Prius problems

Legendary actress Meryl Streep drives a silver 2010 Toyota Prius Hybrid. She once said,"If everybody that had two cars had a Prius instead of an SUV, we wouldn't be in the Middle East right now."

The Miami News reports on problems being faced by Prius drivers. Lupe Egusquiza from Tustin, California was waiting in a line of cars in September 2007 to pick up her daughter from school when her Prius suddenly took off and crashed into the school's brick wall. Egusquiza reported $14,000 worth of damage to her car. Stacey Josefowicz in Anthem, Arizona, was driving down a four-lane highway toward a stoplight, when she stepped on the brakes but nothing happened. She freaked and then weaved into a turning lane, coasting to a Target parking lot with the brake pedal jammed to the floor.

Brake failure and uninteded acceleration seem to be the problem with some Prius owners. But Toyota spokesmen put these down to "driver error" and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration only has two Prius investigations in its database from 2004 and 2005. And even those two involved the car's cooling system. In 2008, the Prius ranked second in overall quality in a survey by J.D. Power and Associates, and it won the IntelliChoice Best in Overall Value in its class award.