Out of 20 million vehicles sold, there have been 2,000 documented complaints of gas pedals sticking. Don't get me wrong- a sticky gas pedal is bad. However, I believe (as usual) Americans, fueled by the media, are behaving/reacting irrationally. And I believe our govenment is acting irresponsibly.
Remove emotion and what we have is a product issue that affects 1 in 10,000 consumers. Um, the odds of being killed in a car accident is 1 in 165. Should the transportation secretary tell people to stop driving completely? Because he told Americans he recommends they stop driving Toyotas until they are fixed. He later said he misspoke.
What he should have said is, "let's remain calm and rational. Toyotas have proven to be safe and reliable. But in the unlikely event that you find your Toyota's gas pedal (or any make/model for that matter) to be stuck- Remain calm, shift your car into Neutral and pull over to the side of the road. Do not resume driving your vehicle. Have it towed.
Toyota has been handling this better than what I've seen from many other car companies when faced with similar issues. But I believe these guys are getting it far worse from the court of public opinion.
Replies
59
SoWal Insider
Toyota's Lost Its Quality Edge? Not So Fast - BusinessWeek Lost Its Quality Edge? Not So Fast
A longtime observer of Toyota's factories contends there's little evidence that the company's overall standards are slipping
By Jeffrey Liker
I have been visiting, studying, and analyzing Toyota for 25 years in Japan, the U.S., Europe, and other countries. I have written six books about Toyota (TM) and many articles, and my students have written PhD dissertations about various aspects of the company. One of my PhD students just successfully defended a thesis on how most of the auto manufacturers, including Toyota, work with their suppliers. His data show Toyota is head and shoulders the best customer to work with on the technical details of designing, prototyping, and testing brakes.
Before all of the recent negative news?about unintended acceleration, recalls of millions of vehicles, and a shutdown of U.S. production?I was working on a book extolling the virtues of this great company, which was using the recession to retain employees, not lay them off, and teach them kaizen (the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement).
So what happened that is causing the media to write off 60 years of progress in a company that has become a model of operational excellence? It seems to me that the inferences about Toyota's quality problems are emotional and have little to do with actual facts.
A longtime observer of Toyota's factories contends there's little evidence that the company's overall standards are slipping
By Jeffrey Liker
I have been visiting, studying, and analyzing Toyota for 25 years in Japan, the U.S., Europe, and other countries. I have written six books about Toyota (TM) and many articles, and my students have written PhD dissertations about various aspects of the company. One of my PhD students just successfully defended a thesis on how most of the auto manufacturers, including Toyota, work with their suppliers. His data show Toyota is head and shoulders the best customer to work with on the technical details of designing, prototyping, and testing brakes.
Before all of the recent negative news?about unintended acceleration, recalls of millions of vehicles, and a shutdown of U.S. production?I was working on a book extolling the virtues of this great company, which was using the recession to retain employees, not lay them off, and teach them kaizen (the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement).
So what happened that is causing the media to write off 60 years of progress in a company that has become a model of operational excellence? It seems to me that the inferences about Toyota's quality problems are emotional and have little to do with actual facts.
SoWal Insider
Honda expands it's recent recall
More car problems? Honda expands recall for faulty air bags | kens5.com | San Antonio News, Local News, Breaking News, Weather | Consumer
I drive a Jeep.
?A group of 22 law firms in 16 states wants to bring a national class-action lawsuit against Toyota, alleging vehicles have lost billions of dollars in value in the wake of massive recalls. The group says it has a hearing scheduled in U.S. District Court in San Diego on March 25, where a panel of judges will decide whether to consolidate the dozens of economic-loss cases filed around the country.
?A survey by the Kelley Blue Book said the recalls are eroding consumer interest in Toyota models and continuing to drive down resale prices of used vehicles. The survey found that 27 percent of potential U.S. car buyers who were considering a Toyota prior to the recall are no longer looking to buy a Toyota. Similar declines were seen for Toyota's Scion and Lexus brands.
?Bob Carter, Toyota group vice president, said dealers have reinforced the sticking accelerator on more than 220,000 recalled vehicles, with repairs continuing at a rate of about 50,000 vehicles a day.
More car problems? Honda expands recall for faulty air bags | kens5.com | San Antonio News, Local News, Breaking News, Weather | Consumer
I drive a Jeep.
Beach Comber
The safety problems that have engulfed Toyota Motor Corp. are focusing renewed attention on one of the most controversial components in an automobile: the black box.
The box, officially called an "event data recorder," is a small, square, virtually indestructible container akin to those found on commercial airplanes. Tucked inside the dash or under the front seats of most newer vehicles, it records vehicle and engine speeds as well as brake, accelerator and throttle positions and other data that can help determine the causes of accidents.
Now, lawyers and safety advocates are stepping up efforts to get access to the data stored inside the Japanese auto maker's vehicles, in hopes it will shed light on what could be causing several Toyota models to speed up suddenly, an issue that has sparked the recall of millions of vehicles and has been blamed for multiple fatal accidents. U.S. highway-safety officials said Monday they were reviewing nine new cases of fatal crashes, involving 13 deaths, potentially linked to Toyotas that may have sped up unintentionally.
Plaintiffs' lawyers and their clients in auto-accident cases say they have butted heads with Toyota over access to its black-box data, or have gotten data from the company that sheds little light on the causes of the crashes at issue. Among the problems they encounter is that only Toyota can read the black-box information in its vehicles, and it says it only makes the data available when requested to do so by law enforcement, federal regulators or by court order.
By contrast, the three Detroit auto makers have black-box formats that can be read without their involvement using commercially available tools.
Police and lawyers say Toyota sometimes fights their efforts to use black-box data to reconstruct accidents, in part because the company says the data it retrieves from the boxes may not be useful in accident reconstruction and has contained errors.
The device is a prototype and "is still experimental," said Toyota spokesman Mike Michels. "We have found anomalies in the data that are part of our development of the system. It is our position that it is not reliable for accident reconstruction."
Safety regulators also cast some doubt on the value of black-box data in determining the cause of an accident. The recorders "are of limited value in crash investigations because they record only a few parameters and only in the last couple of seconds prior to a crash," said a Transportation Department official.
U.S. auto makers General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC have provided their black-box data formats to Bosch Diagnostics, a unit of German auto supplier Robert Bosch GmbH that makes tools that download crash logs from vehicles made by those auto makers. Those tools are widely used by police, crash investigators and attorneys, and the auto makers don't question the accuracy of the data retrieved with them.
Licensing the data formats to allow a third party to make to retrieve black-box data "is an efficient means of facilitating direct access" by government agencies, such as safety regulators and law enforcement, GM spokesman Alan Adler said in an email.
Richard Ruth, a safety and black-box expert who worked at Ford for 33 years, said making the data accessible to investigators and law-enforcement officers often works to the benefit of auto makers. "In some cases, the data works against the auto maker, but in the vast majority of cases it is helping to take out fraudulent and trumped-up claims" in lawsuits, he said.
Toyota, like Japanese peers Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., has a proprietary black-box system, and it says the data it collects isn't intended or capable of accident reconstruction because it is only recorded for a short duration—about one second. The system mainly monitors the performance of a vehicle's safety devices, such as air bags, seat belts and, in some cases, throttle application. Toyota says there is no rule or legislation that requires otherwise until a new NHTSA rule comes into effect later in the decade.
Police in Auburn, N.Y., have asked Toyota to try to recover data from the black box in a 2010 Toyota Camry, hoping to shed light on the cause of a fatal accident on Nov. 27. According to police, 55-year-old Barbara A. Kraushaar drove through three downtown stoplights at high speed and crashed into another vehicle, killing its driver, Colleen Trousdale. Police say Ms. Kraushaar, who survived the accident, may have had a stroke.
Ms. Kraushaar later told officers it was like the car had a mind of its own, prompting them to further investigate whether sudden acceleration may have played a role.
Getting data from the black box is "the last key to the puzzle," said Auburn Police Lt. Shawn Butler.
According to the Auburn police, an investigator from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration arrived in town and took the Camry's data recorder, saying he planned to take it to California, where Toyota has its U.S. headquarters, so their expert could download the data, along with that from several other black boxes from crashes across the nation.
NHTSA didn't reply to requests for comment on the Auburn incident.
Lt. Butler said he is concerned that Toyota, which could potentially be at fault in the accident, is the only party able to read the data. "We're at their mercy, and it doesn't give you a good feeling," he said.
The auto industry's use of electronic data recorders began in the early 1990s to record the conditions in cars before air bags deployed. Their use has been expanded in the past decade, and they now collect a wider variety of data.
The most-advanced recorders can present a picture of how a car is operating in the last five seconds before a crash, and help auto makers understand how their vehicles operate on the road in the absence of mechanical evidence. As auto makers added more and more electronics to control brakes, steering, gas pedals and other key components, some of the systems were improved to help monitor those controls in the seconds surrounding impact.
In 2006, NHTSA set black-box standards and issued a rule that if a manufacturer equips a vehicle with a black box, then it must also make available to car owners the tools to download and read the data. Auto makers have pushed back the implementation of the rule by one year to Sept. 1, 2012, the start of the 2013 model year. And the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group that includes Toyota, last year requested another one-year delay, citing the adverse economic climate.
Toyota says it intends to comply with the rule.
Toyota now is under intense scrutiny because of complaints that its cars can have a tendency to accelerate without the driver hitting the gas pedal. The issue forced the company to recall six million vehicles in the U.S. to fix two potential causes. One recall involves thick rubber floor mats that can catch on the gas pedal and hold it down; the other involves the gas pedal itself, which can get stuck or let up slowly under certain conditions.
Sudden acceleration is suspected as the cause in several fatal accidents involving Toyotas, and some plaintiffs' attorneys in those cases are seeking access to the vehicles' black boxes.
In 2007, Bulent Ezal was pulling into the parking lot of a cliffside restaurant in Pismo Beach, Calif., when his 2005 Camry surged, went over the bluff and crashed on rocks 70 feet below. Mr. Ezal, 75, survived, but his wife, who was in the passenger seat, was killed.
"The car took off with force, pushing me back into my seat and cleared the curb," Mr. Ezal said in a recent interview. "The last thing I remember is my wife screaming, and I was looking at the clear blue sky."
Police could find no mechanical fault, and so concluded Mr. Ezal must have been to blame, said Donald Slavik, an attorney representing Mr. Ezal in a 2007 lawsuit filed against Toyota in California state court in San Luis Obispo. Mr. Slavik said he has been trying to get data from the car's black box for nearly three years. He said Toyota would provide the data only if Mr. Slavik got a court to order the company to do so. Mr. Slavik said Toyota has since told him the data in the black box would be unusable.
On one recent occasion, Toyota retrieved black-box data from a car involved in a fatal crash, but law-enforcement officers said the information was inconclusive.
On Dec. 26, Monty Hardy, 56, was driving three passengers in his 2008 Toyota Avalon on Lonesome Dove Drive in Southlake, Texas, when the car ran through a stop sign at about 45 mile per hour, crashed through a fence, struck a tree and landed upside down in a pond, according to a police report. All four occupants were killed.
Mr. Hardy was on medication for epilepsy but had been cleared by his doctors to drive. His autopsy didn't indicate he had suffered a seizure. Randy Roberts, an attorney hired by Mr. Hardy's wife, Linda, said the Hardys had taken the car to their Toyota dealer before the crash to complain about the car accelerating suddenly.
After the crash, investigators from NHTSA and Toyota's black-box expert flew to Texas to join police in searching for the cause of the accident. They found the black box in the car covered in muck from the pond.
According to police reports, the Toyota investigator tapped into the box and said the only data it contained was the difference in the speed of the car immediately before and after hitting the fence and the tree.
"I don't believe it for one minute," said Mr. Roberts, the attorney.
Mr. Michels, the Toyota spokesman, confirmed a Toyota representative did download the data in the Southlake crash and said he didn't know whether the data were usable. He declined to comment further because the investigation is continuing.
The box, officially called an "event data recorder," is a small, square, virtually indestructible container akin to those found on commercial airplanes. Tucked inside the dash or under the front seats of most newer vehicles, it records vehicle and engine speeds as well as brake, accelerator and throttle positions and other data that can help determine the causes of accidents.
Now, lawyers and safety advocates are stepping up efforts to get access to the data stored inside the Japanese auto maker's vehicles, in hopes it will shed light on what could be causing several Toyota models to speed up suddenly, an issue that has sparked the recall of millions of vehicles and has been blamed for multiple fatal accidents. U.S. highway-safety officials said Monday they were reviewing nine new cases of fatal crashes, involving 13 deaths, potentially linked to Toyotas that may have sped up unintentionally.
Plaintiffs' lawyers and their clients in auto-accident cases say they have butted heads with Toyota over access to its black-box data, or have gotten data from the company that sheds little light on the causes of the crashes at issue. Among the problems they encounter is that only Toyota can read the black-box information in its vehicles, and it says it only makes the data available when requested to do so by law enforcement, federal regulators or by court order.
By contrast, the three Detroit auto makers have black-box formats that can be read without their involvement using commercially available tools.
Police and lawyers say Toyota sometimes fights their efforts to use black-box data to reconstruct accidents, in part because the company says the data it retrieves from the boxes may not be useful in accident reconstruction and has contained errors.
The device is a prototype and "is still experimental," said Toyota spokesman Mike Michels. "We have found anomalies in the data that are part of our development of the system. It is our position that it is not reliable for accident reconstruction."
Safety regulators also cast some doubt on the value of black-box data in determining the cause of an accident. The recorders "are of limited value in crash investigations because they record only a few parameters and only in the last couple of seconds prior to a crash," said a Transportation Department official.
U.S. auto makers General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC have provided their black-box data formats to Bosch Diagnostics, a unit of German auto supplier Robert Bosch GmbH that makes tools that download crash logs from vehicles made by those auto makers. Those tools are widely used by police, crash investigators and attorneys, and the auto makers don't question the accuracy of the data retrieved with them.
Licensing the data formats to allow a third party to make to retrieve black-box data "is an efficient means of facilitating direct access" by government agencies, such as safety regulators and law enforcement, GM spokesman Alan Adler said in an email.
Richard Ruth, a safety and black-box expert who worked at Ford for 33 years, said making the data accessible to investigators and law-enforcement officers often works to the benefit of auto makers. "In some cases, the data works against the auto maker, but in the vast majority of cases it is helping to take out fraudulent and trumped-up claims" in lawsuits, he said.
Toyota, like Japanese peers Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., has a proprietary black-box system, and it says the data it collects isn't intended or capable of accident reconstruction because it is only recorded for a short duration—about one second. The system mainly monitors the performance of a vehicle's safety devices, such as air bags, seat belts and, in some cases, throttle application. Toyota says there is no rule or legislation that requires otherwise until a new NHTSA rule comes into effect later in the decade.
Police in Auburn, N.Y., have asked Toyota to try to recover data from the black box in a 2010 Toyota Camry, hoping to shed light on the cause of a fatal accident on Nov. 27. According to police, 55-year-old Barbara A. Kraushaar drove through three downtown stoplights at high speed and crashed into another vehicle, killing its driver, Colleen Trousdale. Police say Ms. Kraushaar, who survived the accident, may have had a stroke.
Ms. Kraushaar later told officers it was like the car had a mind of its own, prompting them to further investigate whether sudden acceleration may have played a role.
Getting data from the black box is "the last key to the puzzle," said Auburn Police Lt. Shawn Butler.
According to the Auburn police, an investigator from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration arrived in town and took the Camry's data recorder, saying he planned to take it to California, where Toyota has its U.S. headquarters, so their expert could download the data, along with that from several other black boxes from crashes across the nation.
NHTSA didn't reply to requests for comment on the Auburn incident.
Lt. Butler said he is concerned that Toyota, which could potentially be at fault in the accident, is the only party able to read the data. "We're at their mercy, and it doesn't give you a good feeling," he said.
The auto industry's use of electronic data recorders began in the early 1990s to record the conditions in cars before air bags deployed. Their use has been expanded in the past decade, and they now collect a wider variety of data.
The most-advanced recorders can present a picture of how a car is operating in the last five seconds before a crash, and help auto makers understand how their vehicles operate on the road in the absence of mechanical evidence. As auto makers added more and more electronics to control brakes, steering, gas pedals and other key components, some of the systems were improved to help monitor those controls in the seconds surrounding impact.
In 2006, NHTSA set black-box standards and issued a rule that if a manufacturer equips a vehicle with a black box, then it must also make available to car owners the tools to download and read the data. Auto makers have pushed back the implementation of the rule by one year to Sept. 1, 2012, the start of the 2013 model year. And the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group that includes Toyota, last year requested another one-year delay, citing the adverse economic climate.
Toyota says it intends to comply with the rule.
Toyota now is under intense scrutiny because of complaints that its cars can have a tendency to accelerate without the driver hitting the gas pedal. The issue forced the company to recall six million vehicles in the U.S. to fix two potential causes. One recall involves thick rubber floor mats that can catch on the gas pedal and hold it down; the other involves the gas pedal itself, which can get stuck or let up slowly under certain conditions.
Sudden acceleration is suspected as the cause in several fatal accidents involving Toyotas, and some plaintiffs' attorneys in those cases are seeking access to the vehicles' black boxes.
In 2007, Bulent Ezal was pulling into the parking lot of a cliffside restaurant in Pismo Beach, Calif., when his 2005 Camry surged, went over the bluff and crashed on rocks 70 feet below. Mr. Ezal, 75, survived, but his wife, who was in the passenger seat, was killed.
"The car took off with force, pushing me back into my seat and cleared the curb," Mr. Ezal said in a recent interview. "The last thing I remember is my wife screaming, and I was looking at the clear blue sky."
Police could find no mechanical fault, and so concluded Mr. Ezal must have been to blame, said Donald Slavik, an attorney representing Mr. Ezal in a 2007 lawsuit filed against Toyota in California state court in San Luis Obispo. Mr. Slavik said he has been trying to get data from the car's black box for nearly three years. He said Toyota would provide the data only if Mr. Slavik got a court to order the company to do so. Mr. Slavik said Toyota has since told him the data in the black box would be unusable.
On one recent occasion, Toyota retrieved black-box data from a car involved in a fatal crash, but law-enforcement officers said the information was inconclusive.
On Dec. 26, Monty Hardy, 56, was driving three passengers in his 2008 Toyota Avalon on Lonesome Dove Drive in Southlake, Texas, when the car ran through a stop sign at about 45 mile per hour, crashed through a fence, struck a tree and landed upside down in a pond, according to a police report. All four occupants were killed.
Mr. Hardy was on medication for epilepsy but had been cleared by his doctors to drive. His autopsy didn't indicate he had suffered a seizure. Randy Roberts, an attorney hired by Mr. Hardy's wife, Linda, said the Hardys had taken the car to their Toyota dealer before the crash to complain about the car accelerating suddenly.
After the crash, investigators from NHTSA and Toyota's black-box expert flew to Texas to join police in searching for the cause of the accident. They found the black box in the car covered in muck from the pond.
According to police reports, the Toyota investigator tapped into the box and said the only data it contained was the difference in the speed of the car immediately before and after hitting the fence and the tree.
"I don't believe it for one minute," said Mr. Roberts, the attorney.
Mr. Michels, the Toyota spokesman, confirmed a Toyota representative did download the data in the Southlake crash and said he didn't know whether the data were usable. He declined to comment further because the investigation is continuing.
SoWal Insider
I read an ap article over the weekend that stated about 30-40 deaths have so far been attributed to faulty hardware or software running on Toyota cars. Pretty scary. If you drive one of these cars, you best get it into the shop!
Toyota Recall Information - 2009-2010 Toyota Recall List
Toyota Recall Information - 2009-2010 Toyota Recall List
SoWal Insider
SoWal Insider
Evidently, this wasn't so knee jerk, afterall. Toyota is in some gruesome hot water! Covering up saving $100MM by replacing floor mats instead of the doing the work to fix the issue is not cool. But, then someone boasted about saving the $100MM! Yowsa~~~~~
And, now the SEC is involved along with the impending Congressional Hearings and the CEO is on his way to the USA! I smell a fleet of rats in this one.
And, now the SEC is involved along with the impending Congressional Hearings and the CEO is on his way to the USA! I smell a fleet of rats in this one.
Beach FanaticAuthor
I still maintain my basic premise that the media and the government are blowing this all out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, Toyota evidently behaved badly and I do not defend their behavior. But I personally don't want congressional hearings for something that has harmed less people than the number of kids who have died from choking on hot dogs.
Edited
SoWal Insider
Toastiota - I think there is more to surface on this. I admire Toyota and not wishing the corporation ills, but if what has been mentioned is of truth, I'd say it's a pretty egregious, blatant inaction on their part. And, it's a safety issue.
Beach Comber
SoWal Insider
One person injured or killed due to a situation such as this is far too many regardless of how many vehicles are on the road.
Beach FanaticAuthor
One person injured or killed due to a situation such as this is far too many regardless of how many vehicles are on the road.
I don't disagree.
SoWal Insider
I was reading the other day about a guy who ended up in jail, leaving his pregnant wife and children to fend for themselves. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter after his Toyota ran through two stop signs and slammed into an oncoming car, killing the occupants. The case is now up for review.
SoWal Insider
This, sadly, is very tragic. The last one I can remember was the Firestone debaucle. There are recalls all the time, but this one leaves me speechless; Toyota has always adhered to a higher standard. Why this?
Edited
Beach Lover
I have to agree with GEO. I have worked for toyota as a tech for 18 years. I have been out of the auto biz for about 6 years now but still have very close friends still in the biz.
In 1999 toyota started using the "drive by wire throttle". It was used on the tundra v8. If you look at the throttle it has a regular mechanical cable, but the cable does not move the throttle plate. the cable moves the electronics that in turn move the throttle. this was done for several reasons, mostly attached to emmission control. The system worked well on tundras for 8 years with no sudden acceleration troubles. were some part failures that made the throttle not work, but NEVER stuck open.
That system provided the basis for the "drive by wire" system used on most Toyotas now. Toyota and Yamaha have worked with this for many years, (they have shared technology since the 70s) and the Yamaha 1000cc sport bike the R1 uses the same system, with very little issue.
I have seen and read the recall technical instructions.
First off, understand that the electronic throttles were designed and built by a long time supplier of toyota Nippondenso to Toyota's specs. All toyotas built in japan (even those shipped here) use the nippondenso throttle. NO JAPAN BUILT TOYOTA IS SUBJECT TO THE RECALL. The recalled throttles were built by another supplier for factories in the states. These are the recalled throttles. The issue is the shpae of the pedal. They are being repaired in 2 ways. The problem is the shape of the pedal. Some pedals are being modified. 1/8 inch of the pedal is being trimmed from the bottom, and a new pad installed. Other vehicles are getting a newly shaped throttle.
The only issuee with the throttle is the shape of the pedal. That's it.
Because toyota is completely safety orientated, along with the pedal changee or mod, the computer logic is being slightly changed...........
Quite simply there is new logic flashed into the ECU, If the brake pedal is applied while the throttle is depressed, the fuel injectors will turn off causing the vehicle to decelerate.
IF you do not have any knowledge on how a vehicle works, you cannot fully inderstand the the importance of this logic and how it will make toyotas the safest car on the road, I'll explain................
Power brakes. the "power assist" is porvided through engine vacum. When you drive, the engine has a high vacum with foot off throttle. when you accelerate by pushing the throttle, there is little or no vacum, so there is no "power assist" to the brakes. So the worst part of a stuck throttle, which has always happened to vehicles on rare occassions since the beginning of cars, is that the brakes do not work.
With Toyota's electronic throttle, and improved safety logic, they will be THE ONLY car on the road that will stop if you happen to experience a stuck throttle for any reason, beit, your own uncleanliness and lack of maintenance to your car, or faulty parts.
I knew in 1999 while being trained to work on the new Tundras with "drive by wire" that this system would cause Toytota problems at some point. Not because of the quality of the system or how it worked, but public perception. Once lawyers or owners found out they have an electric throttle, it was easy for them to take the blame for their own driving and put it on the ghost in the machine. Cars for americans are built like no other product. Cars are supposed to have, safety, power, convience, and style. What do driver's need? a liscence.
Your car, whatever brand it is, is expected to do a lot for you. But most of you cannot even give it your full attention when operating it. A ton of glass and metal with 150 horsepower will not be very forgiving to Texting while driving, drinking and driving, and all the other things you do in your car that take your eyes or mind off of the road. Thesse things are all easily as dangerous, if not more, than Toyota's 1 in 10,000 accelerator problems.
From my experience, the most dangerous part of a car is an uneducated, distracted, driver.
Oh... and if you think that Toyota's problem may be caused by "radio interference" remember all cars have a radio and it's "drive by wire" not "drive by radio"
Drive your toyota. Read the owner's manual, and keep fairly clean. If you have an affected vehicle, get it fixed. for the love of god do not freak out.
In 1999 toyota started using the "drive by wire throttle". It was used on the tundra v8. If you look at the throttle it has a regular mechanical cable, but the cable does not move the throttle plate. the cable moves the electronics that in turn move the throttle. this was done for several reasons, mostly attached to emmission control. The system worked well on tundras for 8 years with no sudden acceleration troubles. were some part failures that made the throttle not work, but NEVER stuck open.
That system provided the basis for the "drive by wire" system used on most Toyotas now. Toyota and Yamaha have worked with this for many years, (they have shared technology since the 70s) and the Yamaha 1000cc sport bike the R1 uses the same system, with very little issue.
I have seen and read the recall technical instructions.
First off, understand that the electronic throttles were designed and built by a long time supplier of toyota Nippondenso to Toyota's specs. All toyotas built in japan (even those shipped here) use the nippondenso throttle. NO JAPAN BUILT TOYOTA IS SUBJECT TO THE RECALL. The recalled throttles were built by another supplier for factories in the states. These are the recalled throttles. The issue is the shpae of the pedal. They are being repaired in 2 ways. The problem is the shape of the pedal. Some pedals are being modified. 1/8 inch of the pedal is being trimmed from the bottom, and a new pad installed. Other vehicles are getting a newly shaped throttle.
The only issuee with the throttle is the shape of the pedal. That's it.
Because toyota is completely safety orientated, along with the pedal changee or mod, the computer logic is being slightly changed...........
Quite simply there is new logic flashed into the ECU, If the brake pedal is applied while the throttle is depressed, the fuel injectors will turn off causing the vehicle to decelerate.
IF you do not have any knowledge on how a vehicle works, you cannot fully inderstand the the importance of this logic and how it will make toyotas the safest car on the road, I'll explain................
Power brakes. the "power assist" is porvided through engine vacum. When you drive, the engine has a high vacum with foot off throttle. when you accelerate by pushing the throttle, there is little or no vacum, so there is no "power assist" to the brakes. So the worst part of a stuck throttle, which has always happened to vehicles on rare occassions since the beginning of cars, is that the brakes do not work.
With Toyota's electronic throttle, and improved safety logic, they will be THE ONLY car on the road that will stop if you happen to experience a stuck throttle for any reason, beit, your own uncleanliness and lack of maintenance to your car, or faulty parts.
I knew in 1999 while being trained to work on the new Tundras with "drive by wire" that this system would cause Toytota problems at some point. Not because of the quality of the system or how it worked, but public perception. Once lawyers or owners found out they have an electric throttle, it was easy for them to take the blame for their own driving and put it on the ghost in the machine. Cars for americans are built like no other product. Cars are supposed to have, safety, power, convience, and style. What do driver's need? a liscence.
Your car, whatever brand it is, is expected to do a lot for you. But most of you cannot even give it your full attention when operating it. A ton of glass and metal with 150 horsepower will not be very forgiving to Texting while driving, drinking and driving, and all the other things you do in your car that take your eyes or mind off of the road. Thesse things are all easily as dangerous, if not more, than Toyota's 1 in 10,000 accelerator problems.
From my experience, the most dangerous part of a car is an uneducated, distracted, driver.
Oh... and if you think that Toyota's problem may be caused by "radio interference" remember all cars have a radio and it's "drive by wire" not "drive by radio"
Drive your toyota. Read the owner's manual, and keep fairly clean. If you have an affected vehicle, get it fixed. for the love of god do not freak out.
Beach Lover
Quote from surfrider28
"Plaintiffs' lawyers and their clients in auto-accident cases say they have butted heads with Toyota over access to its black-box data, or have gotten data from the company that sheds little light on the causes of the crashes at issue. Among the problems they encounter is that only Toyota can read the black-box information in its vehicles, and it says it only makes the data available when requested to do so by law enforcement, federal regulators or by court order.
By contrast, the three Detroit auto makers have black-box formats that can be read without their involvement using commercially available tools. "
that comment is total nonsense.
No vehicle has a "black box". All vehicles built since 1995 have real time date from the Power Management System stored in the ECU. The system is not designed to work like a flight recorder
this information is only saved from the last trip. once the car is started, the last info is gone, and new info is saved. So if there is a wreck, and after info is obtained, it will only show what the vehicle was doing on it's last engine on cycle. It can show when the airbags went off and what speed the vehicle was going, and if the brakes were on, or what angle the throttle was opened to, was the a/c on, engine rpm, etc.
This information can be pulled from the car by any service tech, and does not require toyota engineers to obtain it.
Detroit and japan cars are built to the smae standards, ther is NO difference in how this info is obtained from any vehicle built for service in the USA.
these are the kind of Media 1/2 truths that are being thrown out there.
"Plaintiffs' lawyers and their clients in auto-accident cases say they have butted heads with Toyota over access to its black-box data, or have gotten data from the company that sheds little light on the causes of the crashes at issue. Among the problems they encounter is that only Toyota can read the black-box information in its vehicles, and it says it only makes the data available when requested to do so by law enforcement, federal regulators or by court order.
By contrast, the three Detroit auto makers have black-box formats that can be read without their involvement using commercially available tools. "
that comment is total nonsense.
No vehicle has a "black box". All vehicles built since 1995 have real time date from the Power Management System stored in the ECU. The system is not designed to work like a flight recorder
this information is only saved from the last trip. once the car is started, the last info is gone, and new info is saved. So if there is a wreck, and after info is obtained, it will only show what the vehicle was doing on it's last engine on cycle. It can show when the airbags went off and what speed the vehicle was going, and if the brakes were on, or what angle the throttle was opened to, was the a/c on, engine rpm, etc.
This information can be pulled from the car by any service tech, and does not require toyota engineers to obtain it.
Detroit and japan cars are built to the smae standards, ther is NO difference in how this info is obtained from any vehicle built for service in the USA.
these are the kind of Media 1/2 truths that are being thrown out there.
SoWal Insider
I don't disagree.15 yards for media piling on after the whistle....first down! toyota/honda are the benchmarks
SoWal Insider
Unfortunately, the $100MM they saved will now cost them ten fold and maybe more. Eight million US cars on recall, 34 deaths with no cap on punitive damages (should law suits be filed) because we haven't initiated steps toward tort reform, and labor 24/7 through the recall. Their ads are strong and Mr. Toyota was forthright before Congress, but this is going to cause a downward spiral.
Matt, you explained the mechanics and innovation very well. It seems like a simple repair/tweaking. What a shame that this has occurred.
Matt, you explained the mechanics and innovation very well. It seems like a simple repair/tweaking. What a shame that this has occurred.
Beach FanaticAuthor
The mayor of a town in Indiana that is home to a Toyota plant was on NPR today. He very diplomatically expressed very similar points to mine but when on to talk about the consequences to the American economy resulting from the government grandstanding and the media blowing this up. Quite a domino effect...
Beach Lover
I am totally confident Toyota will survive this inconvience. Their vehicles are safe and well engineered, and always will be.
Soon the dominos will fall the other way.
Soon the dominos will fall the other way.
SoWal Insider
The mayor of a town in Indiana that is home to a Toyota plant was on NPR today. He very diplomatically expressed very similar points to mine but when on to talk about the consequences to the American economy resulting from the government grandstanding and the media blowing this up. Quite a domino effect...
I'm not sure I understand the logic here, if someone is shopping for a car, and they shy away from Toyota due to safety concerns, they'll just buy something else.
Beach FanaticAuthor
Sorry- I was speaking on a microeconomic level. TMMI employees over 4000 Americans in Indiana. This excludes local companies that support them. Let me know if you'd like me to expand.
Beach FanaticAuthor
I think it is possible that part of why this is being blown up in the media and government is the outdated perception of American cars vs. Foreign cars. "Real Americans" heard for a long time that Toyota was better than their American Pie brands. Whether they believed it or not is a whole other story. But now that Toyota has a product issue and their is some bad behavior involved they want to stick it to the Japanese automaker. But they won't just be sticking it to the Japanese because the lines are blurred now of what makes a car an American car vs. other.
SoWal Guide
I think it is possible that part of why this is being blown up in the media and government is the outdated perception of American cars vs. Foreign cars. "Real Americans" heard for a long time that Toyota was better than their American Pie brands. Whether they believed it or not is a whole other story. But now that Toyota has a product issue and their is some bad behavior involved they want to stick it to the Japanese automaker. But they won't just be sticking it to the Japanese because the lines are blurred now of what makes a car an American car vs. other.
yes, as I posted above, Toyota has not lived up to their own standards in several ways in this huge recall. we expect more from Toyota. I do. If anyone wants to make it an American v. Foreign issue - well, that is just out of pure ignorance, imo. Its about Toyota setting very high standards for themselves and all cars. They have failed to meet their own standards. They do deserve every bit of public scrutiny they get, imo. They put themselves in this position.
SoWal Insider
Does anyone know how far back this recall goes with respect to year of mfg.? I have a couple of friends who drive Toyotas - I am concerned, but I think their cars are older than this recall involves.
SoWal Insider
I think it is possible that part of why this is being blown up in the media and government is the outdated perception of American cars vs. Foreign cars. "Real Americans" heard for a long time that Toyota was better than their American Pie brands. Whether they believed it or not is a whole other story. But now that Toyota has a product issue and their is some bad behavior involved they want to stick it to the Japanese automaker. But they won't just be sticking it to the Japanese because the lines are blurred now of what makes a car an American car vs. other.
From everything I've read, I don't think this is being blown out of proportion at all. Toyota produced faulty product that resulted in safety risk for those that own the cars. When that happens companies are often required to do recalls if the hazard is serious enough. I don't understand why this is such a big deal for people, happens all the time. My suggestion to Toyota would be - don't produce unsafe cars and you won't have to worry about your brand being tarnished.
Edited
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