhibits the return of control of the…
I have a 2010 toyota prius (generation 3). Purchased on 10/15/2009. I have experience unexpected loss of braking when decelerating to about 5-10 MPH and when the vehicle hits or goes over a bump. This have happened multiple times. There were no property damage, however, the unexpected loss of braking and a feeling of acceleration is unsettling. I feel this may eventually lead to a vehicular collision. *tr
Also reported on the 2010 Toyota Prius
Other brake problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other speed control problem
Master cylinder or brake booster failure
Headlight failure or clouding
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 302 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 loss of braking happen on the 2010 Toyota Prius?
Across 251 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 2,000 miles and a quarter after 16,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of braking on the 2010 Toyota Prius?
302 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.2 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