Problems with 2001 Toyota Land Cruiser VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL

On may 29,2013 at approximately 1 pm, i was stopped at a traffic light waiting for approaching traffic to clear so that i could make a left turn. suddenly, i heard a buzzer alarm and numerous dash board lights lit up, including abs, vsc, brake, etc.completing the turn, i realized that the brakes were virtually non functional and required extreme force to slow down the vehicle. i drove to my nearby home at a very slow speed and parked the vehicle in my garage. upon returning from a trip i had the towing company flatbed the vehicle to the dealer. their diagnostics concluded that the hydraulic brake booster had failed and needed replacement. total cost is $3100 including a slight discount since i have been a customer for over 16 years. the service manager could not recall a similar repair during his 18 years with the toyota agency. i consider myself fortunate that the failure occurred when i was stopped. had it happened at freeway speeds or driving down the long and steep roads in my community i could have had a serious and perhaps a fatal accident. i have a phd in mechanical engineering with over 32 years of industrial experience. the brake system on this vehicle has a latent design flaw without a fail safe backup. toyota should be held accountable, redesign the faulty components, notify owners of the problem and recall all affected vehicles. i spoke with a representative to have toyota pick up the repair cost. of course, they did nothing, quoting the expiration of the warranty, etc,etc.i believe the only recourse is for the nhtsa take action against toyota. *tr

In the past few weeks i have encountered a situation which i feel is quite dangerous. the following has happened on four occasions while on highways and interstates. what occurs is that i will be driving on a highway at about 65-70 miles/hr when suddenly the transmission shifts into a much lower gear. i am not sure which gear it is, but it is into a very low gear. two things happen. the car suddenly slows down rapidly without the brake lights coming on which causes the car behind me to come close to rear-ending me. but a worse situation is that the sudden drop into a low gear causes the car to suddenly dodge to the right - i assume because of the enormous torque generated by this shift that occurs without the engine slowing down first. this has occurred twice on interstates and twice on two lane highways, always at high speeds between 65 and 70 mph. when this happened last week on a two lane highway, the car dodged to the right. to keep from going down an embankment i steered hard to the left and over steered a little, almost hitting a motorcycle in the oncoming lane. on two of the occasions, about a half-hour before the car did this, i was driving with the cruise control on at about 65 mph and the cruise control went off by itself for no reason. i took the car to a aaa designated transmission shop yesterday. they took it for a test drive and ran a scan but found nothing. they thought it would be in the cruise control or electronics or sensors.*jb

My car suddenly accelerated when i pressed the brakes going down an incline.*ak