2021 TOYOTA RAV4 PRIME Complaints

While exiting an interstate and applying the brakes, the vehicle struck a small bump (pot-hole) in the roadway with the front passenger wheel. The car lurched forward and stopped slowing down. The brakes had disengaged on all wheels. After approximately 2 seconds, the car started braking again and I was able to regain control and stop. This momentary loss of braking ability could have caused me to rear end the vehicle in front had I not left excess room. The loss of brakes increased the braking distance required and could lead to the loss of control if the roadway is slick. I have been able to reproduce this issue. No ABS or TCS lights illuminated. No beeps or other warning messages materialized. The car is available for inspection upon request. It appears to be an issue with the regenerative brakes switching over to the mechanical brakes when the car believes there is wheel slip.

The gas gauge is inaccurate by up to 4.5 gallons of fuel, so even when the fuel gauge displays empty it still has a large amount of fuel still in the tank. Toyota should put a software patch to resolve this issue.

There is an issue with Toyota's Rav4 Prime fuel tank gauge incorrectly reading fuel left in the tank or prematurely stopping gasoline to fill the tank. My car is available for inspection upon request. No safety impact. Dealer confirmed issue by testing my car but says this is "working as intended". The fueling problem is consistent and not intermittent and started immediately after using my first tank of gas. Even when low fuel warning light is on, I am unable to fully fill the tank to the advertised 14.5 gallons. Inability to fill the fuel tank impacts the vehicle’s total available driving distance and forces me to make more frequent stops at the gas station. This issue could very well be due to the same design defect in the 2019-2021 Toyota Rav4 Hybrid class action lawsuit in which Toyota has admitted fault and settled the class action.

The RAV4 Prime's fuel system holds 14.5 gallons, however only between 10 - 11 gallons of that is usable per the digital "miles to zero" gauge on the instrument panel. When the gauge reaches "zero" and notifies the driver to fill up, the tank only fills 10 -11 gallons and keeps 3 - 4.5 gallons in reserve. This is a big issue because the "miles to zero" gauge reads the full tank when you fill it up (approximately 550 miles), but begins to swing drastically on miles left as you drive the car to accommodate for the 10 - 11 gallons that it actually uses. It is not an accurate gauge at all. There are two (2) potential fixes from Toyota for this issue: 1. Fix it so that the digital gauge reads the "miles to zero" correctly and isn't all over the place to compensate for the 4.5 gallon reserve, as the system currently uses 10 - 11 gallons as the read for "zero" instead of the 14.5 gallons . 2. Fix the gas tank to actually make the full 14.5 gallon tank usable to the driver.

Car makes a startling loud noise like a fog horn a few seconds after starting. Noise is loud enough and unexpected it has caused me to accidently press on accelerator on occasion if I have started moving. Apparently a know problem but fix is only European focused. Fortunately nothing was in front of me when this happened. Happens frequently on first startup but never every time. TSB is BE-00612T-TME Need to force dealers to fix this before an accident does occur.

Very loud TRAIN HORN sound. TSB issued in other countries like Finland, but not USA. Finland TSB BE-00612T-TME

The car had a front passenger and two rear seat passengers, one right and one left. In the middle rear seat there was a tray of cupcakes weighing ~2lbs. As we were driving at night in a complex area of freeway onramps and offramps an alarm started to deploy, beaping steadily. I glanced down at the multi-info-display (MID) and couldn't tell what the alarm was, and I was driving at around 55-60mph, at night. Over the next 45 seconds or so the alarm increased in frequency to the point of starting to sound outright urgent. I finally saw noticed three tiny icons in the lower right part of the MID, amidst an array of other lit icons and indicators, representing the 3 rear seats, and the center one was not illuminated. The car's sensing system apparently determined the seat was occupied but the occupant not belted in. I told everyone to check seatbelts. By now everyone in the car was in a state of near panic as all belts were secured. At the last few seconds, distracted by the urgency of this alarm and trying ascertain what the heck it was, I nearly struck traffic cones and had to swerve to miss them. Thank fate as I swerved to get back into my lane (cones were cordening off a whole lane which I was heading into) and didn't run into another vehicle--it easily could have resulted in a crash. I visited a car owner forum and here is a comment from another owner, "...Toyota doesn't need to have such an obnoxious seatbelt warning system -- even just for the front-seat occupants -- in which the sound gets louder and louder and louder; it's about the worst I've seen in any brand...." Other seatbelt alarms in my experience sound, then stop, then restart, but never escalate like this one. The combination of an atypical satbelt alarm that escalates to the point of urgency, combined w/ a hypersensitive seat occupant sensor confirmed by others, difficult to focus on while driving alarm icons , makes this design potentially disastrous as my story suggests.

Hello Nhtsa, It is a brand new car, while we were driving on the freeway, all off a sudden, we hard noisy drive, eventually smelled plastic. When we saw under the "Underbody plastic shield with clips loosen up" and it is handing half on the road. we were scared and it could even fire up the whole car as we smelled a burning smell. I called Toyota Custer service a couple of times and reported the issue. again called towing company took to the dealer. dealer "Town county Toyota Charlotte" Dealer manager was very rude and says it cannot be fixed, it is back-ordered, left us on the road to take out the car. It is such cheap material for Such an EXPENSIVE car. It has an 18KW battery and gas we would have been caught up in a fire in the car. We were so disappointed and shocked for a few days. # Again it is first in segment plugin EV. It makes weird noise occasionally while reversing or staring going in 10-15miles per hour. Riased 2 service tickets with toyota customer care, no response so far. First ticket: 220119002484 second ticket: 220108001683

When the vehicle goes over a pothole (or bad road condition) while you are braking, the brakes don’t work for a second, the car feels like it is surging. I almost hit the car in front. This happens a lot. It’s the exact same problem problem with the 2010 prius.

While braking there is a brief release, which I believe happens when car switches from regenerative to friction braking. It feels like I have taken my foot off the brake for a moment, but I have not. Result is car briefly stops braking, which can cause loss of control. Has happened consistently for months, less pronounced with hard vs soft braking