Three problems related to brake electric antilock have been reported for the 2003 Toyota Matrix. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
In 9/02 I was involved in an accident. While driving at 45 mph on wet a road, I applied the brakes hard and did not stop before hitting the vehicle in front of me. There was adequate stopping distance & I know that our Saturn wagon would have stopped on time. On 11/30/06, my husband was involved in an accident. While driving 65 mph on a dry road he applied the brakes hard and did not stop before hitting the vehicle in front of him. He also had adequate stopping distance and he states that our previous Saturn wagon or our Subaru wagon would have stopped in time. I have never hit a vehicle while braking hard in a vehicle w/ abs until the Toyota Matrix. We got one of the early Matrix's in 7/2002. Now that this has happened to both of us, we wonder if the abs was faulty on the early versions of the Matrix.
When stepping on the brakes, the vehicle continued to move. The consumer had to hit the brakes real hard to stop the vehicle.
Went to dealer twice;complained about brakes pulling right; told they couldn't reproduce problem and the brakes were just "adjusting"; today, failure in steering and brake pull almost caused wreck.