Steering Column problems of the 2010 Toyota Prius

Electric steering makes the steering wheel hard to turn and is erratic. Dealer said the car needs a new steering motor/column. Car is not safe to drive. My research has found other model Prius with silirar problems and also the rav4 has steering issues. This occurs while driving the car. My wife refused to drive the car. And I have parked it. Dealer wants almost 3000$ to replace.

The contact owns a 2010 Toyota Prius. The contact stated that on June 2, 2010, the vehicle suddenly accelerated and crashed into a curb. There were minor damages to the vehicle. There were no injuries. The contact called the dealer and was told that someone would contact him. The current and failure mileages were approximately 17,000.

My wife and 2 daughters were driving on interstate 90/94 when the entire steering column slowly dropped. I double checked the lever underneath to adjust it, but that was tight. I could see wires and bolts where the column had dropped several inches. I lifted the column up and thought it would lock in or click back in place. When I did this, the entire column collapsed in my lap. An alarm sounded and I had no control of the steering while going 70 mph. Somehow I managed to get the vehicle to the side of the road and had the vehicle towed to the dealership. Dealer fixed the vehicle and wrote, "upper steering column plate came out of bracket, possibly not locked in all the way from factory. " dealer had a field tech come look at and take pictures. Approximately 2-3 weeks later had a call from the dealer saying some engineers wanted to replace more parts and wanted vehicle again. This time they replaced the entire column rather than fixing pieces. At this point we had no faith in the vehicle and began dealing with Toyota to get a new vehicle as this Prius only had 6,293 miles.

The contact owns a 2010 Toyota Prius. When the contact tried to pull down the visor, the garage door opener slipped off the visor and fell into the steering column. He had not taken the vehicle to the dealership but did have an appointment. He also had not spoken with the manufacturer to-date. The vehicle had not been repaired at the time of the complaint. The current mileage was approximately 3,900. The failure mileage was approximately 3,800.