2004 Toyota Prius: engine failure

Filed Dec 20, 2010 · Driver assistance · 93,000 miles · UT

1. Events leading to failure driving in 1 - 2 inches of snow, I attempted left turn, encountering a somewhat deeper (approximately 4-inch, and heavily tracked from previous vehicles) berm of snow at the entrance of the side street onto which I was turning. 2. The failure, how often it occurs, its consequences the traction control seized all motion of front (traction) tires, though snow was not deep enough otherwise to prevent movement. This left me in the path of oncoming traffic approaching downhill on slippery road. The traction control completely disabled car, leading to very dangerous situation. Also, continued application of accelerator pedal to get the car to move quickly created smell of hot transmission. There is no question that, even with the open differential, the car would have progressed through the snow but for the traction control. And, of course, there is no question that this problem is inherent to the traction control system and would occur whenever conditions occur that cross the threshold of slipperiness and resistance I encountered. 3. The defect remains uncorrected. The essential correction is redesign and replacement of the traction and/or adding a disabling switch.

Filed Feb 3, 2010 · Brakes · 95,000 miles · MD

Driving approx 35 MPH. Applied brakes lightly to slow before a sharp right turn. Brakes "froze" and required extreme pressure to slow and then stop the car before reaching an intersection approx. 100 feet beyond the curve. The car stalled and lost power during this maneuver, which was accompanied by very strong smell of burning rubber and multiple warning lights. Upon restarting the car, it felt as if the brakes had seized such that it was difficult to proceed through the intersection to a safe place to pull over. I then turned the car off and on repeatedly until the warning lights extinguished and normal operation resumed. My local shop (not a toyota dealer) said there was a code for communication failure with the brake system but no indication of damage to the brakes or wheels. This was the first instance for this problem, which has not occurred subsequently.

Filed Sep 11, 2009 · Engine · 73,250 miles · IL

2004 toyota prius. Driving at 70 MPH on I-57 north. While driving the gasoline engine stopped functioning, triggering several warning lights. I pulled the car off to the side of the highway and managed to exit the highway on battery power. There was a recall in 2005 for a similar condition. My prius had the recall work performed in october 2005 for the software problem. The toyota dealer is unable to find any reason for the problem and can not replicate the engine failure. As a result, they will not perform any further investigation or maintenance on the vehicle for this problem. I have a case pending with toyota customer care, but do not expect any further assistance from them. I am also being charged labor for the dealer to inspect the vehicle. There was no fire or property damage, but if I had not been in the right hand lane, I very well could have been in a serious accident. Suddenly loosing power at highway speeds is unacceptable. If they are unable to remedy the situation, I will be returning the vehicle to them.

Filed Oct 16, 2005 · Engine · 12,000 miles · PA

I own a 2004 toyota prius purchased on march 2nd 2004. Approximately 4 months after acquiring my vehicle I was merging onto the interstate when I experienced and ice engine failure. All the warning lights came on and I was able to pull to the shoulder of the road using the electric motor. Subsequently I rebooted the car and the engine turned over. The next day I took the prius to a toyota dealership. They had the car for six days and apparently performed diagnostics and performed a software fix. Recently, on september 8th 2005 I experienced a 2nd occurrence of the ice engine shutdown. This scenario occurred while pulling up to a red light. Again all the warning lights came on and the engine shut down. I rebooted the car and took it to the dealership for service. The toyota dealership completed a tsb eg047-04 for recalibrating the engine ecu. Note, I did not receive any prior tsb's from toyota regarding the engine problem.

Filed Aug 6, 2005 · Transmission · 18,800 miles · OR

2004 toyota prius internal combustion engine failed to start but vehicle operated in electric mode. When battery failed, the vehicle shutdown in park so we were unable to push the vehicle out of the street. Failure of a component should not make it impossible to move the vehicle. Vehicle should not fail in park.

Filed Jun 29, 2005 · Engine · 32,200 miles · VA

Engine failure at approximately 55 MPH. Had just come through a toll gate and merging intersection. While accelerating through about 55 MPH the dashboard lights all lit up and the engine died. Travelled to a safe location via battery power and called dealer. Car has been towed to toyota dealer in leesburg, but they can not work on the car until a battery charger is revieved from toyota. They say there is only one in the 4 state region so it could be a week or so. No explaination by service department on what causes this problem.

Filed Jun 24, 2005 · Electrical · 9,000 miles · IL

Dt: consumer has two 2004 toyota prius and both had engine failures while going between 30 and 40 MPH. Incident on may 28, 2005 and may 4, 2005 approximately.*ak northbrook toyota reprogrammed vehicle's computer. Consumer states vehicle now performs ok. *tt

Filed Jun 9, 2005 · Engine · 23,600 miles · CA

Toyota prius gas engine stalled after toyota service patch was downloaded to correct problem. Bought car march 1, 2004. Car stalled may 13 and june 1- see report filed under may 13 date. July 31, 2004 toyota downloaded patch to fix the problem and we thought it was fine. Car was ok for almost a year. Then, just 2 weeks ago on june 2, 2005 I was driving on the highway (luckily in a lot of slow traffic so only going about 40 MPH) and the gas engine died again so the car dropped to 20mph on the electric engine. All warning lights came on again. This time I stopped and restarted the car and the engine (gas and electric) came back on. This is what the dealer had said that the other customers having the problem had found- if you stop and turn it back on after a stall everything works. So since my kids were not in the car I did this and drove it to a parking lot. The warning lights were still on and now I am really scared to drive the car. In all three situations I feel like I was just lucky that I was not going faster and especially inthe second case that the driver behind me was aware enough to avoid my suddenly powerless car. I thought it was important to report this because we thought toyota's software download put in in july 2004 worked to fix this problem but it clearly is still happening. I will not drive the car now with my children in it and am considering getting rid of it. If it were any other car it would be gone by now, but we are big believers in the hybrid technology and really waited to report this to give toyota a chance to fix it. I think this is happening a lot more than is being reported because a lot of the customers feel as we do that we do not want to report anything bad about the hybrid. However, this is too scary now and needs to be addressed. With a third baby on the way we were signed up for the hybrid highlander but unfortunately will wait until we know this problem is solved.

Filed Jun 2, 2005 · Engine · 17,000 miles · MO

Our 2004 prius stalled repeatedly on a drive from holland, mich., to st. Louis, mo, on dec. 26/27, 2004. The first time it happened, it was after about an hour of highway driving, when all the dashboard lights went on and the engine died. We were able to coast off the highway. After about 30 minutes on the side of the road (it was he day after christmas and a sunday, so help was not readily available), we were able to restart the engine and return to holland. The next day, we took it to the dealer, who could not find anything wrong. We resumed driving and after about an hour, the same thing happened. We pulled to the side of the road, waited a bit, and restarted the engine. We repeated this several times, drive, stall, restart, drive, until we got to a dealer in chicago, who declared that our transmission was shot but we might as well drive back to st. Louis since it would take them a week to get a new one anyway. So we drove, stalled, restarted, again and again until we got just south of springfield, ill., where the car stalled for good. After an uncomfortable hour spent on the side of interstate 55 waiting for a tow truck on a freezing cold night, we finally were taken back to st. Louis, where the dealer put in a new transmission.

Filed Jun 2, 2005 · Engine · 10,254 miles · CA

I was driving on highway 101 north in a stop-and-go traffic. I noticed that the battery level continued to drop and the gas engine failed to start to recharge the battery. I manage to slide out of the freeway and stopped on the shoulder. I could not shut off the car for about 2 minutes. I was able to restart the car after 5 minutes and the gas engine started. The display showed symbols of "check engine" and "hybrid system warning" and a text message - "problem!". I was able to drive to the destination via a local route.

Filed Jun 1, 2005 · Engine · 12,000 miles · CA

1. I was driving around 30 to 40 MPH and the gas engine failed suddenly during the course of normal driving, leaving only the electrical engine running. At the same time the engine failed, many lights turned on on the dashboard. 2. I was on a canyon road in the los angeles mountains when it failed, which was a single lane road each way with nowhere to pull off. Luckily, I had just reached on of the crests in the canyon when the engine failed, so with the electrical engine I was able to coast to a side street. Once on the side street, the electrical engine died quickly, probably because of the steep slope upwards of the street. 3. I tried to turn off the car and it wouldn't turn off, so I popped the hood and got out to see if there was an obvious problem. Finding no problem I could see I went back inside the car and held down the power button until the vehicle turned off finally. When the vehicle turned back on, the engine sempt to work normally, and I immediately went to the nearest toyota dealer. They said they had heard of the problem once or twice before and it requires a software update to the car. I was weary of their proposed solution since it is such a dangerous problem, but that's all they said they could do, so I told them to go ahead.

Filed May 28, 2005 · Engine · 11,000 miles · CA

Summary: internal combustion engine died while driving. Lots of indicator lights on dash, and message appeared on multifunction display. Was able to get to a safe location on battery-only power. Details: driving home from town (about 10 miles). Car was behaving normally, and had been driven approx 30 miles earlier today with no issues. Just before we got home, the following lights came on (I recorded them exactly): (1) red triangle (master warning light), (2) engine check (amber), (3) brake system warning (amber exclamation point in parentheses), (4) vsc, (5) hybrid system warning light (this was also indicated on the lcd screen). Lcd had a message on it which I did not record exactly (it was something generic like "there is a problem"). The info screen was indicating that we were running on battery only, and the car had very little "pickup", but we were on our home street, which is quite steep. The car has about 11000 miles, and did something similar when we first got it. After turning the car on and off a few times, the internal combustion engine seems to work again, and most of the indicators have now gone off. (amber "engine check" is still on). After all this happened, I got onto the internet to see if others had seen similar problems, and it looks like there may be a class problem (I note there have been a large number of these in the last few weeks - could it be temperature-related?) car was not out of gas (just refilled yesterday) - gas guage showing nearly full. Vehicle was purchased august 2004 (after the tsbs came out that implicated computer problems), so I'm suspecting this may be a different issue than was dealt with there. [xxx]. Will notify toyota tomorrow and request instructions as to how to proceed. *js information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u.s.c. 552(b)(6)