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Comments
For now ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Thanks once again.
So from what you are saying Toyota was already aware there was an existing problem. News reports from Toyota - it was just 2010. Would this also exist in the earlier Prius models?
No, not in exactly the same way.
My guess is that for the 2010 Prius the HSD control ECU's firmware was changed in some way that had an unintendtional/inadvertent adverse effect on the timing of the HSD control ECU's response to the skid control ECU's query.
My other guess applies to the Sikes incident, earlier Prius model years. The HSD Control ECU's firmware craws down a rathole.
I have long suspected a software "race" condition, the "set/accel" mode gets set "true" and for some reason it cannot be cleared, not even with brake application.
Ms Smith offered a clue in that she regained control only after managing to get the speed low enough, <35MPH, wherein CC would normally automatically disengage. She also implied that the cruise control indicator came on without any action on her part.
If you look at the NHTSA complaints against just the 2008 Prius you will find literally 100s of complaints of UA and brake failures. I did not search for other years. It should be obvious to the most casual observer that Toyota has a problem with their hybrid design. Here is an example of people with small brains. They total a 2004 Prius with UA and buy a 2008 Prius that does the same thing. Some people are just hard to get through to. Toyota has some serious issues with their electronics controlling their vehicles.
I HAVE A 2008 TOYOTA PRIUS THAT HAS AN ACCELERATION PROBLEM WHICH IS NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE FLOOR MAT. I ALSO HAD A 2004 TOYOTA PRIUS WITH THE SAME PROBLEM THAT RESULTED IN A COLLISION THAT TOTALED THE VEHICLE. THE 2008 PRIUS WAS TAKEN TO THE DEALERSHIP FOR THE ACCELERATION PROBLEM BUT THEY CAN NOT REPRODUCE IT. THE 2004 PRIUS WAS TOTALED IN A COLLISION WHERE THE VEHICLE WOULD NOT STOP. *TR
PS
They live among US and they are allowed to vote.
http://www.safetyresearch.net/toyota-sudden-unintended-acceleration/owners-stori- es/
So I assume what we discussed earlier doesn't apply to Sikes vehicle.
No, programmer term, means something other than traditional "racing".
Did you see the new AP aricle I posted just recently? The earlier AP report was detrimental to Sikes with no mention of brake which I mention below. CHP are still standing by their report and case closed - appears will not reopen until Sikes incident is undeniably and 100% proven it didn't happen. States so far it sounded like they could not do. Memo released from Issa's office mentions brakes were almost gone from heat. Now we wait to see if report holds up..
What I found particularly noteworthy - appears Issa's representative supplying reports to news. Most is detrimental to Sikes it appears. The trail w Issa is getting clearer and longer.
They live among US and they are allowed to vote.
Too funny :shades:
Please note that it is an aide of a Republican that's leaking the smear. :shades:
No one can find a reason why that Prius would runaway like he claimed it did - and the brake pads indicate he was not braking like he said he was. And there is no VALID explanation why he did not try to put the car in neutral.
Liar
The radio news said NTHSA, Edmunds, and Toyota have all so far been unable to see how his Prius could do what he said it did.
Some People......
It sounds like you are saying that only foreign cars are really meant to be "driven," then I'll have to agree with you. I suppose if you drive your Big 3 car like a baby, or the typical Buick driver and never go over 65, and merge onto the freeway at 35 instead of 65 due to never accelerating fast, then maybe they'll last decently. However, a lot of Americans expect their cars to perform as they were designed and capable of doing, without breaking down all of the time.
I drove my 2003 Honda Accord LX V6 Coupe and 2006 Audi A3 (just hit 60K miles no problems) every bit as hard as that Dodge Neon. I can honestly say the A3 has been driven the hardest, the longest, the most often, and the most consistently of them all by far; since it is by far the most fun to drive vehicle of the lot.
Other than needing new tires every 20,000 miles and a complete brake job at a bit over 50,000 miles, the vehicle has shown no signs of extra wear due to "driving it like it was meant to be driven." The Honda performed "like new" and showed and sold "like new" when I sold it at 50 months old and 65,000 miles or so, for 53% of what I paid for it, INCLUDING tax title & license fees.
If Chrysler, GM, and Ford can't make cars durable even when driven by someone that likes to have fun while driving, then they shouldn't be making cars. Or if they do, perhaps the American engineers should be smarter and design the red line and rev limiter to be at 3,500 RPM's and the top speed to be governed at 70 and below. Afterall, the domestic cars have to be babied to last any length of time without problems according to you.
Amazing that the pro-domestic people here will automatically "assume" you drove the domestic car harder than the foreign cars for some magical LALA land reason. Yes, teenager's are hard on cars, but that doesn't mean people in their 20's and 30's aren't either!
I believe maintenance is more important to a vehicles longevity then how it was driven; at least when it's designed and built correctly (Honda, Toyota, Audi, BMW, Nissan, Acura, Infiniti, Lexus, Mazda (w/o the Ford parts), and maybe VW.
Like I said, I witnessed first hand; one of my best friends took a brand new Geo Prism (Toyota) and went from mile zero to mile 100,000 with most of those miles with the accelerator stuck to the floor, and the car never cried foul, wussy, or [non-permissible content removed].
You would be guessing wrongly and incorrectly.
The Neon often failed and was in the shop literally every 3 or 4 months. Yes, without fail, it was in the shop every 3 or 4 months. I'd say every 4 months its first 3 years of life, and every 3 months it's last 3 years of life that I had it. It was pretty consistently bad to horrible throughout its life.
The 4 tow trucks it needed were spread out pretty evenly too, with the last one coming at 65,000 miles and we got rid of it like the NEXT day after it was fixed (bad alternator and faulty belt construction). So it needed a tow truck or two while in warranty, and a tow truck or two while out of warranty.
So you are wrong, I never asked for it to leave me stranded and require expensive tow trucks to take it to the mechanics, so it definitely didn't do all I asked of it.
I would of liked to have seen better performance from the 132 ponies and better gas mileage too. My 200 HP car today gets the same mileage that Neon did, and it weighs 1,000 more pounds!
By the way, the Dodge needed to be towed the first time the first morning we had it. Bought it the previous day and after "sleeping on it one night" it wouldn't start the next morning (faulty fuel pump and oxygen sensors I think). That was an evil omen of things to come.
Actually, the Geo Prism was rated very highly by CR, just like the Corolla. Except for a few cheaper trim pieces GM used inside and out, it was an identical vehicle to the Corolla. What year are you looking at? I believe my friends was a 1994 or 1995 Prism model.
Did GM make any outside of Toyota's factory?, that might explain differences in quality, my friend definitely got one of the Toyota models labeled as a Prism; there is no doubt about that.
Fame and future potential fortune. Getting out of his lease. Pure Psychosis?
CHP testified that he saw the brake lights on and smelled the burning brake.
That does not prove he hit the brakes and the accelerator at the same time, as he could of intermitently been hitting the brake then accelerator, and vice versa, never at the same time thereby avoiding the brake override system activation.
There are also many posts accusing the drivers not put the car in neutral or to turn off the car.
Because in every case where there has been injury or accident (or media hoopla) the driver either refused to put it in neutral or didn't even try to (or didn't even think of it) due to their own negligence, ignorance, and/or incompetence.
Then there's no reason for him to fly on without braking. This means that both the car's accelerator and brake failed.
It's called driver error and hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes causes it sometimes. Other times it's fraud and a hoax.
You say don't take stories/reports at face value, yet you believe the CHP as if they were GOD themselves. What of the officer who is the supposed witness? Do you know his background and training? Maybe he was a friend of Saylor's and has an ax to grind with Toyota. Maybe he's a rookie and been on the force only 3 months? Maybe he's a veteren who has a record of losing court cases (false prosecution in my book). Do you know any of the history of the CHP officer who's made claims regarding this issue?
I only know what is printed or posted. I do Know first hand how Toyota tries to weasel out of their responsibilities and poorly designed vehicles. I have owned 3 Toyota's and had issues with each that Toyota did not face up to. How many have you owned?
If Sikes was smart, he wouldn't have accepted the same attorney working for the Saylor family, That smells and you don't need a nose to smell it.
Anyway, The Saylor family should be suing the 911 operator for not having advised to ever put it in Neutral!!! They shouldn't be suing Toyota for driver error. Oh wait, Toyota has deep pockets while the 911 operator doesn't, nevermind, always sue the deep pockets.
"The memo said both the front and rear brakes were worn and damaged by heat, consistent with Sikes saying that he stood on the brake pedal with both feet and was unable to stop the car. But if the fail-safe system worked properly, the brakes wouldn't have been damaged because power would have been cut to the wheels.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the wear was not consistent with the brakes being applied at full force for a long period, citing three people familiar with the probe, whom it did not name. The newspaper said the brakes may have been applied intermittently.
Gomez said the best evidence that his client was frantically slamming the brakes is that the CHP officer smelled burning brakes and saw the lights on."
_______
CHP - AP
Brian Pennings, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said his agency's view that there is no evidence of a hoax is unchanged. The CHP does not plan to investigate the incident because there were no injuries or property damage.
"Unless they can completely disprove Mr. Sikes, we're done," Pennings said. "It doesn't sound like they can do that."
_________
REPRESENTATIVE ISSA AIDE - CALIFORNIA - ISSA ON OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING TOYOTA & NHTSA- (1)INSISTED BEING PRESENT RUNAWAY PRIUS INVESTIGATION - (2)CHALLENGED CHAIRMAN TOWN OF OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING TOYOTA IN STRONG LETTER - CHAIRMAN TOWN SENT LETTER ACCUSING TOYOTA OF HIDING DOCUMENTS ABUSING US COURTS & PERTAINED TO FORMER TOYOTA ATTORNEYS SUPEOONAED 6 BOXES OF DOCUMENTS. FACT IS TOWNS COULD NOT SEND LETTER WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM COMMITTEE (3)ISSA IS RICHEST CONGRESSIONAL MEMBER(200+ MILLION) - OWNED COMPANY DEVELOPED AUTO ANTITHEFT & SOLD TO TOYOTA & OTHER MANUFACTURERS, ETC. - SOLD COMPANY BUT STILL ON BOARD
Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for the committee's top Republican, Darrell Issa of California, said Sunday that the findings "certainly raise new questions surrounding the veracity of the sequence of events" reported by Sikes.
"We're not saying Mr. Sikes is wrong or that he lied, we're saying that questions have arisen in the investigation," Bardella said.
John Gomez, Sikes' attorney, said the findings fail to undermine his client's story.
"I don't put a whole lot of stock in their explanation," he said. "It's not surprising they couldn't replicate it. They have never been able to replicate an incident of sudden acceleration. Mr. Sikes never had a problem in the three years he owned this vehicle."
_________
LEAKED CONGRESSIONAL MEMO - WSJ
"The system worked when engineers performed a test drive of Sikes's vehicle, the agency said. Engineers also noted that "there was very little left of the car's brakes," the agency said. The inboard front brake pads were completely gone and the outboard pads were down to about two millimeters to 2.5 millimeters, it said, and the brake rotors were damaged.
"We would caution people that our work continues and that we may never know exactly what happened with this car," the agency said."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gc_pIFqke7WxQovY3MnhcyIYiLgwD9- EEPOS00
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123380572242938.html?m- od=googlenews_wsj
It seems investigation still not completed. Saw a report brakes were going to be put through more tests. Not sure if true or not. Different reports exist.
He also could of chosen to take the 52 West exit ramp instead of a dead end. It's a pretty sharp turn if your going 120 MPH, but he'd probably just of scraped along the guardrails and survived if he had chosen the ramp instead of the dead end (maybe it was blocked by slow moving traffic though). I've argued before it's better to rear end someone going 70 than a dirt embankment that is stationary (with your car going 120).
Did his new Lexus 350 have push button or keyless start? Is there any chance, ANY chance that he might have been trying to kill himself and everyone in the car?
I've read it was a push button car. That chance is a possibility (suicide).
Also, I'm not convinced CHP officer's are inherently good driver's, and all of them may not receive equal training. Also, they might only be good at driving police rigs and not Lexus 350's.
and why would the 911 operator be liable for not telling him to do something that he should already know to do?
I kind of have to agree with you here, but as a tax paying citizen, I'd like to know that when some idiot calls 911 and hasn't even thought of putting it in neutral yet during a supposed UA episode, that my tax paying money for that 911 operator has the competence to tell them to put it in neutral! It was incompetence of the driver AND the 911 operator. Sikes' 911 operator was better.
The possible motive could have been something as simple as getting Toyota to give Sikes new brakes, pads, rotors.
His pads and brakes probably needed replacing anyway, so he thought rather than pay for a new brake job, he'd just REALLY wear them out in a hoax SUA episode, and potentially get Toyota to replace his brakes free of charge.
Just as Sike's Prius' HSD control ECU's firmware might have been in a "failed" state that prevented the skid control ECU from providing hydraulic braking capability then Saylor's engine/transaxle firmware may have ignored a "request" to shift into neutral.
I still stand by my guess that the cruise control firmware is a fault. The "set/accel" mode gets "set" within the firmware and for some reason cannot be cleared via the normal "paths", brake application, etc.
The first thing I would do is modify the cruise control firmware such that it would not provide acceleration above ~55MPH or for a period beyond, say, 3 minutes. If the driver wishes to accelerate beyond that then use the gas pedal manually and then set the CC.
CHP report is available. Many news reports. Please do google search
CHP training - CHP has ongoing QA training these officers must take and pass for EMS driving. He would have been qualified. What happened? It is so sad - we will never know- these poor people were all killed.
Who placed 911 call?? -The brother inlaw that was in back seat placed call - not the driver.
Who died in this terrible traedy?? - CHP officer Mark Saylor, his wife, 13yo daughter, and brother inlaw.
These people were college educated, well respected, very nice people. What happened was tragic. My heart goes out to the surviving family members.
I like that idea. We know the Woz has proven the 2010 Hybrids have a very poorly designed CC. It can take you right up to 90 MPH without your controlling it. Toyota has said it does as it is designed. Much different design than average CC.
Inspectors Unable To Replicate Braking Problem In Runaway Prius Case
By Chris Morran on March 15, 2010 12:53 PM 0 views
Inspectors looking into last week's runaway Prius in Southern California are having troubled determining the cause of the incident, and haven't been able to replicate the braking problem.
During the incident, while reaching speeds over 90mph, the driver claimed to have applied heavy pressure to the brakes, but to no avail. As demonstrated on video, when both the Prius' accelerator and brake are activated, the engine is supposed to idle.
A memo from during the early testing of the runaway Prius states, "Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down," implying that they have been unable to replicate that particular issue.
The memo continues, "In this case, knowing that we are able to push the car around the shop, it does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time."
One report says that the car's brakes don't exactly jive with what the driver has been telling investigators. Inspectors say the pattern of friction on the brakes suggests the driver had intermittently applied moderate pressure instead of the heavy pressure he's described.
The driver's wife says she and her husband are fed up with having their motives questioned.
"Everyone can just leave us alone," she said. "There's no intent at all to sue Toyota. If any good can come out of this, maybe they can find out what happened so other people don't get killed."
I don't accept that being qualified to drive a Police vehicle qualifies you to be a good Lexus 350 driver. Different vehicles, different animal. The CHP officer was clearly not fully qualified in the Lexus 350.
It is true we don't know what happened. There is no evidence that they DID try and put it in neutral. However, the 911 tapes do reveal that no one discussed or confirmed that Neutral had been tried.
See my post above. It is likely if neutral had been tried it would have been noted on the 911 tape.
Investigation is still ongoing as I posted in my blog.
My husband was a California State EMS commissioner during the 1980's appointed by Willie Brown. Quite involved at state and local level. He was CEO of his corporation. He developed the first US successful neonatal transport He was posthumously awarded a SF Department of Public Health award for his outstanding lifetime work in EMS. Award carries his name. My son is a MD, and does not work as an MD. His hobby become his professional work. He does auto developemnt/engineering and owns his own corporation. I am a RN that has many years of emergency experience.
For that matter, what does your husband and son's qualifications have to do with you? I have a friend that's a lawyer, so what?
All because they have on going training does not make them good drivers and know what to do if SUA/UA happens. Every police department has a compound full of smashed up police vehicles by their own people that is hidden from public view. The truth is, if the public knew how half of them were really smashed up they would be more worried about a police car coming up behind them, then they would a Toyota. What police put in reports to cover themselves and the real truth are two different things.
I bet 80 percent of the drivers in America didn't know to put the car into neutral if your gas pedal was stuck, until this accident happened and the media told them what to do. The 911 operator wouldn't know, because it never happened to them or most other people. A 911 operator isn't a mechanic anymore then a police officer is.
Evidence. Not silly statements and dire predictions. Quoting a driver as saying, "I couldn't stop it" is not evidence that the car failed somehow. Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable thing ever, in a courtroom or elsewhere. The research that has been done proves it.
Then we have the "could have", "might have", "should have known", "it is likely" and all the other near-worthless statements and guesses that have been posted.
Now we are playing I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours. My uncle was the chief QC guy at DuPont in Delaware. What's that prove about Toyotas? Nothing.
Yet, when the people who have actually looked at the car post-incident are referenced they are denounced as all wrong too like the rest of us who are referred to as Toyota fanboys. I am no Toyota fanboy, I simply dislike sloppy thinking and there is certainly a lot of it on display here.
Yeah, and I have 2 college degrees of my own.
John
These poor people were killed. This accident was a horrible and sad tragedy.
What makes you think that I didn't read the reports? I live in San Diego County so I've heard all the news reports on the incident, and heard the 911 tape segment.
Is there anything in the CHP or Sheriff's report that differs from what everyone is saying here?
I believe the floor mats were blamed as the conclusion (Santee Sheriff's though, not CHP). Either way, neutral or shutting off the car via the ignition button/key solves the problem of runaway acceleration.
It's at best, a bandaid...not a solution. The cars will still suffer UA. It's possible to offer ways to overcome UA (like brake over ride). UA will still be an issue, though.
CHP - accidents - have not investigated. Since CHP has high exposure, would guess accident rate would/could be evident despiute the ongoing training.