(Video APTN)

Toyota dealers across the United States were preparing for the fall out on Tuesday from the company's latest recall of about 440-thousand Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide.

The recall is to fix a problem with brakes, which some drivers have reported as being momentarily unresponsive in certain driving conditions.

The announcement is the latest setback in a series of embarrassing safety faults.

However the recall, the latest by the Japanese automaker, seems not to have shaken confidence with drivers or hurt sales at dealerships in the US.

"Long term, Toyota is going to bounce back from this," motoring analyst Karl Brauer said on Tuesday.

"I still think long term they're going to be the same Toyota we've known for the last thirty years which has been an extremely well run company with extremely cutting edge, well engineered, high quality vehicles" he said.

With the Prius announcement, the number of vehicles recalled globally by Toyota Motor Corporation has ballooned to 8.5 (m) million, including for floor mats which can trap acceleration pedals and faulty acceleration pedals that are slow to return to the idle position.

The latest recall regarding the brakes relates to the 2010 Prius gas-electric hybrid - the world's top-selling hybrid car, which had not been subject to any of the earlier recalls.

There have been about 200 complaints in Japan and the US about a delay when the brakes in the Prius were pressed in cold conditions and on some bumpy roads.

The delay doesn't indicate a brake failure.

"It's kind of scary if you didn't ever experience it before, so my first time experiencing it did scare me," said one Toyota owner who had experienced the fault on Tuesday.

The company says the problem can be fixed in 40 minutes with new software that oversees the controls of the antilock brakes.

"Toyota has notified us that they will be sending out a software update for the car," Miami dealer Frank Marsala said on Tuesday.

"We are concerned about our customers as, as you would imagine. Although the cars are safe and we haven't had any customers bring them in for not stopping," he said.

Toyota officials went to Japan's Transport Ministry earlier on Tuesday to formally notify officials that the company was recalling the 2010 Prius.

The 223-thousand cars being recalled in Japan include nearly 200-thousand Prius cars sold from April last year through Monday, according to papers the automaker filed with the ministry.

The Prius is Japan's top-selling car.

In the US, Toyota will recall 133-thousand Prius cars and 14-thousand Lexus HS250h vehicles.

Nearly 53-thousand Prius vehicles are also being recalled in Europe.

If drivers experience a delayed reaction when depressing the brakes in any of these models, they should keep pressing, according to Toyota and the transport ministry.

The Prius repairs will start in Japan on Wednesday and US owners will start receiving letters about the recall next week.��