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What 14 owners told NHTSA about the 2018 Toyota Prius Prime

These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.

All (14)Crash / fire / injury (4)Airbags (2)Fuel system (2)Transmission & drivetrain (2)Backup camera & sensors (1)Body & structure (1)Brakes (1)Driver assistance (1)Electrical system (1)Engine (1)Lights (1)

1 of 14 complaints match · Driver assistance · clear filters

Jul 22, 2021Backup camera & sensorsDriver assistance

From the first week of ownership sensors would alarm that they needed cleaning but they were clean. Parking assist sensors also malfunctioning. Also saw Intelligent Clearance Sonar error messages and warnings. Alarm tended to go off in wet weather. Brought to dealership many times and problem occurred infrequently that no problem was ever found. For two years I was plagued by alarms of sensor malfunction. I worried the sensors would fail to detect cars and objects in front of, behind or on the side of the car. That would be a serious failure and cause of an accident. After two years of unsuccessful testing, I traded in the car.

NHTSA ODI 11425944

Working with the data? Download all 14 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 15, 2026

How to use these: a complaint is one owner’s report, filed voluntarily and published unverified. Patterns matter more than any single story. If several owners describe the same failure at similar mileage, put that system at the top of your pre-purchase inspection list. Back to the full 2018 Toyota Prius Prime verdict →