Engine Shut Off Without Warning problems of the 2004 Toyota Prius

I have a 2004 Toyota Prius (purchased Dec. 2003). Approximately 10 March 2005 I was driving at city speeds (<40 mph) when the gasoline engine shut down. I was able to proceed about a mile on the electric engine until the battery became drained. I called for a tow under warranty service. While waiting, I was able to restart the gasoline engine after about an hour, but had the car towed into the dealership for investigation of the failure and repair. After a couple of days of investigation, they claimed that they could find no problem and Toyota had not issued any service bulletins dealing with such a problem. As recently as last week, when I had the car serviced, the dealership said that they were unaware of any similar reports and Toyota had not issued any service bulletins. I gave them a copy of an article from a recent wall street journal details reports of these problems around the country. I have no further problems of a similar nature, but I am somewhat apprehensive of recurrence. Otherwise the car is wonderful. I get ~50mpg in the summer and it handles well.

I own a 2004 Prius and also experienced a complete system shutdown while driving on the highway about 3 months ago. The entire gas engine shut down and all warning lights came on. The electric motor remained operational and allowed me to get off the road and into a parking lot safely. The dealer (cabe Toyota - long beach, CA) gave me a brief and unsatisfactory explaination. . Brushing this off as a minor problem similar to a computer needing to be restarted. I assume they upgraded my system but still fear a recurrence in a less convenient location. Please let me know if you would like any additional information on this. Vehicle VIN = jtdkb20u540074988.

My 2004 Prius' combustion engine shut down on the freeway in Sep'04. The car switched to battery mode only and rolled on until the battery was completely drained and then completely stalled. I got stuck in lanes, created a rush-hour traffic jam, and had to be pushed to a shoulder by a police car. The car was towed to a dealer who said it was a software glitch which they proceeded to fix and the car has been working well since then.

Our 2004 Prius on four separate occasions had a complete engine shutdown with lots of indicator lights lit on the dashboard. This happened twice while we were traveling on interstate highways in traffic at highway speeds, once in a Toyota dealership while the vehicle was being serviced, and once as we pulled into a toyoto dealership for service. We were not aware we could send a complaint to NHTSA until we say today's msnbc article. The first engine shutdown occurred in the hyannis Toyota dealership in massachusetts. They took quite a while to fix the vehicle and made several phone calls to Toyota engineers for help. They wrote on our receipt: "needs trans replacement for permanent repair. " after we left massachusetts we drove across country toward our home in California. The other three engine shutdowns happened during this trip. We had to be towed (at Toyota's expense) twice as a result of the interstate engine shutdowns and ended up at a Toyota dealership in jackson, mississippi. We had to stay several days at our own expense while they repaired the vehicle, again consulting several times with Toyota engineers during the repair. After we reached California we took the vehicle to south bay Toyota and requested the "permanent" repair described on the hyannis Toyota receipt. We were told they would do nothing because there was no indicator showing any problems at that time. We made several phone calls to Toyota but were unable to get them to do anything further to our car.