2021 Toyota Mirai — Should You Buy One?
Typical asking price: $9,000–$17,000. There is 1 high-severity known issue you need to know before handing over a check.
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Kestrel Take
The second-generation Mirai is a genuinely lovely car — rear-wheel drive, Lexus LS underpinnings, a hushed cabin and a price that has collapsed to a fraction of the $50,000-plus it cost new. That collapse is the tell. The public record holds exactly one complaint and one recall for this year, which means almost nobody owns one rather than that the car is sound, and the one complaint on file is an owner explaining that the fuel card he expected did not arrive and the pumps he needed did not work. Treat this purchase as a fuel contract with a car attached: confirm in writing what hydrogen credit remains and transfers, confirm your stations are open, then confirm the stability control recall is closed. If all three land, it is an extraordinary amount of car for the money, with a running cost nobody can promise you.
What we checked
Checked against public records, 2026-09-25
NHTSA holds 1 owner complaint for the 2021 Toyota Mirai, and 1 recall campaign.
That is too small a record to read a pattern from, so we are not going to pretend otherwise — with numbers this low one owner moves the percentage by a lot. What has been filed is grouped under the fuel system (1). Treat those as things to look at, not as the vehicle's known weaknesses. A thin file usually means few of these were sold or few owners filed. It is not evidence the vehicle is trouble-free, and the issues below are our own research rather than a reading of this record.
One recall campaign covers this model year. Recalls are repaired free, for any owner, with no time limit on most safety campaigns — but only if someone books it in. Ask the seller to show it was done, or have any dealer check the VIN; it takes them a couple of minutes and costs nothing.
Counts come from the NHTSA complaint and recall database — free, public, and worth checking yourself.
Known Issues for the 2021 Toyota Mirai
Ranked by wallet impact. These are documented, recurring problems — not freak accidents. How we decide that.
Recall 22V239000 covers 2021-2022 Mirai among a list of Toyota and Lexus hybrids: the skid control ECU software may fail to turn the vehicle stability control back on when the car is started, so the car drives with its electronic stability net disabled and no obvious sign to the driver. Dealers reflash the module free. This matters more on a rear-drive car in the wet than it would on most of the others in the campaign. Check the VIN on NHTSA's free lookup and watch that the VSC warning light goes out after startup.
Repair cost: $0 with the recall — verify it was performed
Source: 1 NHTSA recall campaign on this model year.
The single complaint on this model year is an owner who took over a Mirai lease expecting the large prepaid hydrogen credit advertised with these cars, did not get it, and then spent his time hunting for a pump that worked. That credit is tied to the original transaction, not welded to the VIN, and a used seller quoting it to you may simply be wrong. Get Toyota to confirm the remaining balance and whether it transfers, in writing, before you agree a price — at California hydrogen prices the difference is thousands of dollars of ownership cost.
Repair cost (estimate): $100–$250 per fill once any prepaid credit is gone
Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the fuel system (1).
Labelled as our own reading rather than a finding — the complaint record for this year is a single filing and says nothing about repairs. The structural fact stands anyway: the fuel cell stack, the high-pressure hydrogen tanks and their valves are dealer-only work at dealers certified for it, and the eight-year, 100,000-mile fuel-cell coverage on a 2021 has a few years left at most. Locate your nearest certified dealer before buying, and have Toyota put the coverage end date against the VIN in writing.
Repair cost (estimate): $300–$1,500 for routine cooling, sensor and filter work; stack and tank repairs are dealer-only and can reach five figures
Source: not yet checked against public records.
Walk-Away Red Flags
- ✗VSC or stability control warning light staying on after startup
- ✗Seller quoting a fuel-card balance he cannot show you from Toyota
- ✗Both of your nearest hydrogen stations owned by the same operator
- ✗A car that has been sitting on a lot unfuelled for months
Good Signs
- ✓Recall 22V239000 shown complete on the NHTSA VIN lookup
- ✓Written confirmation from Toyota of the remaining hydrogen credit
- ✓Hydrogen station within your daily driving, confirmed open on the day
- ✓Certified fuel-cell Toyota dealer close enough to use routinely
- ✓Recent fill receipts showing the car is driven and fuelled regularly
More from Toyota
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Found a specific Toyota Mirai?
This page covers what goes wrong on the 2021 Toyota Mirai in general. The Kestrel report covers this specific car— the asking price vs. market, the photos, the seller's description, and a BUY / NEGOTIATE / WALK AWAY verdict with a negotiation script.
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Known issues on this page are based on documented owner reports, NHTSA complaints, class-action records, and manufacturer technical service bulletins. Individual vehicles vary. A pre-purchase inspection by a trusted mechanic is always worth doing.
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