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Afraid Camry Owner - Toyota found to keep tight lid on potential safety
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Two things:
(1) Is this a fix? It seems awfully fast.
(2) If so, shouldn't we the people on the road get them first?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/ap_on_bi_ge/toyota_recall
Don't think that's gonna happen.
I want my billion dollars, my private island, my own planet, .....
whom can I sue to get all of what I think I deserve?
Thanks Toyota for yet again screwing over the customer and be more worried about getting your sales up and ready. And people say Toyota cares about its customers.
Toyota is sending new gas pedal systems to car factories rather than dealerships who want the parts to take care of millions of customers whose pedals may stick.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons confirms information in a company e-mail obtained by the AP that says parts were shipped to factories. Lyons says that's how the company normally distributes parts.
But some dealers say they should get the parts first because they now have no way to fix the pedals on any of the 4.2 million recalled vehicles affecting eight U.S. models.
that's the part I never understood about those Camry owners. they apparently value safety very much. they are fearful of driving their cars. yet, for some small dollars, they are willing to risk the lives of themselves and their families.
are they really that cheap? if so, they deserve what they got.
Lessons learned, don't buy a Toyota. If it has to be a Japanese car, go with either Honda or Nissan.
Someone needs to form a boycott against Toyota until they begin to assist the customer as they have "proclaimed" for years. Sounds great in advertising, now we all see what reality brings. :lemon:
I own a Toyota and do live in San Francisco area. I presently own a 2006 RAV4 and have had few intermittant minor incidents of unexplained engine acceleration for aproximately 6 months. Vehicle did respond to braking immediately, but incidents were quite suspicious and I have been evaluate for any further problems. I also spoke with friends who own a 2008 RAV4 who had also noticed problems that just began appearing over past few months. His incidents all occurred while driving and then applying brakes. Engine acceleration was refusing to respond to braking. Each time engine finally responded, but was quite delayed. Brakes were fine, floor mats not an issue. .
This is my first Toyota. I had researched extensively all SUV's prior to buying for my special needs. The vehicles meets my needs, but am concerned. Toyota does not have brake over ride systems on our vehicles. Consumer Reports did a Auto Comparison Demonstration conducted by Auto Engineer involving unexplained acceleration between Toyota and a VW. Video is excellent nd appears it was done last fall sometime. Video demonstrates how to stop Toyota vehicle. VW demonstration put same circumstances responded quickly to braking. Underlying cause is not addressed, and realize multiple causative factors may exist. Video undeniably reveals the huge danger that exists for accidents that may result in great bodily harm and/or death if driver does not do precisely as directed.
Karen, I would be interested in speaking with you.
don't wait for someone to start that.
if you are truly concerned, start it now, and start it by yourself.
then at what price point are you willing to let go of your unsafe Camry? how much is a peace of mind worth to you? or the lives of your family and loved ones?
put a number to it!
at one hand, we have people who are very concerned about their loved ones' safety and they are terrified to drive an absolutely unsafe car that would take off on its own any minute and deliver its occupants to the devil.
yet, the same group of people wouldn't want to get rid of this terrifying car for some money, presumably a minor financial hit?
the only explanations I can come up with are
1) those folks are just cheap and they don't think their lives are worth much; or
2) those cars aren't really terrifying as much as they say they do.
There is a lot of UNCERTAINTY and FEAR going on right now justified or not.
Until things settle down nobody knows what to do.
For you to call them "cheap" and tell them they don't value their lives and the lives of their loved ones is uncalled for and mean spirited!
Things WILL settle down. I just hope this happens quickly!
Thanks all!
no kidding. life is tough and we can either blame others for our own demise or face up the fact and fix it now.f
Consumer Reports is also telling used-car buyers to avoid purchasing any of the affected vehicles until this issue is resolved. As far as new cars go, this shouldn't be a problem since Toyota dealers stopped selling them Tuesday and Pontiac went out of business.
"Although incidents of sudden acceleration are rare, we are taking this action because the vehicles have been identified as potentially unsafe without a fix yet being available to consumers" said Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.
Interesting move, considering earlier this week, CR's auto engineer Jake Fisher was downplaying safety risks this week. "These cars aren't dangerous," he said.
But CR, like the rental car agencies that have pulled them from their fleets, went ahead anyway. This is another tough break for Toyota. The brand has been a Consumer Reports' darling for decades and many rely on the magazine -- it is run by a non-profit, doesn't take advertising and buys all its test cars from dealers -- when choosing their next car. Automakers covet CR's recommendations.
Mired in what is officially a nightmarish recall fiasco, Toyota's getting gang-tackled as it wraps up a really bad week. General Motors, smelling blood in the water, is offering incentives specifically targeting Toyota drivers through the end of February. Likewise, Ford is adding $1,000 to the trade-ins of any Toyota, Lexus, or Scion (as well as Acura and Honda, for good measure). Rental fleets are yanking Toyotas from circulation. The House of Representatives will officially grandstand hold a hearing next Friday. Consumer Reports is temporarily withholding its "Recommended" status on recalled models until the matter is sorted out.
And now, here comes Hyundai, leaping into the scrum from the top rope like Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka.
The Detroit News reports that like GM and Ford, Hyundai's now offering $1,000 to customers who trade their Toyota in for a Sonata, Elantra, or Elantra Touring. Unike GM and Ford, Hyundai is only running the incentives through next Monday. Meanwhile, Chrysler could reportedly follow suit next week. Honda, for its part, has flatly stated that it is staying out of the feeding frenzy, and won't be targeting Toyota customers with specific incentives.
...and in the end the car issues will get resolved and life will go on. Down the road Toyota will probably payback GM and Ford with something similar. The only reason rental cars put Toyota on hold was [non-permissible content removed] covering in case of an incident and lawsuit, even if the probability is remote its better to cool it until resolved. Toyota will get back on the CR recommeded list down the road. Congress pulled the same waste of time and money on the Explorer issue. Nothing came of it. Its just an opportunity for these windbags and blowhards to try and get some camera coverage for the upcoming elections. Actually, Congress would probably never agree on what to do anyway. The Republicans will say business is always right, while the Democrats will continue supporting trial lawyers and class action lawsuits. Middle income citizens aren't a good source for large dollar campaign donations.
Then what?
No car manufacturer is immune.
Toyota has chosen to continue using the time-proven engine disengagement lever. It's the shift lever. Everybody uses it.
John
True, yet no other car manufacturer has been forced to stop selling their cars.
I see an irony in that part of the problem. For years all GM forums have had some folks pointing out how Honda and toyota don't have cars in rental fleets and those folks would mock that many of GM's vehicles were present in rental and fleet usage. But now it sounds like toyota actually has a large number of vehicles there too.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
No, NOT.
Most manufacturers only quite recently adopted "DBW" "gear shifters" wherein only electrical switches are used to "tell" the engine/transaxle control module whch gear you have selected.
The park position may still be mechanically coupled to move the parking pawl into position but I'm not even sure about that.
Honda Fit, something about faulty window switches catching fire or smoking if liquid gets dropped on them??????
"No, NOT."
___________
Shifting to neutral certainly is time-proven. If you want to argue that the old mechanical linkages were somehow more reliable than what's used today, it's fine with me. I do remember how it was in the '50s and started driving in the '60s and I have seen fewer shifter problems in the past 10 years. I can't recall the last time I saw or heard about a balky shifter? (Or a sticky accelerator linkage or carb for that matter?
Cars used to be a pain to keep running, especially the 2x year tune-ups and trying to set the timing just right. We have it easy now. OTOH, I'd prefer a nearly computer-free car so I could work on it a little.
I'm selling my '06 Avalon as soon as the snow stops. My coworker's husband needs to see it when the sun is out. She's very patient, I'd been talking about buying a new car for almost a year and her '02 Avalon has 140k on it.
John
In all that personal driving, and in driving maybe a hundred police cars in 31 years of road patrol, I have had jammed accelerator pedals maybe 8 or 9 times. Most were broken or jammed carb linkages in 60's or 70's cars, one was a maybe 68 (cant recall exactly) Chevy Biscayne with a 427 pursuit engine that broke its motor mount and it took off.
My point here is that although I have never driven a Japanese or foreign auto in my life, and I know nothing about electronics per se, if I were in that runaway Camry or whatever, I believe the thing would be shut down in 4 seconds at the outside, and the gear shift lever would be in nuetral in half a second.
It appears that Toyota has denied its sudden acceleration problem for more than 5 years. Toyota's recall for floor mat problems is not the end of the story and the company needs to do more to protect its customers and the motoring public.
In March 2004, the Center For Auto Safety reported about sudden acceleration problems in 2002-03 Toyota Camrys and Solaras and the 2002-03 Lexus ES 300.
According to AutoSafety.org, by the year 2000, there had been more than 22,600 reported complaints of sudden acceleration.
More than five years ago, Toyota and NHTSA identified the electronic throttle as the most likely source of the sudden acceleration defect. However, Toyota continued -- and continues today -- to dismiss concerns about its throttle control system and has looked only at the floor mat issue.
Four years later -- in June 2008 -- the Detroit Free Press and the Motor Authority reported that Toyota had dismissed additional customer complaints that the popular Toyota Tacoma pickup truck had been experiencing the same sudden acceleration issue as other Toyota and Lexus vehicles.
In 2008 -- like in 2004 -- Toyota refused to take the sudden acceleration issue seriously. Instead of fixing the known problem in its vehicles, Toyota publicly accused its own customers of trying to cash in on Toyota's negative publicity.
By October 2009, Toyota was forced to finally acknowledge sudden acceleration problems in the following vehicles:
* 2007-2010 Toyota Camry
* 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon
* 2004-2009 Toyota Prius
* 2005-2010 Toyota Tacoma
* 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra
* 2007-2010 Lexus ES350
* 2006-2010 Lexus IS250
* 2006-2010 Lexus IS 350
In October 2009, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda, was forced to publicly apologize for the tragic death of an American family who were killed when their Toyota vehicle suddenly accelerated out of control. This tragedy was recorded by 911 as the passengers desperately tried to slow or stop their out of control Toyota vehicle.
Despite more than 5 years of documented sudden acceleration problems in Toyota and Lexus vehicles and the tragic death of a family of four caught on tape, Toyota still has refused to accept any responsibility or acknowledge any defect.
Toyota has ignored customer reports of the sudden acceleration problem for more than 5 years. Despite this growing safety concern, Toyota announced, November 6, 2009, a third-quarter profit of nearly $250 million. In the last 90 days -- while its cars were running out of control -- Toyota made a profit of nearly $3 miller per day. Toyota also increased its sales projection to more than 7 million vehicles for this year.
Langdon & Emison is aware of more than 2100 reported instances of Toyota sudden acceleration. Instead of listening to its customers and fixing the extremely dangerous sudden acceleration problem -- a problem Toyota has known about for more than 5 years -- Toyota is raking in money and placing even more dangerous cars and trucks on American roads. Toyota needs to take these complaints seriously and fix the millions of dangerous vehicles on our streets and highways. :lemon:
No, not at all. Except maybe in this specific case wherein a mechaincal linkage would be more certain, reliable, in getting the transaxle into neutral.
Might that sometimes cause a disruption of the engine/transaxle ECU's firmware instruction execution sequence...?
The way I discovered my 12 volt battery in our 911/996 was not up to snuff was because I would get, randomly, various fault lights (mostly ABS...) on the dash after beginning a drive, actually getting underway. The engine always started and only in retrospect did I realize it had been cranking slower than normal.
Does Toyota/etc use any sort of "snubber" network to snub out, eliminate, that voltage spike...??
I think Toyota has learned from other's mistakes and like the J&J Tylenol incident (a classic in managtement strategy) they are taking an aggressive approach. They should be commended for that
As for Toyota taking an aggressive approach, I assume that was suppose to be an indirect joke???? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forced them to stop selling the associated vehicles, they didn't have a choice.
They have tried everything possible for the past years to coverup this issue and have been in denial for the past several months, by trying to keep blaming the customer. Now if that is "taking an aggressive approach" then go figure.
The sad thing is even as of today, you go to the Toyota.com and it features bold, brightly coloured ads for its cars and trucks, like the Prius and the 4Runner. At the bottom of the home page was a small strip with a link to information on the recall.
Aggressive approach to defend its name at one cover up after the next, at the expense of the safety of the consumer ~ how sad. :sick:
During a routine test on its Sienna minivan in April 2003, Toyota Motor Corp. engineers discovered that a plastic panel could come loose and cause the gas pedal to stick, potentially making the vehicle accelerate out of control.
The automaker redesigned the part and by that June every 2004 model year Sienna off the assembly line came with the new panel. Toyota did not notify tens of thousands of people who had already bought vans with the old panel, however.
It wasn't until U.S. safety officials opened an investigation last year that Toyota acknowledged in a letter to regulators that the part could come loose and "lead to unwanted or sudden acceleration."
The automaker knew of a dangerous steering defect in vehicles including the 4Runner sport utility vehicle for years before issuing a recall in Japan in 2004. But it told regulators no recall was necessary in the U.S., despite having received dozens of complaints from drivers. Toyota said a subsequent investigation led it to order a U.S. recall in 2005.
Toyota has paid cash settlements to people who say their vehicles have raced out of control, sometimes causing serious accidents, according to consumers and their attorneys. Other motorists who complained of acceleration problems with their vehicles have received buybacks under lemon laws.
Although the sudden acceleration issue erupted publicly only in recent months, it has been festering for nearly a decade. A computerized search of NHTSA records by The Times has found Toyota issued eight previous recalls related to unintended acceleration since 2000, more than any other automaker.
A former Toyota lawyer who handled safety litigation has sued the automaker, accusing it of engaging in a "calculated conspiracy to prevent the disclosure of damaging evidence" as part of a scheme to "prevent evidence of its vehicles' structural shortcomings from becoming known" to plaintiffs lawyers, courts, NHTSA and the public.
In January, nearly six years after discovering the potential hazard, the automaker recalled 26,501 vans made with the old panel.
n 1994, NHTSA slapped Toyota with a $250,000 fine, at the time the agency's second-largest, for providing misleading information about a fuel leak in Land Cruisers and waiting two years to undertake a recall to fix the problem. Toyota acknowledged that it failed to conduct a timely recall but denied withholding information from the agency.
A decade later, Toyota recalled about 330,000 vehicles in Japan after a 2004 crash there -- caused by a broken steering linkage -- seriously injured five people. The vehicle in the accident, a Hilux Surf, was sold in the U.S. as the 4Runner. Other truck models sold here, including the Toyota 4x4 and T100 pickups, also used the same linkage, a steering relay rod.
Despite that, the company told NHTSA in an October 2004 letter that it would not conduct a U.S. recall because it had not received information here indicating a problem with the part.
Documents entered in four lawsuits filed in Los Angeles this year, however, show that Toyota had received numerous consumer complaints dating from 2000 and had replaced dozens of the parts under warranty. The documents also show that Japanese police, in an investigation of the defect, said that Toyota employees had known about the problem since 1992 and should have initiated a recall immediately.
In September 2005, Toyota recalled nearly 1 million vehicles in the U.S. to replace the part, its second-largest campaign.
Some sudden acceleration events do not result in a collision, but leave Toyota owners unwilling to drive a dangerous and defective vehicle. Some Toyota owners have received "lemon-vehicle" buybacks, but many are left with little recourse.
Some motorists who have confronted Toyota about safety issues say that Toyota has hidden information from them.
Nearly every car produced today contains an event data recorder to store at least several seconds of vital information, including vehicle speed, engine speed, brake pedal application, accelerator pedal application, etc. However, Toyota's data recorders are "extremely difficult" for non-Toyota personnel to read.
Toyota says it has only one device in the U.S. that can read the data. An operating manual for the device, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, indicates that it takes two passwords to operate.
So yes edmund2460, it sure does seem like Toyota has taken an "aggressive approach". I only wish it was for the consumer instead of their own reputation. :sick:
Some Toyota owners have received "lemon-vehicle" buybacks, but many are left with little recourse.
Some motorists who have confronted Toyota about safety issues say that Toyota has hidden information from them."
you know, the above sounds very lawyerly, and wouldn't stand a chance in front of an intelligent person.
But then, intelligence is in short supply in our society.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Toyota-Shows-How-Giants-usnews-3989832353.html?x=0- &.v=1
This article points out the history and potential ramifications of this current set of problems Toyota has. It appears that they have known about this acceleration problem for some time, but have just been ignoring it. Now, they are in panic mode, and have no ready fix for the problem.
I owned One Toyota...a new pickup back in the early '80's. It was an underpowered, rust bucket, Piece of S***! I quickly abandoned any desire to send my Auto Dollars to foreign countries, and have been quite pleased with my U.S. branded vehicles ever since.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Speaking for the first time since his company announced a massive recall involving millions of vehicles worldwide, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda offered an apology to all current Toyota customers. Toyota’s accelerator pedal-related recall now spans 4.2 million vehicles.
“I am deeply sorry,” Toyoda, the grandson of the automaker’s founder, told Japan’s NHK. Toyota’s massive recall sent shock waves through the industry late last week, followed by this week’s sales suspension. Toyota has halted sales and production of eight models.
Toyoda wouldn’t elaborate on when a solution for the recall might be available to customers and dealers, but did reassure the company was “still investigating” a viable fix. When asked how the recall might affect Toyota’s reputation for quality, Toyoda responded: “I would like for the people to trust us.”
Toyota has yet to officially address the public on the topic of the latest recall, but The Wall Street Journal reports the automaker will take out full-page newspaper ads in 25 cities next week to explain how they are handling the situation.
And therein lies the problem. It is very likely that not even Toyota is able to reliably duplicate the problem, and once they do find a way, if ever, to reliably duplicate the fix will be milliseconds away.
Speaking with having more than 40 years of trouble-shooting software bugs that only occur rarely and even worse only in rare conditions, sometimes extremely rare and narrowly specific conditions.
There are times in which the flaw cannot be reliably duplicated, EVER, in which case you have the software team rewrite the application from scratch. We had one several years ago that involved have a software subroutine being cached in an X86 processor's on chip cache memory. If our code happened to get stored into the cache within a certain specific address sequence it would not execute properly.
Odd, weird, things happen.
Nevertheless, Toyota spokesman Mike Michels is reported saying that the company's decision to stop selling the recalled vehicles was voluntary, but that they also had a legal requirement to do so. How do you voluntary do something that you're obligated to do?
Toyota was legally required to stop selling recalled models
Toyota responds to L.A. Times article