Break Failure!

[RomanG]

My mother just got into an accident going across a major 4 lane road because the breaks on the Camry hybrid failed to break. Simply put, she pressed the break and the car kept going. I have been able to find similar intermitten break failures have recently been occurring to Prius drivers: https://www.hybridcars.com/forums/bra...007-t1013.html. Have any Camry Hybrid owners have similar experiences? .

[kbearhome]

I have had my Camry for 14 months and have found that a slight touch stops the car. There have been no problems.

[nealinto]

Well, not to say it's not true, but I'm a bit skeptical at this story. While any car can have a mechanical failure, brakes simply "not working" would seem to be very rare indeed. From the cheapest Chevrolet to a premium car like a Toyota Camry. And that link you posted talked about a Prius that had KNOWN problems and warning lights etc. Could this not have been driver error?

[chloe]

My mother just got into an accident going across a major 4 lane road because the breaks on the Camry hybrid failed to break. Simply put, she pressed the break and the car kept going. I have been able to find similar intermitten break failures have recently been occurring to Prius drivers: https://www.hybridcars.com/forums/bra...007-t1013.html. Have any Camry Hybrid owners have similar experiences? .

Yes, I had a break failure this week! While parking my Camry Hybrid the breaks failed! When towed in the car was tested and breaks appear to be fine! This incident happened in the middle of the day, perfect weather...good thing I was going slow and only parking the car. No, I did not hit the accelerator! I have had the car since Sept 06. Anyone else with a smiliar experience?? chloe

[1stpik]

I had a spelling failure once. Fortunately, I found the word in a dictionary and corrected my error.

we have too many "victims" these days and not enough folks who don't realize that it's their responsibility, not the manufacturer's, to check their fluid levels and other safety/reliability-related things.
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My daughter has a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid. In general it has been a great car. One of the things I liked about it was that I thought it was a safe car for a teenager to drive.

She was driving it yesterday on a busy city street when the brakes failed. When she pressed the brake pedal, the car started slowing, then lost all braking and the car coasted as if she were not pressing the brake pedal. She then pushed the brake pedal with all her might and the car slowed to a stop, but not with normal braking force. She barely missed rear-ending the car in front of her.

We had the car towed to the local Toyota dealer. Before he loaded the car on the tow truck, the driver drove the car around the parking lot and was able to reproduce the problem. He agreed the car was unsafe to drive.

The car has always been properly maintained, the brake fluid was full, and the brake pads were good.. The dealer could not reproduce the problem and a code scan did not reveal any problems, so they wanted us to pick up the car. I've asked them to keep the car for another week or so to see if they can reproduce the problem. I also had to ask them to check the Toyota Service Bulletin database for this issue. (It's astonishing that they didn't do this on their own). I'm not comfortable with my daughter driving the car at all unless they find and fix the problem. If they are unable to fix it, we will trade in the car (not for another Toyota).

My theory (and from what I'm finding on the Internet) is this: The regenerative brakes were working normally, but when the system was supposed to transition to the hydraulic brakes, it either delayed in switching or didn't switch at all. What's not clear is whether her pressing the brake pedal with all her might finally caused the hydraulic brakes to work or not. My further hypothesis is that the problem was an intermittent communication problem on the CAN system.

If anyone eles has seen this problem and even better yet, found a resolution, please let us know. Thanks.

My wife and I had a similar experience yesterday with our 2007 Camry Hybrid (57K miles). We were in stop and go traffic. She was driving. We came to a stop light. When the car dropped below 5 mph, the point where regenerative braking transitions to normal brakes, it didn't happen - we lost all braking. She had enough distance between us and the car in front of us to make a hard swerve into the right turning lane to avoid rear ending the car. She stood on the peddle to bring the car to a stop. I don't know that standing on the brakes actually helped. I'm guessing that the braking system is fly-by-wire and the car had some small braking capacity that eventually stopped us further down the road.

It was a bright sunny day, no water on the road, and no forewarning. The car has been well maintained by the dealership. The car was towed to the dealership where they reported that they couldn't find any problems with the braking system. Knowing that the car records failure codes, I asked what codes were reported. The tech said there were no error codes recorded. As far as the computer was concerned, there was no failure.

When driving the car myself, I have noted from time to time, odd transition from regenerative braking to normal brakes. I've chalked it up to different driving conditions and am unsure if there is any relationship.

I told the dealership that the next time it happens, they'll be replacing the computer and entire braking system under warranty (it is still under extended warranty until the end of this year).

Stopping device on moving vehicles: "brake" or "brakes" ... )

In follow up to my previous comment. The dealership returned the vehicle to us claiming to have updated the computer. Unfortunately, that didn't help. The brakes failed again in traffic again nearly resulting in us rear ending the car in front of us. Again, my wife swerved off the road to the shoulder to bring the car to a stop. Fortunately, she keeps good distance and is able to react. The symptoms were:

Big red BRAKES lit up
ABS light came on
Check VSC System light came on
Anti Skid light came on
Triangle with (!) came on
Orange Circle with (!) came on
NO BRAKES!!!

Conditions: Dry level road, no bumps or debris on the road, stop and go city traffic, gentile pressure on the brake peddle (until it is realized there's no brakes then very heavy pressure).

Placing hard pressure on the peddle will bring the vehicle to a slow stop but unfortunately, by the time you realize the brakes have failed, the reaction time to stand on the peddle hard and the greatly lengthened stopping distance can result in a collision. The vehicle was returned to the dealer and has been there three weeks now. We are refusing to accept the vehicle back until they find the problem and fix it. I've contacted Toyota HQ USA and requested assistance in the matter.