Five problems related to body have been reported for the 2005 Toyota Prius. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2005 Toyota Prius based on all problems reported for the 2005 Prius.
Car started skidding on the road, couldn't take control because car started to speed up and then rammed into the concrete barrier, spun around and ended up facing oncoming traffic. Luckily, there wasn't any car right behind me and I managed to push open the driver's side door although it wouldn't open completely and opened just enough for me to squeeze through and ran out of the car. At no time did the airbag open up at all. I was lucky that I sustained no major injury except for a badly knocking my left knee on the dash. My question to Toyota would be why the airbad didn't open! what if another car had hit mine and I wouldn't have been protected by the airbag!.
Stopped at a stop sign. Pulled into intersection of arterial. Didn't see crossing traffic. Collided with crossing vehicle. Entire front end of Prius hit rear quarter panel of pickup truck. The front end of the Prius was completely destroyed. Any and all airbags failed to deploy in Prius.
I was pressing the brake, but instead of stopping my Prius accelerated,and jerked under the stopped vehicle in front of me. The brakes acted like accelerated pedal. Prius occasionally had the accelerating jerks without pedal input, but after fixing all the recalls, I thought the car is fine. But this time, it was not a jerk, it was a full leap, that destroyed the whole front of the car. It was towed from teh accident and it is beyond the repair. I had it only for 9 months.
Body sheet metal fatigue - crack near top of body directly above the rear right-side shock absorber tower.
On two separate occasions( 1st in July, 2nd in October) after heavy rain, leakage into the engine compartment of my 2005 Prius resulted in fowling of spark plugs and coils. The moisture damage created misfiring and stalling while in traffic. Toyota supposedly repaired the leak caused by a seal issue in the cowl after the first incident in July but had to followup with a second repair in October- resealing the cowl. I am not concerned that the problem is completely resolved and I am trying to get accurate information from Toyota, unfortunately they have not been forthcoming.