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Comments
On the whole, computers are extremely reliable. Much more so than human beings.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
It is not that complicated. Mr. Sikes is a big fat LIAR. He is probably in full panic mode about now as he has been found out. I expect to hear a full confession from him any day now. If not, Toyota should make an example of him !!
Yeah, but his creativity and imagination help him makes great movies.
Have you heard of his next one? It's called:
Unintended Insemination
ba-dump-PAH!
Does ANYONE still believe his story at this point?
If you're *that* gullible, I'd like to ask if I can interest you in a purchase of the Brooklyn Bridge. Cheap! :P
My son and I have not had any acceleration problems with any of our Toyotas, and very few other problems.
I did not read that in the test article. That is a supposition by a Toyota faithful. Last I read from Toyota they are baffled and do not have ANY explanation. I would imagine that whole business of 250 hits on the accelerator started here by one of the FanBoys.
USA Today writes that Toyota found the following:
* The accelerator pedal is operating normally.
* The push button start/stop button shut down the car when it was depressed continuously for three seconds as it was designed to do.
* The neutral position on the transmission is clearly marked with a big N.
* There were no trouble codes in the car's computer.
* The car is designed in a way that the brake pedal and accelerator can't work at the same time.
Toyota, however, did not call Sikes a liar. “Though asked repeatedly if they had concluded that Sykes was lying, representatives for Toyota insisted that was not their judgment to make and they could only say that the investigation's findings were not consistent with the scenario that Sikes describes,” writes Autoblog.
It’s not clear what the consequences will be for Sikes if it is deemed that he lied about the ordeal. For Toyota, however, it remains a PR nightmare.
No evidence that Sikes lied. Only NO TROUBLE FOUND by Toyota. Same as any other car brought in on UA. Nice try to inject a bunch of FanBoy Fantasies into the debate.
I did not read that in the test article.
I believe the Niedermeyer article was written before the Toyota press release, which is when the 250 brake and gas pedal applications were mentioned.
OF COURSE Toyota isn't going to call Sikes a liar. Let the facts speak for themselves.
Remember what happened to the Audi of America executive who said "Americans don't know how to drive?"
Now to say something kind about the competition: I test drove a Genesis yesterday. Hyundai has the start/stop button nailed: Press it for about 1 second to shut the engine down when the car is moving OR stab the button 3 times. This way someone in a panic should be able to do at least one of these actions. And it's really easy to put the gearshift into neutral without engaging reverse.
No I'm not buying: the almost $42,000 MSRP is too rich for my blood.
Just looking at this a.m.'s newspaper in Toyota ads, for a Corolla as an example.....$1,000 off, right now. $500 more if you're a current Toyota owner. Military, recent college grad, etc, gets another $1,000 off on top of all that.
We recently had a car show in my 'burg about a month ago. Now, you aren't supposed to be able to talk price, but the Toyota dealer that was manning the booth didn't care. He showed me a Corolla LE with A/C, power everything, automatic, cruise, etc. He said he'd sell it for $14K. This was an $18K MSRP Corolla. He had another price on a Camry LE equipped the same way. MSRP of ~$22K. Sale price $18K for a decently equipped Camry.
You can't even get a stripped down Taurus for that kind of money.
Point being, Toyota is trying to buy their marketshare back again. Some won't care about their issues and only see the bargain price. 3-4 years from now, when they try to trade it in, they're not going to be very happy, however as those prices will dilute Toyota's resale values.
Actually it was another poster that put the 250 number with hitting the accel/brake. It was his fantasy about Sikes and the runaway Prius. I have not read any account from the experts that mentioned any such evidence from the Prius data recorder or ECU. As far as the WSJ. There report had tabloid written all over it. The posters I consider FanBoys don't even own or have not owned a Toyota. I do think you post articles with unsubstantiated data just as all of us do from time to time. I think the posting I was referring to was just such a posting.
So the fact is that the error is removed on reboot.
So where does that leave Toyota? or Sikes?
I'm sure they Hyundai dealer would make you an attractive offer being that you would be trading two camrys and a prius towards that Genesis.
QUESTION: And is it consistent with the amount of time he says that he was having problems?
WALTZ: Yes. And it also -- not to interrupt you, but the data that we were able to measure off of the vehicle indicates that the brakes were applied possibly 250 times during that particular ride.
SANCHEZ: But it -- can this -- can this be definitive that Toyota's wrong and Mr. Jim Sikes is -- pardon me, that Toyota is right and Jim Sikes is wrong? Or does it even matter? Does it have to be definitive?
NEWMAN: I don't think it can be definitive because each side is basically trying to prove a negative at this point. Toyota has to prove there was not a problem, a defect in the car and that's almost impossible to do. And now the driver, Mr. Sikes, has to prove that he was not faking it.
So this is really a matter of where opinion fall? That's really what matters here.
http://www.pddnet.com/news-ap-toyota-disputes-runaway-prius-claim-health-cares--- 031610/
Toyota says brakes were applied multiple times, not back and forth as some here have speculated.
The fact that the Prius computer recorded 250 alternating accelerator and brake presses, tells us 100% this is a fraud.
This is what Toyota person stated:
WALTZ: Yes. And it also -- not to interrupt you, but the data that we were able to measure off of the vehicle indicates that the brakes were applied possibly 250 times during that particular ride.
I would not want to say without a doubt that Sikes is a straight shooter. He does have a somewhat shady background for sure. I just don't think the Prius operated as it is supposed to operate.
No Gary, the above is exactly what you said. It is your quote. Own it. You will feel better.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Then last week, Californian James Sikes claimed that he drove his Prius for 34 miles as it accelerated to more than 90 miles per hour despite trying to brake it. A media firestorm erupted, but a week later neither federal investigators nor Toyota technicians have been able to reproduce what Sikes claims had happened. An independent check by the automotive publication Edmunds.com also found that applying the brakes or putting the car in neutral will bring a Prius to a halt. Further doubt has been cast on Sikes’ account after an onboard self-diagnostic system revealed that the brakes and the accelerator on his Prius had been alternately pumped 250 times during the alleged runaway event.
Comparing the 2010 Malibu with the 2010 Camry will debunk the myth that it is a necessary evil that vehicles with on board computer will behave erratically in speed control for some time due to the time it takes for the computer to learn the driving habit of the driver if we want to save some gas.
2010 Chevrolet Malibu
City MPG: 22
Highway MPG: 30-33
Number of complaints with VIN related speed control on NHTSA: 1 (Actually the complaint was only about engine rattling, nothing to do with speed control.)
Number of complaints without VIN related speed control on NHTSA: 0
2010 Toyota Camry
City MPG: 19-22
Highway MPG: 28-33
Number of complaints with VIN related to speed control on NHTSA: 48 (Many of them related to sudden unintended acceleration)
Number of complaints without VIN related to speed control on NHTSA: 7
You can see that even though the 2010 Chevrolet Malibu has better MPG than the 2010 Toyota Camry, it does not have a cranky and unreliable computer that the 2010 Toyota Camry has that is hyped to be able to learn the driving habit of the driver in order to save some gas.
Those Toyota engineers need to understand that it only make sense for personal computers to be personalized for efficiency with a learning period because no bodily injuries would arise for another person authorized to use the same computer even though it may take time for another user to learn to use it efficiently. However, it would be a very stupid idea for Toyota engineers to design a vehicle with an on board computer that needs to learn the driving habit of the driver with an unreliable learning period in order to save some gas. In many families, both the husband and wife would use the same car, so it doesn't make sense to design a vehicle with a computer that would behave erratically and sometimes dangerously during the learning period just to save some gas.
As the 2010 Chevrolet Malibu also uses drive by wire technology with an on board computer and it has better MPG than the 2010 Toyota Camry but it does not have the sudden unintended acceleration problem that is plaguing the 2010 Toyota Camry, so it is obvious that Toyota's on board computer is a faulty one that screws up occasionally while “learning the driving habit of the driver” or even screws up real bad after the learning period instead of being a more advanced computer that the Toyota dealers try to convince complaining customers it is.
So no more crappy explanation from Toyota dealers like “THE COMPUTER WAS SET TO THE DRIVING HABITS OF THE DRIVER AND HER INCONSISTENT DRIVING BEHAVIOR "CONFUSED" THE COMPUTER."
Why can’t Toyota designs computers that don’t get confused?- like the reliable one on 2010 Chevrolet Malibu that does not cause Sudden Unintended Acceleration.
In your case it's a very simple solution. Just buy the Malibu and don't worry about it.
A Toyota spokesperson in a brief comment to Freep.com said that Toyota's protections against extraterrestrial EMI were "robust against this type of interference" and that its vehicles featured "absolute reliability".
Honey, was that a Prius or a Santa Fe that just passed us at 100 mph with the brakes on fire?
...an onboard self-diagnostic system revealed that the brakes and the accelerator on his Prius had been alternately pumped 250 times during the alleged runaway event."
As reported by EDMUNDS
“Toyota revealed that the brakes had been applied some 250 times during the episode. At the speed and distance reported, that’s an average of once every four seconds,” noted Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing at Edmunds.com Inc. “Generally speaking, it is possible to push on the brake lightly and not engage the brake override system. But that type of braking is inconsistent with someone wanting to stop in an emergency situation.”
InsideLine.com conducted its own testing with a 2004 Toyota Prius, the same generation vehicle as the one in San Diego. More information about Edmunds.com’s test may be found in “2004 Toyota Prius: Three Ways to Deal with a Stuck Throttle” at http://blogs.insideline.com/roadtests/2010/03/2004-toyota-prius-three-ways-to-de- al-with-a-stuck-throttle.html.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
why does it record how many times the brakes were applied?
why would that be a priority of the ECU storage history?
to me, neither side seems credible.
Does that prove Mr. Sikes lied about his Prius accelerated out of control? Not at all.
On the contrary, the fact that the CHP officer witnessed Mr. Sikes speeding Prius has the brake lights on and smelled the brakes of the Prius burning due to intense braking and the fact that the investigators found the front brake pads are worn down to nothing and the rear brake pads are worn down to only 0.02 inch thin prove that Mr. Sikes' Prius malfunctioned during the incident because Toyota says the Prius has an override system that prevents the Prius from having power for acceleration when the gas pedal and brake pedal are pressed at the same time.
So with a stuck gas pedal propelling Mr. Sikes' Prius up to 94 mph and the obvious fact that Mr. Sikes stepped heavily on the brake pedal causing the brakes to smoke, the override system was supposed to kick in to kill the power to the engine. But that did not happen because the override system malfunctioned.
The fact that Toyota and NHTSA investigators found the override system work during test drives of the Prius after the incident only proves that the override system malfunction was not permanent but temporary- just like some home computer glitches that come and go without apparent reason.
The following case of complaint on the NHTSA site shows that a stuck gas pedal on Prius was experienced not by Mr. Sikes only.
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/complaints/
Complaint Number:10304345 VIN : JTDKB20U977...
ON OCTOBER 19, 2009 I WAS DRIVING SOUTH BOUND ON THE I-5 WHEN THE GAS PEDAL ON MY 2007 TOYOTA PRIUS GOT STUCK AND IT WASN'T THE FLOOR MAT. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE A FLOOR MAT IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE MAJOR PROBLEM IS ON THE PRIUS THE PUSH START BUTTON FAILED SO YOU COULDN'T TURN OF THE VEHICLE AND WHEN YOU TRIED TO PUT IT IN NEUTRAL IT WOULD FAIL (NOT SURE WHY), I AM ASSUMING DO THE SPEED YOU ARE GOING THE COMPUTER DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO PUT IT NEUTRAL OR TURN IT OFF. *TR
Another complaint shows that the override system on the Prius may fail to stop the car from accelerating by stepping on the brake.
Complaint Number: 10298480 VIN : JTDKB20U473...
ON 11/29/09 IN THE AFTERNOON AS I WAS PULLING INTO A PARKING SLOT IN A TRADER JOE'S PARKING LOT, MY 2007 TOYOTA PRIUS SUDDENLY ACCELERATED FORWARD OVER A CURB, ACROSS A CROSSWALK AND CAME TO REST AGAINST A TREE. SPACE COVERED BY THE CAR FROM ACCELERATION TO THE TREE WAS ABOUT 20-25 FEET. WITNESSES ATTEST THAT I WAS USING MY BRAKE AS THEY SAW THE LIGHTS. I DID NOT HAVE TIME TO ATTEMPT TO SHIFT THE CAR TO "NEUTRAL." THE FLOORMATS WERE NOT INTERFERING WITH THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL (I HAVE PICTURES) AND THE FLOOR MATS WERE HOOKED DOWN. FORTUNATELY NO ONE WAS HURT INCLUDING ME. THERE WAS SLIGHT DAMAGE TO THE FRONT DRIVERS SIDE BUMPER OF AN EMPTY CAR PARKED FACING ME. THERE WAS SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE FRONT OF MY PRIUS. AS I STATED, THERE WERE TWO WITNESSES WHO GAVE ME THEIR CONTACT INFORMATION AND SAID THEY WOULD BE WILLING TO TESTIFY FOR ME IF NECESSARY. THERE WAS A TRADER JOE WORKER WHO CALLED A TOW TRUCK. THE DRIVER OF THE OTHER VEHICLE WITH THE MINIMAL DAMAGE WAS QUITE UPSET AND CALLED THE POLICE WHO CAME AND WROTE A REPORT. MY CAR HAS NEVER SUDDENLY ACCELERATED BEFORE - THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME. THE CAR WAS TOWED TO HOOMAN TOYOTA IN LONG BEACH. IN RESPONSE TO MY COMPLAINTS TO TOYOTA, A REGIONAL TEAM WAS SENT TO EVALUATE THE ACCELERATOR MECHANISM. THE CAR IS CURRENTLY BEING REPAIRED HOWEVER TOYOTA HAS NOT BEEN IN TOUCH WITH ME TO TELL ME THEIR FINDINGS. TOYOTA'S BEHAVIOR TO MY COMPLAINTS OF SAFETY ISSUES HAS BEEN TO TELL ME THAT THE ONLY PROBLEM THEY HAVE IS FLOORMATS AND THAT MY PROBLEM HAS NEVER BEEN REPORTED BEFORE. THEIR IMPLICATION IS THAT I WAS AT ERROR. MY INSURANCE COMPANY STATE FARM INITIALLY HELD ME RESPONSIBLE FOR NOT CONTROLLING THE VEHICLE. WHEN I REFUSED THIS DECISION, SF DID MORE RESEARCH AND CHANGED THEIR RULING TO FIND FAULT WITH TOYOTA AND WILL TRY TO GET REIMBURSED FOR REPAIR COSTS AND MY DEDUCTIBLE. I EXPECT MY CAR TO BE READY NEXT WEEK AND AM DEEPLY CONCERNED THAT THE PROBLEM WILL NOT BE FIXED. *TR
(Note: Bold types mine)
So Edmunds.com found that applying the brakes or putting the car in neutral will bring a Prius to a halt. That is only a way for a driver to save his and other people's lives when the Prius is having sudden unintended acceleration- a way that many drivers still do not know or afraid to shift to neutral at high speed. It is not a proof that the Prius Mr. Sikes was driving during the SUA incident did not malfunction.
So the onboard self-diagnostic system revealed that the brakes and the accelerator on his Prius had been alternately "pumped" 250 times during the incident. So what?
First of all, with a stuck gas pedal, every time the driver repeatedly step hard on the brake, the self-diagnostic system may register changing acceleration as pumping of the gas pedal and the go and stop in that trip before the SUD happened may have been included as well. Second, it is also not uncommon for the driver on the freeway in a vehicle with a stuck gas pedal to pump the gas pedal from time to time to see if it can be unstuck. In fact Complaint Number:10303507 VIN : JTDKB20U277... shows that a driver in a Prius with SUD on the freeway did exactly that to free the stuck gas pedal or jar the malfunction throttle back to normal. In the drivers own word: "I KEPT HITTING THE BRAKES AGAIN, AND ALSO PUMPED THE ACCELERATOR TO MAKE SURE IT WASN'T STUCK AND THEN THE CAR STOPPED ACCELERATING."
So all you Toyota lackeys out there need to wise up and stop making deceptive lies and innuendos against a victim of defective Toyota product and blatant cover up just because he happens to be having financial woes that makes him vulnerable to become another scapegoat of Toyota corporate crime.
Being fully on the side of the consumer in this whole fiasco it would make no sense for me to Spin the evidence that Toyota supposedly has to favor the corporate giant against US little people.
Sounds like they can do it, when it might favor their position. But, when it doesn't?
To quote Mr Letnz, Mr Inaba, and Mr Toyoda..."I don't know."
Did the CHP say that the brake light was on, or remained on for an extended period. I recall the former, not the latter.
The CHP raced along side, so it's not like he was behind the Prius for a long time. I bet it was only a few seconds.
I can't believe people believe anything that Toyota says. It takes more faith to believe in Toyota being honest than to believe in Leprechauns, tooth fairies and Santa Claus.
Sikes has a dicey past and present for sure. I would put more weight on the CHP testimony than the so called experts from Toyota, NHTSA and the media.
Sikes claims he stepped on the gas to pass someone right about Flinn Springs and the car just kept accelerating after he let off the gas. That is exactly where the high voltage power lines cross the Freeway. Has Toyota gone there and tried the same thing in the same spot? That would be the first place to start if Toyota is interested in finding their gremlins. We know from past NHTSA testing that Toyota ECUs were susceptible to EMF.
Like I said earlier, Toyota had some pretty strong incentives in place in January before the media blitz over SUA. I know, because I purchased a 2010 Camry SE on January 8 and got $4k off of the MSRP.
Not worth arguing beyond this point.
I don't believe his story, and didn't from the first time that I saw him on TV.
But I do believe that there may have been other cases of SUA or UA that are computer related. Just somebody (Toyota, NHSTA, Independent Lab or whoever) please prove this to be absolutely true or not true.
I am leaning toward "not true", but that is just pure speculation on my part.
Even if you believe they are guilty, heck let's assume they are.
For the rest of this post, let's just assume that UA on Toyotas is fact.
They would have a finite amount of settlement they can pay out to true victims. Now look at Sikes as a THIEF who is stealing from the pool of money that rightfully belongs to actual, real victims.
Let's summarize Sikes' case, dicey is an understatement:
* three quarters of a million dollars in debt (motive)
* owes on a Prius and see an opening to get a free car
* "a history of items in his possession being stolen and him filing for insurance claims"
* owned and operated a web site called AdultSwingLife.com (nice ethics)
* neighbors say he's in porn as well
* Corvette Owners Club of San Diego member claims neutral would "flip the car"?
* talks to 911 forever, yet cannot hear the command to take it out of gear
* 250 brake-throttle cycles in one trip
* NHTSA says with brake pedal down his car slowed in tests
* WSJ says "Prius also did not show wear consistent with having been applied at full force at high speeds for a long period"
* WSJ also said "brakes may have been applied intermittently"
OK, now put all that together.
If it walks like a duck.
And it quacks like a duck.
And it swims like a duck.
Heck, it has duck feathers.
It laid an egg and another duck was born.
DNA tests confirm it's a duck.
We cooked it, and it TASTED like duck.
Folks, IT IS A DUCK!
Case closed, one guy lied, move on and focus resources on potential victims who did not lie.
So where does that leave Toyota? or Sikes?
I'm sure they Hyundai dealer would make you an attractive offer being that you would be trading two camrys and a prius towards that Genesis
Is everyone forgetting that the NHTSA and a congressional staffer were also present to investigate Sikes' car? Seems like the assumption is only Toyota had their hands on the car.
About trading, that'll be the day! Kind of hard to do when the Prius is 350 miles away in NYC and I'm not about to start making car payments again.
Now their recorders can store data for 30 minutes of inputs? Amazing.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My older Camrys are under NO recall at this time.
Whether it's safe or not to drive the Prius, his only car, is a matter of risk assessment. Every day, about 93 people on average are killed on US highways, based on estimated 2009 figures. No one here has given an estimate higher than 52 for the number of deaths alleged to have been caused by Toyota sudden acceleration over a 10-year period.
Logically if someone is so scared to drive because of the supposed Toyota problem, that person shouldn't be driving at all (or taking the bus, or even walking in the vicinity of vehicles)! Just stay home and don't fall down the stairs!
why does it record how many times the brakes were applied?
why would that be a priority of the ECU storage history?
Teacher used to say, "you didn't finish your reading assignment." The computer in question has nothing to do with the event data recorder (EDR) or engine control unit (ECU). This is a computer unique to Toyota's hybrids, called something like the "hybrid control computer" and doesn't have the problem of not being easily read or having only a very limited memory.
The CHP officer never stated the brake lights were on constantly and steadily that I've heard of. He did state he smelled burned brakes, so what?
But that was not the driving pattern of Mr. Sikes observed by the CHP officer driving along the Prius in an effort to help him stop the vehicle. '
Unfortunately, the CHP officer drove along and behind Sikes for only a small percentage of the duration of the "event." The vast majority of time before the CHP officer got there or was along side him renders the CHP officer useless as to those portions of the event.
Also, the Prius' brakes were likely very worn before the whole incident and BALLOON BOY HoAX 2 program started.
That would have been suicide, not a hoax.
Is Sikes dead? The answer, no. Correction, not suicide, then it is Hoax by your own definition and logic. You too, know it's a hoax, since there was no suicide and Sikes is very much alive today.
Looks like Teacher found another pupil who didn't finish his reading assignment. See my above post.
Also, when people complain on the NHTSA site, you don't have to provide a VIN or contact e-mail or phone no. You don't even have to provide your real name, just like on Edmunds! How is NHTSA or Toyota supposed to follow up in cases where the vehicle can't be located, let alone inspected?
You mention lawsuits, but the hybrid controller computer (which has nothing to do with the EDR or "black box") doesn't have infinite storage space. So if the car continued to be driven long after an incident, that data will eventually be overwritten. This was not true in Sikes' case, because the car was flat-bedded directly to Toyota and NHTSA investigators. And Ms. Smith didn't own a hybrid Toyota (rather a Lexus ES350), so this computer wasn't present in her car.
Let me put a light bulb into your head.
If the brake pads were .03 inch the day before the incident, and .02 after the incident, would your whole belief system be shattered?