Engine problems of the 2005 Toyota Prius

My daughter was driving the family car a 2005 Toyota Prius on a NJ county road on a low traffic Sunday morning in April 2009. The car unexpectedly surged causing her to loose control, hit a telephone pole and cause property and physical damage.

2005 Toyota Prius: in slippery conditions, when a front wheel slips, both wheels stop rotating and then the wheel that did not slip is given power. This takes about 1 second. During that time the motor has shut down, losing substantial forward momentum. If the second wheel slips,the process is repeated giving the original wheel power. The 1 second time interval occurs again and more forward momentum is lost. On a slippery hill, this basically stops the forward motion of the auto very quickly. If both wheels continue to slip,the auto just sits there , with the electric motor starting and stopping as the power is switched between front wheels. If there are cars behind yours, then backing up is impossible. If the wife and kids are in a bad neighbor hood and this happens,that could mean real trouble. The condition is totally unacceptable. All the Prius' should be recalled and the traction control reprogrammed to allow reduced power to the slipping wheel, not zero power. This will tend to maintain forward momentum and keep the motor from shutting down. I spoke to the original dealer and they claimed no knowledge of the design flaw.

I took my Prius in for recall, noted in pe05029, on or about December 9, 2005. I had no problems with the Prius before the recall but did the recall because of the problems others were having. I had 25,000 miles with no problems before I took the car to Toyota to do the recall. Since then on two occasions, on or about January 14, 2006 and on or about January 16, 2006, I have had the engine start to rev up while at a stop light with my foot on the brake. I drive using only one foot so the gas pedal did not have anything. The engine seemed to rev to about 2000 rpms. This is an estimate on my own part from the sound and not a measurement. On the first occasion I turned off the climate control as I was proceeding to shut down the car and the engine returned to normal idle and then turned off as it normally would at a stop light. I left the climate control off and continued to drive when the light turned green and had no more problems that day. On the second occasion I eased up slightly on the brake pedal to see if the engine was actually propelling the car forward and the car moved forward but no stronger than it normally does with the electric motor. So, the engine although revving up seemed to be disconnected from the drive train. I believe I noticed on both occasions that the battery was fully charges with no white space at the top as usual. Probably because the engine runs more anyway since the recall as can be noted by the loss in fuel economy. I reported it to the dealers service representative that I took the car in for recall and was told that unless it was a repeatable problem they probably would not be able to find anything. I requested that he report it to Toyota anyway.

Consumer states while driving her vehicle lost power. The vehicle was pulled off the road, after the vehicle was shut off, and it started back. The service department states the computer did not register the event, so they could not find anything wrong. The local service department said this was the first complaint they had received.