Buyer Research

2023 Toyota Mirai — Should You Buy One?

Typical asking price: $13,000–$22,000. There are 2 high-severity known issues you need to know before handing over a check.

Deciding between model years? Compare the 7 Toyota Mirai years we've written up →

Kestrel Take

Six complaints, and half of them tell the same unsettling story: the car stops driving. One owner had cascading dashboard warnings led by "FCV System Malfunction" and a car that went unresponsive in traffic; another blames contaminated hydrogen from a station for damaging the fuel-cell stack, which is a risk unique to this kind of car and entirely outside the owner's control. Six filings is far too few to call that a pattern, and we are not going to. The genuine advantage of a 2023 over the earlier cars is time: the eight-year, 100,000-mile fuel-cell coverage still has years to run, which is the only real protection against a five-figure repair nobody else can do. Get Toyota to confirm that end date against the VIN, close both camera recalls, and make sure you can actually buy hydrogen where you live.

What we checked

Checked against public records, 2026-09-25

NHTSA holds 6 owner complaints for the 2023 Toyota Mirai, and 2 recall campaigns.

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 (3), the driver-assist and automatic braking systems (2), the transmission and drivetrain (2). 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.

2 recall campaigns cover 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 2023 Toyota Mirai

Ranked by wallet impact. These are documented, recurring problems — not freak accidents. How we decide that.

"FCV System Malfunction" — the car stops responding in DriveHigh — wallet impact

The most serious thing in this record. One owner reports a sudden, total loss of motive power in traffic with the dash lighting up in sequence, starting with an FCV system fault; another had the stack damaged by what they describe as contaminated hydrogen from a station, leaving the car undrivable. Hydrogen quality is not something a buyer can inspect or a seller can guarantee, which is the uncomfortable part. What you can do is confirm with Toyota that fuel-cell coverage is still live on this VIN, and get a dealer's written record of any past fuel-cell fault codes.

Repair cost: Not yet priced — a safety matter first, a repair bill second

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the fuel system (3).

Real-world range well short of the advertised figureMedium

An owner planned a trip around Toyota's 402-mile rating and reports never seeing more than 260 miles, which is not a defect so much as a planning problem — and on a car with a handful of filling stations, the gap between 402 and 260 miles is the difference between reaching the next station and not. Expect real numbers closer to 300 miles in mixed driving, less in cold or at speed. On the test drive, note the range shown at a full tank and treat two-thirds of it as your usable planning figure.

Repair cost (estimate): $100–$250 per fill at recent California hydrogen prices

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the fuel system (3).

Loss of propulsion pulling into traffic, with no warning firstHigh — wallet impact

Two owners describe the power simply going away at low speed as they joined a road — one pulling out of a parking lot into active traffic early in the morning, the other after the fuel-quality incident. A car that will not accelerate into a gap is dangerous in a way a car that will not start never is. Before buying, have a Toyota dealer pull stored codes from the fuel-cell and drive systems rather than relying on a clean dashboard, since these faults clear themselves between events.

Repair cost (estimate): $200–$600 for a dealer diagnosis and fuel-quality check; fuel-cell stack repairs are dealer-only and reach five figures

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the transmission and drivetrain (2).

Driver-assistance warnings arriving with the fuel-cell faultMedium

Both filings in this cluster tie back to the same events above: when the fuel-cell system faults, the pre-collision system reports itself unavailable in the same burst of warnings. That is the car behaving correctly — the safety systems shut down when the drivetrain they depend on is sick — but it means a Mirai with collision-avoidance complaints may have a deeper problem than a dirty sensor. Ask specifically whether any pre-collision fault was ever logged and what the dealer found behind it.

Repair cost (estimate): $0–$250 for a dealer scan of the driver-assistance modules once the underlying fault is fixed

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the driver-assist and automatic braking systems (2).

Rearview camera can go blank or freeze — two separate recallsMedium

Recall 24V124000 covers 2023 Mirai and several Lexus models with the Panoramic View Monitor: parking-assist software programming can leave the reversing image missing. Recall 25V744000 is a later, wider campaign for a software error that freezes the camera image or leaves a blank screen, with owner letters only mailed in January 2026 — so there is a good chance it is still open on the car you are looking at. Both fixes are free software updates. Put the car in reverse and confirm a live, sharp image that appears immediately.

Repair cost: $0 with the recall — verify it was performed

Source: 2 NHTSA recall campaigns on this model year.

Walk-Away Red Flags

✗Any FCV or fuel-cell system warning in the car's history
✗Reversing camera that lags, freezes, or shows a blank screen
✗Seller who cannot say which stations the car has been filled at
✗A full-tank range display far below what you expected for the price

Good Signs

✓Toyota confirming in writing the fuel-cell coverage end date for the VIN
✓Both camera recalls shown closed on the NHTSA VIN lookup
✓A dealer printout of stored codes from the fuel-cell and drive systems
✓Reversing camera image that comes up instantly and stays sharp
✓Recent fill receipts from a station still in operation near you