seamusbleu

Got the car back, and apparently, the problem was a vacuum leak in the check valve in the booster hose assembly. The local technician found it, even though the Ford hotline first said there wasn't a check valve in the hose. This was after they had already done a bunch of other part replacements and tests. Hopefully, this will be the end of the check brake light warnings.

The car has been in the shop well over a week this time. I haven't been able to talk to the guy who's been working on it, so I'm short on details. They've been talking with "the engineers", so it's new to them, and important enough that it's gone up the food chain, at least somewhat. I saw the list of parts they have on order. The only one I can remember was a "controller" (for the brakes). It had a >$300 price - glad it's under warranty. The parts look to be in, so hopefully, it will get done tomorrow. I'd sure like to know if they found something concrete (I doubt it), or they are going by the engineer's best guess (probably).

I've got a picture of the dashboard, so now I can say exactly which lights are displayed. In the bottom right corner of the dash is the "Brake System Warning" light. According to the manual, this indicates low brake fluid level. No, I haven't checked the level, but presumably, the dealership would have checked it. And now it is on my list of things to look at. In the upper left, the "Check brake system/Brake fluid level low (RTT)". This is supposed to indicate brake system not operating properly or low fluid level. There is another, smaller version of that light in the extreme upper left corner as well. I should add that the lights did come on when I had a chance to drive it recently. The brakes still felt completely normal, and brake regeneration, as shown on the dashboard, was still functioning, even when the warning lights were on. I wish I had the car in front of me to do some more checking, but the car has become my wife's car. It's at the dealership now (again), so we'll see what they say.

It says check brake system. The dealership said that Ford told them to replace the battery (the "small" one). That was about 2 weeks ago. Today, the message came back. The brakes seem to feel and work fine.

Just brought it in for the first oil change and tire rotation (~6K miles). On the way to work, brake warning lights come on. Same thing on the way home. Turned off the car, and the light cleared, but it came back again. Stopped by the dealership. They're mystified. Scheduled to bring it back in 2 days.

My six month free subscription is almost up. I'm leaning towards letting it lapse, but would keep it for a good deal. What kind of deals have people been getting lately?

Yep. When I ordered my factory all-weather floor mats, the parts guy asked me if I needed the one-hook or two-hook version. I took a look, and _thought_ I only had one hook. When the mats came in, I took out the original mats*, and found out I actually have two hooks. Oh well, I just punched a hole in the drivers side mat to match the extra hook. * I can't beleive people leave the original mats in place and put the all-weather mats on top of them. Don't do it! That's what leads to the mats sliding and potentially causing a stuck accelerator.

I agree with your guess about the ICE being limited for a brief warmup - that was my thought exactly. I only partially agree with your next statement. EV mode is inefficient when the ICE is used for charging. Otherwise, its very efficient. That's part of the reason hybrids work so well. In high torque situations, like initial acceleration from a standstill, electric is especially beneficial. It would be nice to have the ability to trade off between the existing configuration, and one in which you could get more intense (even if less frequent, or shorter duration) EV mode.

Well next time you do a cold (not winter cold, but just not warm) start, see what kind of EV acceleration you can get for the first, say, 30 seconds.

Has anyone else noticed that for the first couple of minutes after "starting", the level of electric power is very high? When I first start my car, I back out of my garage, and then put it in drive. By this time, the ICE has usually started. As I go forward, I can hit the accelerator quite hard, and the ICE RPM's don't increase and the electric power level goes way up. This mode continues for about a couple blocks of driving, and then the further use of the accelerator starts to result in the more normal ICE rev'ing. For example, in the engage dashboard setting, I can normally get no more than 3 bars in the electric side of the power meter. In the "early morning mode", I can get it at least twice that high, and get no increase in rpm's. Because I'm in a residential area at this time, I'm quickly up to 30 MPH, and I can safely continue to accelerate, so I don't know what the limits are. I would love it if I could get that level of electric power during normal driving. As it is, you can only accelerate _very_ gently to keep the car in electric-only mode. Heck, even a small increase in the electric-only threshold would be great. I wonder if there will ever by a "chip" for the FFH that will allow those kind of changes.

I believe it's possible for this guy to be perpetrating a hoax. I also believe it's possible for Toyota to be orchestrating spin control on this guy to make it look like he's doing a hoax. And Edmunds is just another media outlet. It's in their best interest, like all media, to be interesting, but not necessarily accurate. I'm sure it is easy to flip a prius into nuetral while standing on the accelarator. What I'd like to see them do is try to burn up the brakes by simultaneously braking and accelarating to 90+ mph. I'm not sure it can be done. Shouldn't the regenerative brakes slow the car down if you aren't jamming on the brakes? And if you are jamming on the brakes shouldn't the accelarator be overridden? So somewhere in between that you can get brakes and accelaration and burn up the brakes and hit 90+ mph? Maybe, but I'd like to see it done.

I agree with the previous poster that the expected response in this kind of situation would be to press harder, but I can also envision a case were there wasn't time to "perceive the loss of braking" and then react by pressing harder. How about giving us some more details on this?

What you are describing is a FFH with the 502A package. I think I got a good price on one just recently at around $29K (plus tax and license). Based on that, they are asking you to give up roughly 2/3 year of ownership and mileage for around $2K. That doesn't sound like a good deal to me. If you are considering spending that much money, I'd say buy a new one. Now considering the $25.5K price, I don't know what a "certified pre-owned" designation offers over and above what the full factory warranty that is still in affect provides. Still, based on that price giving you a roughly $3500-$4000 savings, that still doesn't seem compelling to me. Personally, (with admittedly very little time to think about it) I'd probably need it around $24K before I'd go for it. My $0.02.

The reason I asked is my first impression was that what you described was similar to the battery "reconditioning" that others have described happening at, I think, around a similar mileage.

How many miles are on your car now oldschool?