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Engine Hesitation (All makes/models)
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If the TC005-05 is applied for 2003 model, it would fail during calibration procedure (check figure. 2 in TSB).
Talk to my dealer, are you kidding me ? They do not know what they are talking about!
I'll probably wait until my 5K oil change.
RPM?
First I have 2500 kmh on the car, I run mobile 1 . The super unleaded here is 95oct. I mix with oct.booster. I,ve drained the tranny ,Disconnected the bat. for 3 hrs. to reset ecu.
Has a result, The car has better throttle responce, quicker selection time in tranny.
Still the car hessitated more then I want. :mad:
But yeah, when I'm driving around the parking lot, it hesitates, jerks, and the rpm needle is all over the place.
Very annoying.
The *fact* is, *some* owners have apparently experienced hesitation, and have reported it here and elsewhere.
The *fact* is, only a very small percentage of owners have experienced it.
It was discussed at length here at Edmunds by a group of regular posters-daily- until just recently, when interest seemed to wane. (Lack of interest?)
The number of regular posters in these discussions wasn't huge, only about a couple of dozen at the most.
Some were earnestly and objectively analyzing all possibilities.
On the other hand, a few seemed only interested in convincing themselves and everyone else that all Toyotas had (or eventually would have) the problem.
The *fact* is, the vast majority of owners have not had the problem.
Another *fact* is that Toyota has committed to ensuring those who report the problem get satisfaction--Toyota has committed to finding a fix for them.
In stating as you did, that " It is a well known fact there is a problem(s) with the DBW 5-speed auto V6 configuration", you are giving a wrong interpretation of the issue.
It is NOT a fact there are problems with ALL "DBW 5-speed auto V6 configuration."
Far from it.
Most owners don't have any problems at all.
in your absence there have been enough posters commenting on the behaviors in their vehicles (primarily toyota / lexus - sometimes in their specific forums) to allow someone to draw their own conclusions about the situation... now for example, if you look at the '05 mustang P+S forum, i think you'll find some postings there about hesitation, perhaps even in a honda forum amongst others. i don't think anyone has ever said this is a concern exclusively for toyota, but then the phenomenon isn't being reported in the same manner as it has been for the toyota / lexus vehicles.
the posters that were frequenting the forum while you were actively posting haven't lost interest or gone away - they are probably just waiting to see what Toyota does to back up their commitments to the user-base. several people have reported definite improvements in behavior post re-flash, but it is also true some have indicated their vehicles while improved, weren't "fixed" either.
i'm glad you're back. why don't you stay this time?
Seems to me that the hardest problem to fix is when there is more than one problem. In my review of the reported problems, it seems that some have overfilled transmissions, some have had solenoid faults, some drivers may have driving habits which include rather erratic throttle movements. And some drivers find themselves in nasty stop and go driving.
There is no way that any of us can quote statistics on percentage of problems. While I assume that most people either have no problem or adapt their driving to the car, it is clear that some folks have nasty problems that should be addressed by the manufacturer. I wish that there was a way to survey enough people to get some meaningful statistics. You would think that Consumer Reports or some other survey agency might have data on transmissions from these suspect brands/models.
Anyone have access to real statistical data ?
BetterSafe
I tried the same "lets get some real data" quite some time ago, and encouraged some of the more negative participants to do so.
Not many takers, altho' some did try.
Too many were looking for Toyota's head on a plate, and it became mostly a Toyota bashfest with all kinds of speculation, jumping to conclusions, and accusatory innuendo.
User 777--Not back. Only a short visit.
Just dropped in to set the record straight.
My "perspectives" were summarily dismissed a long time ago.
That's why I left.
I don't think anyone does. Maybe Toyota, but not sure if they compile complaints/problems noted at various dealerships. It is a significant enough problem (either in terms of #'s of complaints or seriousness of problem) that Toyota has acknowledged the existence and is trying to come up with a repair. Recent reports on the Lexus forums regarding the TSB look promising. Waiting to hear more from other models now that new TSBs are out.
"It is a well known fact that there is a problem(s) with the DBW 5-speed auto V6 configuration."
An absolutely TRUE and completely FACTUAL statement!
"It is NOT a fact that there are problems with ALL DBW 5-speed auto V6 configurations."
Note that the context changes entirely by adding the extremely miss-leading "ALL".
And at this time the final vote tallies are not in. My supposition at the moment is that the solenoid being used (inappropriately??) as a linear servomotor changes its positional charactoristics over time, wear, contamination, etc, and then owners start to encounter the problem(s).
It is true, as I said: "Most owners don't have any problems at all", and likely won't.
It is also true that the hesitation issue doesn't affect ALL 5 speed DBW, transmissions--Toyota's or any other manufacturer's, and likely won't..
One additional *fact* remains undisputed, that is: *Facts* are conspicuous by their absence, throughout this discussion.
Bettersafe's post says it best.
That's my take, like it or not.
G'day.
as for your supposition, many posters indicated the behaviors were there from the start, so the solenoid changing it's characteristics...i'm not sure. i do recall however people indicating they didn't notice the issue right away.
so it's possible the solenoids are outliers and fail to perform from the start, and also over-time. i think that the software sequencing also plays a role in this though.
Last of all is human nature....if we started talking about the problem of hearing a slight ringing in our ears, and we talked about it day after day, I'd bet we get other people wondering "You know, maybe I DO hear a slight ringing in there...."
None of these comments are meant to suggest that some people aren't really suffering with this---I feel sure that they are now (some months ago I wasn't so sure, but I think now the problem is real and transmission related--except when it is related to engine maintenance issues).
I am convinced about multiple problems reported here. And the words of WWEST seem to ring true. Solenoids can be faulty from the start, and they can age with usage....which are two different problems, and may be observed in different ways. Sad to say the aging of the solenoid and the "learning" algorithm of the software may interact as to confound the analysis. It is very likely that the software is designed to adapt to aging of the transmission components. It is likely to have logic to provide "limp-home" capability as components fail inside the transmission.
If we could get a techie to record the engine/transmission performance in a normal situation, and again in a "quirk" situation, then we have a better chance to get it resolved. In my line of software analysis (which is not automotive), this is the approach I would take to solve the problem. Techies need "hard" data. They test and test and test software under all sorts of condiions, but once the software is in the field, users are ALWAYS able to produce conditions that the techie never envisioned. This is just the nature of life.
In an ideal world, Toyota /Lexus folks who read this forum would contact a few owners who have frequent problems, and provide the recording computer for them to use for a week. The drivers would have to record the time of major "quirks". Then after a week the recording device could be returned to Toyota/Lexus for analysis. ANYONE LISTENING OUT THERE ???
BetterSafe (than sorry)
You stated that only "some owners" have experienced the problem. How do you know that is a fact? What about the owners that don't notice a major problem or decide to just put up with it? You state that only a small percentage of owners have reported the problem. Have you checked with all the dealerships worldwide? Of course not! Only about 25% of Camrys have the V6, and if you took the time to do an independent investigation, you would find every dealer has fielded concerns and complaints about the horrible shifting patterns of this car. Pilot130, you need to get all the facts before you jump to conclusions.
Instead, you merely took issue with and just dissed some of my comments.
It would be interesting to hear those *facts* you said you were going to give me.
Incidentally, speaking of "jumping to conclusions", your claim about every dealer having fielded concerns re the horrible shifting patterns seems to me to be a serious leap of faith in the jumping to conclusions department.
It's a no-win. Don't respond to posters that get personal. I'm glad to read your posts - they have consistently been the most fact-laden ones in the forum.
evidently no one has taken up the mission though. i don't have one of these vehicles, but if i did, i would have ponied up the $120 and would have provided a link to the data for all to see and discuss.
So you'd have to break the data down into "bites" that are easily digestible.
Editing to add: things were getting pretty quiet and dull around here lately. Thanks to Pilot for getting us going again!
I foresee one powerful chart would be something that would highlight the time delay between a change in throttle position and the change in engine fuel mixture. In non-DBW cars I would expect no time delay at all. Another chart would show how a change in throttle position creates a downshift. I would plot multiple occurrences of this, so that you see that this normally takes 0.x seconds but sometimes it takes z.z seconds.
These charts, if properly prepared can be very persuasive. If a downshift normally happens in 0.5 seconds, yet sometimes takes 3.0 seconds, then it can be safely argued that the car is acting unpredictably.
I do not have a seriously misbehaving vehicle, else I would buy the OBD recording computer. My 98 Explorer hesitates about once per 3 months. It is very un-nerving when this happens, because 99% of the time it happens when I am trying to pull out into traffic from a side road. There is serious "sphincter factor" when you start to enter a busy traffic lane, your vehicle is blocking the lane of traffic, and then your car seems to die for 2-3 seconds. Several times I thought an accident was imminent, however, my angels must have worked to get the 5.0 V8 back to life in the nick of time.
In an ideal world the "ideal" manufacturer would want to know what the underlying details are, and they would provide the equipment, software, and personnel (if necessary) to find out what is causing the problem. They would willingly do this as part of a continuous improvement process, and as part of good customer relations. Aside: I can understand that Toyota would not want to retrofit every car made in the past, but I can see no reason why they do not want to fix the problem in future cars. To fix the problem, they have to understand the problem, and to understand the problem they need the objective data.
Sorry for giving you a lecture, but I am a bit of an idealist. . . . .
Toyotas position was that they are aware that the problem exists but it does not effect the value or safety of the vehicle. It's just an inconvenience that effects some people. They never denied the problem existed and Toyota even used the word problem repeatedly. My arbitrator was a vary nice older lady who did not even have a drivers license (I am not making this up). The argument with Toyota was solely on how bad it was, not if it existed. I lost.
The sad thing for Toyota is that we are now in the market for an SUV for my wife and before my Camry problems the Highlander would have topped the list.
http://www.obd-2.com/
and specifically, with respect to the parameters it can collect:
http://www.obd-2.com/toypida.htm
most of you know how to hook a computer to a printer. this wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
the author / designer indicates on the web site that ordering is closed from June 20th through July 12th.
email is shown on the web-site to ask specific questions.
I'm not endorsing this product - but if I had your problems with my vehicle, I'd capture some quantitative data and plot it up in Excel as people had suggested.
Some have said the manufacturer recognizes the issue. So much the better.
Now as for it representing a safety concern - I'd leverage the Human Factors / Usability angle. I might have to consult an expert in the field for independant credibility - what's published in the public domain w.r.t. this area of expertise and the automotive domain (as opposed to aviation domain) seems hard to come by => but that would not stop me.
I would never allow an arbitrator or a manufacturer representative to assert without a counter, that it didn't constitute a safety issue.
In my case, my wife and I have become more cautious drivers, which is good. I was driving from Iowa to Arizona two weeks ago. On a particularly beautiful day when I was coming to the end of 500 miles, I pulled off of I-40, turned onto I-17 at Flagstaff, and then pulled off to exit onto 89A to go to Sedona. The Ford had run perfectly for 1400 miles. To get onto 89A I had to stop and then do a left turn. Attempting to squeeze into the busy traffic the Ford did its hesitation thing, in the middle of the intersection. I was sure I was going to be the middle of an dual accident report, crunched from both sides. The angels went to work and much to my surprise I got out of the intersection without any screeching metal.
Do I think this is a safety issue? You Bet. It may also lower my cleaning bill.
Offer to donate the $120 OBD-II recorder to the school if they would work to discover "proof" of the problem. The school would hook up the instrument, you drive the car for a week, and then return the data analyzer to the school.
+++++++++++++++++++
If Toyota admits to a problem, but not to the severity/impact of the problem,,,,, this points to the even greater need for objective data that you can present for laymen. Hesitation to throttle for 0.5 seconds can be seen as significantly different from hesitation for 3.0 seconds. You could compute that approaching traffic travels XX feet per second at a specified MPH, so a 3 second delay computes into 3 times XX feet.
Getting real-time data (, i.e, getting data samples several times each second with distinct time tags) is essential for this analysis. For people who have not been in a hesitating vehicle, a slight hesitation delay may not seem significant. We need to move the discussion from subjective terms to objective terms.
"Loss of use" and "loss of value" and "comparable behavior of like vehicles" are much better areas for your limited time in an arbitration IMO.
Perhaps a lawyer could organize our thoughts/opinions into more of a persuasive argument. I think objective data on the time delays is a step in the right direction. It is clear to me that hesitation is a safety issue.
If this is Toyota's position, then there is no question about making the safety hazard argument. Somehow you need to document the situations when hesitation occurs and it is clearly a safety concern.
Not sure how to go about the value part. Maybe a certified letter from an appraiser stating how they believe the problem affects value?
My point is that you may not have a choice. Good luck.
For the "compared to other cars" argument you could list number of complaints and type of complaints on a certain website vis a vis your Toyota?Lexus and a directly competing make. You might also present anecdotal evidence about driving a competitor's car and how it behaved. Possibly if you were real ambitious you could videotape yourself during the hesitation (well I mean a friend could videotape you)...very .tricky to make convincing. but you might get lucky and it would demonstrate your desire to offer proof.
For the safety argument you have nothing that I can think of in the way of evidence since you didn't have an accident.
The fact that a person's car has not yet been in an accident, is one level of determination. The assertion that the car places a person into higher risk is a different level.
I wonder if you could get State Farm or Allstate involved in this. They have the lawyers, and investigators to make something happen.
I think a 2-3 second delay in getting the vehicle out of a dangerous position represents real RISK. If the big insurance companies knew about this, they would raise the premiums on these cars.
I can't get to your link..it doesn't open.
Is there another way to see the new TSB for the V6 engine??
Thx, Buick72
I can't recall, do you even own a Lexus?
autos used to be fairly simple things (relative) and lacking the automation of say the modern passenger airliner with it's glass cockpit. the aviation domain offers a seemingly ripe environment to examine the gulfs in interaction between human and machine - if one reviews the HF literature, you'll find a good bit of material related to the aviation or industrial domains...and seemingly nothing in the automotive domain.
with the increased complexity and automation of systems being applied in the automotive domain, i suspect and predict we will see new interest generated in the application of this expertise to something we are more familiar with... we are now piloting our own glass-cockpits aren't we?
if you survey the forums, problems generally unheard of in the past are now affecting drivers, including everything from nusance alarming to complete system shutdown without warning.
we've got manufacturers rolling out software patches to functions which arguably were insufficiently tested before being fielded.
any rational person concludes, without being told so by others - that while our safety is being enhanced through the application of some of this technology, the downside is that it is also being compromised when the technology does not perform as designed and support our role as driver. in some cases, our authority is being usurped.
we've got people being told they must adapt their driving style and all their in-grained cause and effect (and natural) learning to the way the car functions...
that is a clear tell-tale sign the system is not designed and performing properly... it does not support the human properly in the task of driving.
i personally need no one asserting this does not represent a safety issue. it is fundamentally a safety issue for this driver - i would personally not purchase, drive, nor let a family member purchase or drive a vehicle with these behaviors.
Maybe "hesitation" is not the best word to use when describing this problem. Hesitation sounds like what we do, getting out of bed in the morning, after a sleepless night. If my Explorer was merely slugish, things would not be bad. The key point to me is that when the problem occurs, the Explorer eagerly begins to move, it eagerly places me into a lane of oncoming traffic, and then it decides to play dead for 2 seconds. It is more of a cardiac arrest situation. ( -hmm- now that I talk about it, it almost seems that the g-force of the acceleration, teemed with the act of a hard turn left or right may be causing an electrical connection to temporarily disconnect which could cause the engine to forget what it is suppose to tbe doing.... Maybe I have an electrical wiring problem ???)
Back to the subject: The word "hesitation" produces images of molasses. It does not convey the dynamics of the situations described in this forum,,, such as merging onto a busy highway, after slowing down to make a curve. It does not convey the sense of danger, the sense of how time changes when you see oncoming traffic charging directly at you.
Does anyone have a better word choice?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The more that I describe this problem, the more I think my Explorer has a wiring problem. I have lived with this problem for 126,000 miles, 7 years, and now, with inspiration from this forum, I think I have something to go and work on. I think I will go and wiggle some wires to recreate the problem. Thanks!