How far had you travelled before the brakes failed?

When, if ever, has the brake fluid been changed?

I know of a couple of instances of brake callipers being a little 'sticky'. Enough to hold a brake on lightly. The resulting heat build up boils the brake fluid. Vapour is compressible. Result is the brake pedal hits the floor. After stopping a little while, everything cools down and the brakes appear normal.

Are you mad, or just trolling?

Sadly, it's not my car and I'm getting all the information from somone who isn't all that car literate, but as she described it:

"The brake pedal sank to floor and nothing happened, my car hit the car in front - which was shunted forward, my car then hit it again(!) as it carried on moving forward. I wasn't going fast, and I didn't need to brake hard, it's just that nothing happened when I tried to brake."

At first she had no reason to blame the car, she thought it was all her fault and accepted liability with the insurance. Then, when it arrived at Toyota it turned out that the ECU had died at the time of the crash, without direct physical damage in what was otherwise a minor bump (no airbags fired, only light bodywork stuff). Toyota have changed the ECU and wiring harness FOC, that's the facts, the rest I can only leave to speculation.

I have an 05 Avensis myself, so this is of particular interest to me.