Toyota Brake Recall

Toyota on Tuesday announced another global recall for defective automobiles. This time, more than 400,000 Prius and other hybrid cars are being recalled due to braking problems. The recall comes on the heels of the massive recall of Toyota vehicles for sudden acceleration problems.
Toyota has been criticized for attempting to grow sales while sacrificing quality and for being slow to recall vehicles with dangerous and deadly defects.
The recall will address what Toyota describes as a software glitch in the brakes of the Prius and three other hybrid models. The problem has been reported as causing a brief and sometimes frightening delay in perceived braking capacity on icy or bumpy roads.
Toyota says the problem can be fixed by dealers in about 40 minutes. The recall will apply to 223,000 hybrids sold in Japan, along with 133,000 Prius cars, 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles in the United States, and about 53,000 Prius cars in Europe. It begins in Japan on Wednesday and in the United States according to Toyaota in the United states as soon as possible.
The latest model of the Prius, which was rolled out last May, was the best-selling car in Japan last year and has also sold well in the United States. The car is bigger, more powerful and gets better mileage than earlier Prius models.
The 2010 model of the car uses a two-stage braking system that includes regenerative braking to capture energy from the wheels, as well as conventional hydraulic brakes. On snowy or icy roads the brakes can seem to soften for a split second when an anti-lock braking system kicks in, according to the company.
Toyota claims the delay is not the same as brake failure, and there have been no reported accidents or injuries because of the problem.
Toyota has come under pressure from the Japanese government, which said last week that it was looking into customer complaints about the brakes. The chief of the recall department at the Ministry of Transport said Toyota should have taken action sooner.