Toyota Recall: Is Your Vehicle Affected?

[xxChrisxx]

The vehicle did handle great but I really hate to surrender my driving skills to a bunch of electronic sensors.

It's the way it's going, give it a few years and everything will be fly by wire. It's another reason why I love modern/future classics, lots of electronics ruins the driving experience for me.

 

[Borg]

I love my 2009 Subaru Forester. It doesn't get 50 mpg, but it's wonderful in ice and snow with AWD, traction control, and anti-lock brakes. It can hold a lot of people and a lot of cargo, too. It sure doesn't hurt to get ~27 mpg in an SUV when the other features (traction, road-worthiness in bad weather) are factored in. If my wife and I lived in Florida or Arizona, we'd probably be running Hondas or Toyotas, but in Maine, Subarus rule.

Yes, a Prius isn't the right car for places that get a lot of snow. There won't be any on the roads in DC this weekend either - we're scheduled to get 20 - 30 inches of snow by tomorrow night!

 

[turbo]

Yes, a Prius isn't the right car for places that get a lot of snow. There won't be any on the roads in DC this weekend either - we're scheduled to get 20 - 30 inches of snow by tomorrow night!

I heard that tonight and I am profoundly sorry for you and other denizens of that region. When I was working for General Physics and had to be at company headquarters (Columbia, MD) for a project, it snowed about 1-2" overnight. When I went to work, the place was deserted. I asked the department's head secretary where everybody was, and she said "snowed in". I grew up in Maine and she grew up in Buffalo, so after my lack of comprehension, we both had a good laugh. It was a laid-back day at work and we both got a LOT done.

 

[Borg]

I heard that tonight and I am profoundly sorry for you and other denizens of that region. When I was working for General Physics and had to be at company headquarters (Columbia, MD) for a project, it snowed about 1-2" overnight. When I went to work, the place was deserted. I asked the department's head secretary where everybody was, and she said "snowed in". I grew up in Maine and she grew up in Buffalo, so after my lack of comprehension, we both had a good laugh. It was a laid-back day at work and we both got a LOT done.

Thanks, Turbo-1. The local governments are telling people to be prepared to "shelter in place" for up to three days. I skipped the gym today because I know I'll get a good couple of workouts this weekend anyway.

I went to college in the upper peninsula of Michigan so I know the feeling you had about people saying they were "snowed in" over that amount of snow. I drove a Firebird for three of those winters - including the one where we had 25 feet before Christmas. I'm still not sure if I would drive a Prius there. If the drivetrain wouldn't shut down when the wheels spin, I wouldn't worry about it. I understand that they're trying to keep the electric motors from overrevving but, I do hope that they eventually fix that part of their software.

 

[turbo]

Thanks, Turbo-1. The local governments are telling people to be prepared to "shelter in place" for up to three days. I skipped the gym today because I know I'll get a good couple of workouts this weekend anyway.

I went to college in the upper peninsula of Michigan so I know the feeling you had about people saying they were "snowed in" over that amount of snow. I drove a Firebird for three of those winters - including the one where we had 25 feet before Christmas. I'm still not sure if I would drive a Prius there. If the drivetrain wouldn't shut down when the wheels spin, I wouldn't worry about it. I understand that they're trying to keep the electric motors from overrevving but, I do hope that they eventually fix that part of their software.

I don't know if it is a lack of personal preparedness or a lack of public preparedness, but things sure seem to go to hell in a handbasket if it snows below the Mason-Dixon line. One time, I showed up for work at a pulp mill in south Georgia (Cedar Springs) and things were in an uproar. It seems that they got a dusting of snow overnight (Rare!) and the shift-changes were disrupted because people panicked. When I drove in at 7am there was no hint of snow anywhere, and I bought peaches at an orchard between Dothan and Cedar Springs. Duh!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Since I helped to derail my own thread, the off-topic posts, less the weather discussion, were moved to the General Car Thread.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=375745

 

[edward]

WILD RIDE

In post 50 I described my son bringing over an Acura ZDX for me to test drive.

Today he took (another) older gentleman out for a test drive with the ZDX The man wanted to check out the acceleration. My son took him to a favorite stretch of open road.

The man floored it and...THE ACCERATOR STUCK... 40-50-60-70 went flying by on the speedometer. The man could not get the brakes to stop the vehicle, most probably because he pumped the pedal several times and lost vacuum boost.

Just before my son put it into neutral and killed the engine ignition he reached down on a hunch and yanked back on the floor mat. The vehicle immediately slowed down. The man had turned white.

The vehicle was equipped with optional all season heavy floor mats. My son immediately called the Acura regional office. Guess what? They just blew it off they didn't want to hear it.

Needless to say the guy didn't buy the $66,000 car. Ironically 2 bucks worth of velcro would hold those mats down.

 

[Evo]

WILD RIDE

In post 50 I described my son bringing over an Acura ZDX for me to test drive.

Today he took (another) older gentleman out for a test drive with the ZDX The man wanted to check out the acceleration. My son took him to a favorite stretch of open road.

The man floored it and...THE ACCERATOR STUCK... 40-50-60-70 went flying by on the speedometer. The man could not get the brakes to stop the vehicle, most probably because he pumped the pedal several times and lost vacuum boost.

Just before my son put it into neutral and killed the engine ignition he reached down on a hunch and yanked back on the floor mat. The vehicle immediately slowed down. The man had turned white.

The vehicle was equipped with optional all season heavy floor mats. My son immediately called the Acura regional office. Guess what? They just blew it off they didn't want to hear it.

Needless to say the guy didn't buy the $66,000 car. Ironically 2 bucks worth of velcro would hold those mats down.

Same reason I used to kick off my high heeled shoes when driving. The high heeled pump can get lodged between the floor and the pedal. After a couple of times having to remove my foot and kicking the shoe loose, I just started taking them off.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Did anyone see the testimony today? The story the one woman tells gets to the heart of the confusion for me. She claims to have gone through all of the gears, including reverse.

Is the shifting in the Lexus all electronic?

Turns out my cousin [a cop] knew the CHP officer who was driving the runaway that made all the news - where everyone was killed. My first question was: Why didn't he put it into neutral? Apparently no one knows... or did he try? One Congressman claimed today that in that case, the gas pedal was found "welded to the floor mat", allegedly eliminating electronic failures as the cause of the incident. How could a cop not know to put the car into neutral, or even park if needed?

Even if the shifting is all electronic, what are the chances of multiple simultaneous failures - a floor mat and the shifting, for example? This just doesn't make sense. It is also hard to imagine how the woman today could have simultaneous throttle and shift failures. Surely they wouldn't use one computer for all functions with no failsafes?

Perhaps the software locks out shift control while moving or accelerating?

 

[Proton Soup]

there is a lot of strangeness, for sure. the lack of braking as a recurring theme is strange. the only thing that makes sense to me there is that when the engine is stuck at wide open throttle, there will be no vacuum, and hence no vacuum assist. but... unless there is something overriding normal braking function, you should still be able to use the brakes, they will just require a lot more force. maybe something related to the ABS system is not allowing the brakes to engage.

 

[edward]

Every thing happens very fast. Accelerating from 45 to over 80 only takes about 4 seconds. In the situation I described above about the older man out for a test drive in an Acura ZDX, the floor mat was supposed to be snapped down.

This failure to snap down the mats was the fault of the dealership. It could, however, also happen at any car wash.

The car had been sent to the detail shop and the guys forgot to re snap the drivers side mat. When the driver didn't get the response he thought should happen when he hit the brakes, he pumped the pedal.

Pumping the pedal will totally screw up anti-lock brakes and it will also cause the vacuum from the booster to be lost if the engine throttle is anywhere close to wide open.

I notice that most of the really bad situations seem to be happening in vehicles with high performance engines.

 

[turbo]

My Forester is an SUV, not a high-performance vehicle. Still, the 175 hp engine turns up quite impressively and matched with that very sporty automatic transmission, it would get to some hairy speeds pretty quickly should the accelerator system lock up. Since I do very little interstate driving, any such failure would occur on state or town roads with oncoming traffic to watch for. Not that there is ever a great place to have such a malfunction, but a divided highway with all the traffic going the same direction would be far preferable to a secondary road.

 

[Dembadon]

My wife and I both drive Suburus. My previous vehicle was an '83 Toyota pickup. It still runs! If you take care of them, they'll go forever. The recall is not affecting either of us.

 

[mgb_phys]

There was a recent case in the UK where someone went 120mph down the motorway for 2hours after claiming that the accelerator jammed in his BMW

Several police and BMW spokesmen, while being very careful not to call the guy a liar before he went to court, said that there where several cases a year of 'my accelerator jammed on' - all seemed to be young men in high performance cars, they all jammed on empty straight stretches of motorway and they had never found any evidence of a fault when the car was examined.

Wasn't there some cases like this 20 years ago with Audi in the US? It turned out that in a panic people hit the gas and kept pressing harder on the gas thinking it was the brake?

 

[turbo]

My wife and I both drive Suburus. My previous vehicle was an '83 Toyota pickup. It still runs! If you take care of them, they'll go forever. The recall is not affecting either of us.

My wife has a Legacy and I have a Forester. If you live in areas often plagued by ice, snow, and freezing rain, Subarus are a no-brainer.

 

[Dembadon]

My wife has a Legacy and I have a Forester. If you live in areas often plagued by ice, snow, and freezing rain, Subarus are a no-brainer.

Most definitely. I swap our all-season tires out with studded Michelin Winterforce tires for the winter season. I have never driven in a more responsive car in snowy or icy situations.

We get a lot of tourists from the cities along the CA coast. It never fails to amuse me when during a storm, or when the roads are just plain bad, I see some jerk fly dangerously by in a massive monster truck with a 10" lift and big balloon tires, only to later see him spun out off the side of the road because he thought he was invincible.

 

[turbo]

I have been making mental comparisons of Toyotas and Subarus since Toyota's troubles became public. Subarus are very complex vehicles, with full-time all-wheel drive, traction control, anti-skid correction technology and anti-lock brakes. Combine this with smart fuel-air-ignition control (the Forester routinely gets 27 mpg for me) and that's a lot of balls to keep in the air. Still, our Subarus are performing flawlessly. I'll never drive a 4X4 pickup again, except taking my 14-year-old Nissan on dump runs, etc. 4WD is just not that safe in the winter if you get a false sense of security and drive accordingly.

 

[lisab]

Oh no...

I heard a commercial on the radio from a local Toyota dealer. The announcer (who was the owner of the dealership) said all the right things, reassuring customers, blah blah blah.

Then at the end of the commercial, he said, "We stand behind every Toyota we sell."

My first thought, "That's a safe place to stand; you wouldn't want to stand in front of them."

 

[mgb_phys]

Subarus are very complex vehicles, with full-time all-wheel drive, traction control, anti-skid correction technology and anti-lock brakes.

That's what I thought when I bought mine = I bet Subaru mechanics drive new Mercedes!
But the abs, stability control etc is no different to any other modern car, the AWD, at least on the stick shift, isn't any more complex than a regular front/rear wheel drive - you just have both.

The engine bay looks insanely complex but that's just because all the auxiliary stuff, AC, alternator, starter etc are on top of the engine. I took it in for it's first out-of-warranty, non-dealer service and the mechanic said they are simple to work on - you just have to do everything from underneath.

On the other hand swapping a headlight bulb requires you to be a 3 handed double jointed olympic gymnast.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Every thing happens very fast. Accelerating from 45 to over 80 only takes about 4 seconds. In the situation I described above about the older man out for a test drive in an Acura ZDX, the floor mat was supposed to be snapped down.

Time does not seem to be an issue in all cases. In the original case that made the news, the guy in the back seat had time to call 911 and describe the situation. There was more than enough time to shift. The woman who testified before Congress had time to call her husband, just to say goodbye. If the shifting is all electronic, then perhaps that is part of a general failure taking place. However, if there is a mechanical linkage, I have a hard time believing her story.

No doubt people are seeing dollar signs. False reports are to be expected.

 

[edward]

Time does not seem to be an issue in all cases. In the original case that made the news, the guy in the back seat had time to call 911 and describe the situation. There was more than enough time to shift. The woman who testified before Congress had time to call her husband, just to say goodbye. If the shifting is all electronic, then perhaps that is part of a general failure taking place. However, if there is a mechanical linkage, I have a hard time believing her story.

No doubt people are seeing dollar signs. False reports are to be expected.

I might phrase that to say that time is of the essence to prevent a catastrophe. The sooner the vehicle is reigned in the better.

I did read that the woman who testified about her Lexus sold it to a third party who has driven over it 20,000 miles with no problems. (I'll try to find that link again) Here it is.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...85283264587688.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_business

I would imagine false or imagined reports will come flooding in. Most vehicles can surge a bit just because the AC compressor has cut in.

I had an apparent one time incident with my Honda minivan. I had slowed and came off of cruise control for traffic to clear. I hit the resume button to get back up to 65. It passed 65 and kept on going. The interstate was clear ahead so I intentionally let that crazy thing go on up to 80 before I stopped it by hitting the brake.

The cruise control disengaged immediately and I braked back down and hit the set button at 65 and it worked perfectly. For the last two years the quirk has never happened again.

 

[joelupchurch]

I had an apparent one time incident with my Honda minivan. I had slowed and came off of cruise control for traffic to clear. I hit the resume button to get back up to 65. It passed 65 and kept on going. The interstate was clear ahead so I intentionally let that crazy thing go on up to 80 before I stopped it by hitting the brake.

The cruise control disengaged immediately and I braked back down and hit the set button at 65 and it worked perfectly. For the last two years the quirk has never happened again.

I can actually imagine this happening. If the memory location the resume speed was stored in didn't have a checksum or ECC, then a random cosmic ray could flip a bit and step on the resume speed. Even a repeatable fault in the memory might not be detected if you didn't set exactly the same speed.

I've had similar problems with flash memory on some DSP chips I've used. That is why it is a good idea to add a checksum when you are writing to flash so you can easily verify that the data was stored correctly.

 

[Topher925]

Its not looking any better for Toyota.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lawmaker-Toyota-withheld-apf-2188961006.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Its not looking any better for Toyota.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lawmaker-Toyota-withheld-apf-2188961006.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

I am willing to wait and see how this all pans out, but at this point there has been enough bad news to undermine even my loyalties. Given my level of customer loyalty, that is very bad news for Toyota. They need to pull this together and make it clear that the problems are solved.

If it is shown that they compromised safety by playing legal games, it will hurt them for a very long time.

 

[rhody]

http://www.kvue.com/news/New-reports-Toyota-recall-not-working-86344842.html"

User's who have had the gas pedal "fix" installed are still reporting problems, can't be good for Toyota. IMHO, an independent consultant to review the old/new claims/data should be hired (paid for by Toyota) by the NTSB, if they have not already done so.

Rhody...

 

[turbo]

I appears that Toyota has been routinely blocking access to the information captured by electronic data recorders in their vehicles. Data that can include seat position, brake position, state of anti-lock brake system, seatbelt use, etc, etc. There is currently only one laptop in the US with the software necessary to read the info stored in the EDR. Not good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100304/ap_on_hi_te/us_toyota_black_boxes;_ylt=AipkBReE8spnkC.EZh9XW9Ss0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlaWtqODgzBHBvcwM5OARzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX2J1c2luZXNzBHNsawNhcGltcGFjdHRveW8-

 

[edward]

This is really getting interesting. Edmund's is offering a one million dollar reward to anyone who can produce a replicable demonstration of the Toyota acceleration problem.

http://www.examiner.com/x-21840-New...lar-prize-to-solve-Toyota-acceleration-puzzle

Toyota claims its Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) to be foolproof system. However, it was found that ETC fails to detect certain conditions that prevent it from going into the fail safe position, as claimed by Toyota.

An average luxury car contains about 100 million lines of code, embedded in the micro-control units spread across the car. This is more than double the amount of code found on an average desktop. Toyota management believes the loss of trust is more expensive than any damages it has incurred to date.

http://www.benzinga.com/markets/com...r-scanner-seen-as-cause-for-toyota-tm-trouble

An ETC problem should make the vehicles go into safe position ( I think we used to call that limp home mode) It should also leave a trouble code that could be scanned.

Whatever is happening doesn't do either.

 

[OmCheeto]

This is really getting interesting.

I must say.

And what apparently started it all?...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6230DJ20100304"

The car reached speeds of up to 120 miles per hour before it struck another vehicle, plowed through a fence, hit a berm and flew through the air, then rolled several times into a field and burst into flames.

The family's final moments before impact were captured in the recording of a frantic 911-emergency cell phone call placed by Saylor's brother-in-law, Christopher Lastrella, in which he is heard telling the dispatcher, "Our accelerator is stuck ... We're in trouble ... there is no brakes."

How does an off duty cop let his car, with his entire family in tow, hit 120 mph without doing a thing?

I had a stuck accelerator at an intersection, in a '68 327 RS Camaro, 33 years ago, at the ripe old age of 17, and I solved the problem.

Maybe the driver was confused. My long dead brother-in-law from San Diego used to scare the crap out of me when I drove with him. (stopped at green lights, drove thru red lights)

hmmm... google, google, google... "toyota unintended acceleration"

argh...

lawyers...

Oh! How conveeeeenient...

Just plow into someone and blame it on the car.

...

On the other hand, my Ford stocks are kickin butt.

 

[edward]

Regarding the San Diego crash, the vehicle was a loaner that had previously been reported as having an accelerator problem.

CNN reports that the sticking accelerator pedal should have been a known problem with this particular vehicle. Bob Baker Lexus had previously loaned the same Lexus ES350 to another customer, who brought it back with an urgent warning that the vehicle's accelerator tended to stick. The vehicle was still loaned to the Saylors only three days later, obviously without being fixed.

Read more at Suite101: Surviving the Toyota Recall: Fatal Crash Finally Sparks a Huge Recall for Toyotas and Lexuses http://automotive-safety.suite101.com/article.cfm/surviving-the-toyota-recall#ixzz0hHDM7lfs

http://automotive-safety.suite101.com/article.cfm/surviving-the-toyota-recall

On the other hand the woman who testified before congress about her uncontrolable Lexus sold it to another person. It has been driven over 20,000 miles with no problems.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...85283264587688.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_business

The death toll is now up to 56. Lawyers are going to be all over this situation, but they didn't start it.

http://www.newsoxy.com/toyota/deaths-news-12718.html

 

[OmCheeto]

...they didn't start it.

I really need to stop picking on lawyers, bank executives, politicians, etc. etc.

http://www.newsoxy.com/toyota/deaths-news-12718.html

the number of deaths is something frightening. There have been 34 fatalities and 22 alleged lawsuits in connection with the sudden acceleration problems. The total number is 56, which is more than any other car maker.

However, it's still not clear if all complaints are valid. In addition, none of the allegations have been proven in court.

Not half as frightening as their math: 34 fatalities + 22 lawsuits = 56 deaths.

http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html
Car Crash Stats: There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes.

The question I now have is: How many lawsuits were there before the San Diego crash?

 

[MotoH]

I was right! I was right! Relatively right at least! If Toyota falls I am a prophet!

 

[edward]

A whole new twist.

I had totally forgotten about the Event Data Recorders on most newer vehicles. It seems to me that they would have been the best defence Toyota could have had.

Toyota cars had 'black box' data
By CURT ANDERSON and DANNY ROBBINS
Associated Press

review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts.

The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent -- and sometimes even contradictory -- in revealing exactly what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.

AP also found that Toyota:

* Has frequently refused to provide key information sought by crash victims and survivors.

* Uses proprietary software in its Event Data Recorders, or EDRs. Until this week, there was only a single laptop in the U.S. containing the software needed to read the data following a crash.

* In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank.

Toyota's "black box" information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of 8 million vehicles by the world's largest automaker.

When Toyota was asked by the AP to explain what exactly its recorders do collect, a company statement said Thursday that the devices record data from five seconds before until two seconds after an air bag is deployed in a crash.

http://www.theeagle.com/nation/Toyota-cars-had--black-box--data2010-03-04T22-11-11

 

[MotoH]

http://www.toyotasimulator.com/"

click the linky

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Another one today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P1V-DH4djw

However, CNN was just playing the audio of the driver's 911 call. He had not tried to put the car into neutral. The video above implies that he did, but other reports suggest otherwise. He kept saying that he was too afraid of losing control of the car to put it in neutral, which tells me that he froze.

Bad news for Toyota: Allegedly this car was not involved in the recall.

 

[berkeman]

I was wondering about that. Neutral = instability...

 

[edward]

Shifting the Prius into neutral doesn't lose any controls. The brakes are hydraulic/electric and the steering has an electric boost motor.

The shift into neutral does look a bit quirky. It is apparently done electronically



There must be a Stephen King novel in here somewhere.

 

[edward]

Prius stops with accelerator floored.

 

[magpies]

I'm seeing a ton of toyota adds lately I wonder if there is something wrong?

 

[Borg]

I'm seeing a ton of toyota adds lately I wonder if there is something wrong?

I saw on the news last night that some people are considering suing Toyota because their car's resale value is going down. So are the prices down from the recalls or from a glut of used cars being sold?

 

[Proton Soup]

Prius stops with accelerator floored.

it certainly shows that they were thinking about that condition when they designed the control system.

another fun test would be to see what happens if you mechanically jam the butterfly valve open so that it can't close.

but what they really need is a reliably failing test subject, hook it up with a ton of electrodes into a data acquisition system, and just see what's going on. maybe it could even be something stupid crazy like a loose ground connection.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRexOM1ysK8&NR

 

[joelupchurch]

it certainly shows that they were thinking about that condition when they designed the control system.

As far as I know all cars can be stopped by the brakes even when accelerator is floored. I can believe that the accelerator gets stuck, but I find it less credible that the car couldn't be stopped by using the brake pedals.

Older readers might recall that similar things were alleged about the Audi 5000 and it turned out that the root cause was that the brake and accelerator pedals were unusually close together and people who weren't used to driving it could press the accelerator by mistake. In some cases the accelerator was pressed so hard that it bent under the force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_100#Reported_sudden_unintended_acceleration"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One thing that caught my attention with the alleged runaway two days ago was the claim that the pedal "pulled away from his foot". On a fly-by-wire system, that should be impossible. That might explain why he couldn't put it into neutral: He didn't want to! Turns out, according to the latest report that I've heard, he will gladly drive a Prius, but he wants a new one. Hmmmmmmm.

The gas pedal on older cars can do that due to the cruise control and the integrated mechanical linkage, but there should be nothing in an electronic system that could account for this.

 

[turbo]

Anybody here play WebSudoku? It appears that Toyota has bought every single ad (the kind that pops up when a game is over), citing Toyota owners who rave about how safe Toyotas are and how responsive the company is.

 

[Dembadon]

As far as I know all cars can be stopped by the brakes even when accelerator is floored. I can believe that the accelerator gets stuck, but I find it less credible that the car couldn't be stopped by using the brake pedals.

Older readers might recall that similar things were alleged about the Audi 5000 and it turned out that the root cause was that the brake and accelerator pedals were unusually close together and people who weren't used to driving it could press the accelerator by mistake. In some cases the accelerator was pressed so hard that it bent under the force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_100#Reported_sudden_unintended_acceleration"

Check out the video in the following quote (taken from post #6 in this thread).

...
Consumer Reports video.

 

[edward]

As far as I know all cars can be stopped by the brakes even when accelerator is floored. I can believe that the accelerator gets stuck, but I find it less credible that the car couldn't be stopped by using the brake pedals.

That is true under most circumstances. At high speeds though the brakes get hot and fade really quick. The newer cars with six speed automatic transmissions and lots of HP will start to shift down to the lower gears when the engine is under load requiring even more pressure on the brake pedal.

I have gut feeling that people are pumping the brakes. At wide open throttle there is very little vacuum assist left. There is also the possibility that pumping the brakes makes the anti lock brake system lose effectiveness.

Older readers might recall that similar things were alleged about the Audi 5000 and it turned out that the root cause was that the brake and accelerator pedals were unusually close together and people who weren't used to driving it could press the accelerator by mistake. In some cases the accelerator was pressed so hard that it bent under the force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_100#Reported_sudden_unintended_acceleration"

Yep the Audi had a bad case of mislocated pedal syndrome. Basically it was ergonomics plus inexperienced drivers.

Most newer vehicles also have adjustable pedals. I test drove a Chrysler mini van that had the brake and the accelerator pedals at the exact same height. At one point my foot was on both.

Too make matters worse most pedals are now up under the dash so far that they can't be seen unless the driver is a contortionist.

 

[Proton Soup]

Anybody here play WebSudoku? It appears that Toyota has bought every single ad (the kind that pops up when a game is over), citing Toyota owners who rave about how safe Toyotas are and how responsive the company is.

i have adblockplus, I ZEE NOTHZING!

 

[edward]

One thing that caught my attention with the alleged runaway two days ago was the claim that the pedal "pulled away from his foot". On a fly-by-wire system, that should be impossible. That might explain why he couldn't put it into neutral: He didn't want to! Turns out, according to the latest report that I've heard, he will gladly drive a Prius, but he wants a new one. Hmmmmmmm.

The gas pedal on older cars can do that due to the cruise control and the integrated mechanical linkage, but there should be nothing in an electronic system that could account for this.

The Prius doesn't use a vacuum boost so the vehicle should have stopped on brakes alone.

I still think that they should look into the effect on braking if the pedal is pumped. With the Prius the only thing that could be affected by pumping the pedal is the anti lock system.

 

[Borg]

i have adblockplus, I ZEE NOTHZING!

I have a modified hosts file. I don't see them either.

 

[OmCheeto]

I was checking my Ford stocks this morning and ran across an interesting blip on Marketwatch:

"[URL
Rampaging Toyotas obscure highway safety strides[/URL]

From 2000 to the end of January 2010, the Transportation Department received 2,600 complaints of sudden acceleration from Toyota drivers.

...

By comparison, Ford Motor Co. has drawn almost 1,000 more complaints for the same problem over the same period, and General Motor Co. has triggered 2,250 complaints from drivers alleging unwanted acceleration.

Of course, this is not lost on Wall Street:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/toyota-bruised-brand-a-stock-bargain-2010-03-10"
Solaris fund manager snaps up shares on hopes of turnaround

Not that I'm promoting anything here. Remember:

The <Man> encourages <us> to <invest> <our> dollars with sense and
offers the following guidelines for responsible <invest>ing.

* <invest> only for fun.
* Think of the money you lose as the cost of your entertainment.
* Set a dollar limit and stick to it.
* Set a time limit and stick to it.
* Accept losing as part of the game.
* Don't borrow money to <invest>.
* Don't let <invest>ing interfere with family, friends or work.
* Don't <invest> to win back losses.
* Don't use <invest>ing as a way to cope with emotional or physical pain.
* Know the warning signs of problem <invest>ing.