"Smart pedals" feh! Just another cost added to already too expensive cars. Imagine what a horrible monster a horse would be if the government forced genetic engineers to require "safety features" spliced into equine DNA! :surprise:
When I come home from NE Pennsylvania after visiting family, there's a long steep mountain that actually has runaway truck ramps at a slight upgrade with piles of gravel. I shift my car into a lower gear to save the brakes when going down this hill.
Maybe on an older vehicle, but I remember andre1969 posting that there was a rev-limiter in his 2000 Intrepid to keep the engine from self-destructing in such a situation. Under a situation as faced by the CHP officer, I'd rather kill the engine or transmission rather than myself and my family!
if the government forced genetic engineers to require "safety features" spliced into equine DNA
Horses have been bred for, I dunno, centuries? They've been bred for a lot of qualities, including gentleness (i.e., safety). You want that Mustang to be a well behaved pony and not Pinto on you, don't you?
Smart pedals should not be a high dollar option. Just a bit of code written into the ECU to shut down the throttle when the brakes are applied at speed. VW/Audi has had it since 2001. Probably as a result of their runaway problems.
I read in the LA Times about all of the disregarded reports of Toyota acceleration. It seems weird that there are those many incidents attributed to floor mats. I have to wonder if their peddle linkage or electronic interface has a problem? I also wonder about the cruise control?
Again no independent reputable agency of any kind has found any substantiation for unintended acceleration in these reports. To me that speaks most loudly. All these reports have one vector. They come from the operators but no one can verify any of them.
Yeah, driver error may well be the issue, I think it was on Audi. However, I don't find Toyota peddles that close to each other and why the focus on one company? Then again, when media starts flying people can get a little nuts or paranoid I suppose.
Maybe while the code is being rewritten (if in fact it is that simple), they should add this little extra bit of safety (controversial among enthusiasts I'm sure): Limit the top speed of the car to 85 or 90 mph.
The highest speed limit in the US (and Canada I think) is 80 mph on about 500 miles of I-10 and I-20 in west Texas and on 2 stretches of I-15 in Utah.
Why does any car in today's traffic need to go above 90 mph? If you say you need reserve power at 80 mph to get out of a jam, I'd find that hard to believe.
More like millennia of breeding for horses. The Mongolians were selecting horses for breeding that would be the best for archers to use or the fastest runners thousands of years ago.
A friend of my wife's is big into horses. They have several including one that can trace its ancestry back to the big French warhorses in the middle ages that were bred for huge size. They had to be very big to hold not just the armored knight but the armor of the horses as well. This horse is enormous before it was even full grown, less then two years old it was already a good foot taller then me at the shoulder and is supposed to grow another foot or more. Only horses I have ever seen that were bigger are clydesdales and they weren't that much bigger.
Interesting and I don't doubt your knowledge on this, but I'll let someone else actually test the rev limiting functionality.
Well, the other day, on a whim, I tried it on my 2000 Intrepid, on the way to work. On a back road, I stomped on it, and once I got up to around 50 mph I threw it into neutral, with my foot still on the gas. The revs had been climbing, and were around 4,000 rpm when I shifted to neutral. Once in neutral, it cut back a bit, to around 3800.
Also, I think most modern automatics are designed so that they're impossible to redline. FWIW, redline on my Intrepid is around 6500 rpm. If I stomp on it, usually it upshifts at around 6,000-6100 rpm. And even if you try to manually hold shift into the lower gears, it will upshift on its own. Plus, there isn't a place on the gearshift for 1st gear, so the lowest you can ever downshift to is second.
It's not just one company (Toyota) or two (counting Audi from the 80s). Here's a quote from the self-styled expert, Sean Kane, who runs Safety Research and Strategies, Inc.
Manufacturers may deny SUA [sudden unintended acceleration] exists, NHTSA may declare that it isn’t worth its time to thoroughly investigate these incidents, but consumers continue to lodge complaints about sudden unintended acceleration – and they can’t all be little old ladies in the first stages of dementia. The complaints data show clearly that some manufacturers and some vehicles are outliers, with significantly more complaints than their peers. In the last 10 years, the agency has collected some 24,000 consumer complaints (source: www.VSIRC.com). When these complaints are sorted by manufacturer and vehicle and charted, the vast majority of automakers flat-line at the bottom. The trendline of complaints for four manufacturers—Ford, GM, Chrysler, and Toyota, however, float above their peers with occasional spikes, leading one to conclude that either these manufacturers have a problem, or the most confused consumers gravitate to their vehicles.
Could the 4 cited manufacturers "float above their peers" because they happened to sell the most vehicles in the US until very recently? Kane doesn't say anything about a complaint rate.
Full link here (caution: tiny white font on a black background -- get out your reading glasses).
I used the upslope because I did not want to gain speed far about the 65 mph speed limit and attract the attention of one of our Ohio State Patrol officers. Blue and red are not my colors.
My intent, which most on here probably understand, was to see how much the brakes fad at full throttle in a lower gear with some time to apply the brakes if vacuum assist was totally lost.
I still had braking fairly easily after using the brakes on and off for several seconds after the power assist was depleted from the reservoir. It would have stopped the car against the motor in 2nd on a downslope.
The officer's ride was not completely downslope; it was a downslope at the end if I recall correctly. Otherwise he would have been below sea level always traveling downhill.
I cannot believe someone panicking (as I would) over not being able to turn off the "missing key" nor to get the car in neutral wouldn't have stood on the brakes hard at the beginning. Long before driving 2-3 minutes heating up rotors. Long before heating of brake fluid. And I'm sure he was much stronger than I am since he was a working officer.
What about the emergency brake--it doesn't use hydraulic fluid. Wouldn't someone press the emergency brake?
Frankly, it just doesn't add up here. Sweeping the problem under the mat as the sole problem just doesn't pass the test. As Judge Judy says if it doesn't sound right then it's not the way it happened.
Most people call it the parking brake now. I'm not sure how effective the "emergency" brake really is at stopping a moving vehicle going at highway speeds.
My owner's manual talks about setting the parking brake when starting the van or putting it in park. There's a whole chapter called "In Case of Emergency" and it just talks about overheating, flashers, the fuel inertia switch and flats. Nothing about the brakes.
I have used the parking brake nee "emergency brake" from speed just to see if they will work. Both do on drum brake rears and on the disc brake rears of my cars.
I find that distinction an interesting one. Overly vigorous application could cause both rears to lock up on my cars which would lead to a twist sideways or spin if the brakes weren't released to maintain some traction. But I found it easy to make a stop.
With everyone in here testing shifting in neutral and jamming on the "e-brake" on the highway, we may wind up with our own batch of carnage. Y'all be careful out there.
I have also practiced using just the parking brakes on just about all of the cars I've ever owned, and I can report that they don't have anywhere near the stopping power of the service brakes. First, parking brakes are cable-actuated and activate only the rear brakes of most cars, just like those of a Ford Model A back in the day. Second, the front brakes do most of the work in a hard stop because of forward weight transfer. Third, in most cars with rear disk brakes, the disks are NOT activated by the parking brake, but rather small drum brakes built into the hubs of the rotors (so-called "top hat" design). Fourth, with the new wave of electric parking brakes, it will be hard to modulate them; it will either be all or nothing.
The officer's ride was not completely downslope; it was a downslope at the end if I recall correctly.
Definitely downhill on the exit ramp at the end, but it's hard to tell from Google Street View how much the road sloped uphill or downhill in the mile or two preceding the ramp. Perhaps Gary can enlighten us.
I still don't understand why the officer: 1. Did not put the car in neutral. 2. Didn't use the guardrails along the median to try to scrub off speed. 3. Took the exit ramp instead of staying on the freeway, despite the sharp left coming up ahead. Even if traffic were backed up there in the through lanes, couldn't he have used the shoulder?
At that point, with 4 peoples' lives in danger and the car not even your own, who cares about damaging the car?
If the driver was acting irrationally, the brother-in-law on the cell phone in the back seat probably would have said something along those lines. I haven't seen the transcript but I haven't heard anything on the news that would indicate the driver wasn't trying everything in his power to stop the car, or that he was under some kind of stress at work or home. (yeah, I've thought about this angle a bit too).
Yes I don't think so either. When I explained the situation to my wife who had heard nothing about this event she opined that there probably was a typical male reaction present : 'Hey something's wrong here but I can get it under control'. Whether that was ever voiced or not we'll never know.
She said that she would have jammed the gearshifter into Park if she were driving and suddenly realized that the brakes weren't working and that she was going faster and faster.
Funny. With all this talk of u/a, I tried the same thing with my Mercury Grand Marquis LS, only at about 70 mph. It has a column shift, and Neutral is one click to the left of Drive on the dashboard. The car slowed and the revs dropped. The car has no tach, but I could hear the engine.
...isn't the parking "brake" on your 1957 DeSoto really just some device that clamps down on the driveshaft? I imagine engaging the parking brake in a similar situation as the CHP officer would've resulted in one or both universal joint tearing thus stopping the drive wheels from turning. However, a failure of the front u/v joint just tearing away would've allowed the front of driveshaft to drop causing the car to "pole vault" at 90 mph!!! :surprise:
If the gentleman in the Toyota had been in the '57 DeSoto, he would have just reached and turned off the "real key" and muscled the heavy beast to the edge of the road!
Or put it in neutral? IS that one of the pushbutton models. I don't think they used electrical connections for the buttons so it would have worked and gone into neutral.
The last mile before the T intersection and the end of 125 freeway is very steep. It is rolling back about two miles from the end.
I still don't understand why the officer: 1. Did not put the car in neutral.
That is the biggest question in my mind. It would be the first thing I would do, long before the car got to 120 MPH. I was expecting the NHTSA or CR or somebody to test that aspect. What happens if you try shifting out of gear at 100 MPH+ in an ES350 with the throttle stuck wide open? The CR tests were worthless in duplicating this situation and the NHTSA only took pictures and identified the floor mat as being the wrong one. They also said the brakes were burnt up from trying to stop.
I don't remember any guard rails. Only a gravel ditch on either side that would probably cause you to roll at that speed. Exiting onto 52 would get you into even heavier traffic. I believe he was trying his best to avoid other vehicles.
I believe we are being kept in the dark on the black box. Is it a bombshell for Lexus? I cannot imagine that it takes over 2 months to decipher what it holds. Will this go down like the other fatal accidents in Toyota built vehicles?
i thought i remembered something being mentioned about the transmission, so i went looking for it. i didn't find it after looking for a few minutes, but something interesting turned up anyway.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
Basically says that the NHTSA still has found NO evidence of unintended acceleration except for when the floor mats were unsecured or incorrect. So, it still is a floor mat issue.
U.S. auto safety agency rebukes an assertion that it found nothing wrong in vehicles involved in a massive recall over incidents of unintended acceleration.
Federal safety regulators have sharply rebuked Toyota Motor Corp. for issuing "inaccurate and misleading" statements asserting that no defect exists in the 3.8 million vehicles it recalled after a Lexus sedan accelerated out of control in San Diego County, killing four people.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a statement Wednesday that the recalled Toyota and Lexus vehicles do have an "underlying defect" that involves the design of the accelerator pedal and the driver's foot well.
In response to the NHTSA statement, Toyota said it was "never our intention to mislead or provide inaccurate information." The statement added that it was still developing "vehicle-based" remedies to prevent unintended acceleration events, in which motorists say their vehicles suddenly speed out of control.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons suggested last month that these remedies might include changes in the placement of the pedals, or a change to the engine control software in the vehicles' onboard computers. On Wednesday, however, Lyons declined to comment on any specific fixes.
Gee, I wonder if there's anything ELSE going on at Toyota besides this investigation into an event that happened two months ago?
100 posts a day and nothing new has been said for days.
Hey gagrice, this has been the "cover-up decade" at Toyota. Toyota IS the new GM (which leaves me unsure what the "new GM" is...). I think that might be what you want to hear, and I think it's a safe statement. But it would be neat to talk about other Toyota news as well...
In a way, it's kind of fascinating to watch these two mega-corporations gradually get themselves in more and more trouble as cost-cutting increases to the max and beyond (which was news this week at Toyota: they are projecting much smaller than expected losses this year now, due to a VERY successful, VERY aggressive cost-cutting program initiated 12 months ago; you have to wonder what costs they had left to cut after the devasatation they wreaked across the line in the 90s) while quality and design fall to the lowest common denominator in a misguided quest to remain the biggest...
:sick:
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Lots of the floor mat is happening over in the Brand problems swept under the rug discussion. Y'all could shift the mat talk over there (although it's been suggested that the mat talk be shifted over here).
In ~7 weeks this discussion will be past its sell by date.
Or put it in neutral? IS that one of the pushbutton models. I don't think they used electrical connections for the buttons so it would have worked and gone into neutral.
Right, it's pushbutton, and uses mechanical connections. However, it does have some safety features built in. If you press reverse going at a forward speed of more than 10 mph, it'll just go into neutral. And if you try to press 1st or 2nd at too fast of a speed (I think 50 and 75 mph, respectively, or somewhere close) it won't downshift. That's to keep from over-revving the engine, but in an emergency situation where you need to slow the thing down, I guess that would work against you.
However, you can throw it into neutral at whatever speed you want. And if you had to kill the power, it wouldn't be too hard to haul it down from a high speed. Power steering assist is negligible at highway speeds in most cars...you really only need it in tight, slow, cornering situations, parking, etc. And while you'd probably use up your vacuum reserve pretty quickly, it has beefy 12" drum brakes at all four wheels that will more than do the job. If you lose power, you're actually better off with all-drum brakes, because they require much less pedal effort from the driver.
As for the parking brake, it does clamp down on the driveshaft. However, I do know, from experience, that the engine can over-ride the brake. Years ago, I drove my grandmother to the grocery store in the car. I hadn't had the car very long, wasn't quite used to its idiosyncracies, and forgot to release the parking brake. Drove it about 2 miles to the store with it on. Back in those days, you had to pay extra if you wanted a warning light to remind you that the parking brake was on, and whoever bought originally bought this car didn't spring for that!
I don't think I did any permanent damage, though. That was 19 years ago, and the parking brake still works fine today (even if the real brakes don't! :surprise: )
Until somebody impartial brings out something factual the AW mats as the cause are the issue. That part is true
Did they actually find a jammed floor mat in the crashed car? The LA Times article points to a rather potentially large number of unintended acceleration incidents on Toyota and Lexus. Seems kind of high for people just ignoring their floor mats or hitting the wrong pedal? Cars are getting very electronic, so isn't it possible there can be faults in a vehicle design? I mean it appears aircraft faults brought down the Air France Airbus. In the past two decades there have been previously undiscovered rudder faults on B737 and tail control faults on MD-80's, and aircraft are subject to much tighter design controls and maintenance and inspection than cars. Ford had incidents of cruise control igniting their vehicles into flames. At first it was poo-pooed, then it was supposed to be a minor number of vehicles and eventually it turned out to be a whole slew of vehicles potentially had the problem. What makes Toyota any less likely to have a hidden fault? So I guess I take a different perspective and remain a bit skeptical until Toyota factually proves otherwise. Its their product and they need to prove it isn't the problem and that their cars are safe! Besides, its not like Toyota is the only good vehicles out there, so why take a chance with your family until the matter is clearly resolved?
Read the stories about 1/4 of way down the page to the box titled Lexus Sudden Acceleration. Notice the statements. Most don't sound up or making excuses for driver carelessness to me!
Listen to the audio and fit it to the pieces the mechanic is described as earlier saying. then all of a sudden it's Mats, Mats, Mats.
Odd that some think it's the cruise control taking over.
This may well end up being mats peddle placement or design, or driver error, BUT all Toyota seems to have done is jump to the mat conclusion and state it as apparent fact. Ironically, its sounds a bit like Ford's initial position on their cruise control fiasco. Valid or not, it appears Toyota products are getting an abnormal number of unintended acceleration complaints. I believe it is incumbent on Toyota to quickly perform scientific testing on all possible problems to eliminate them before they say its solved with some twist ties. When a company acts like this it creates distrust in consumers. Toyota needs to back up their position in a scientific manner and open up publicly with the data and analysis.
did we answer the question asked a few posts ago about whether or not people on the accident scene actually saw a floor mat pressed up underneath the accelerator on this crashed Lexus in SD? Or was everything burnt up too bad?
The NHTSA still has not found ANY evidence of unintended acceleration. I also read somewhere that they tried introducing electronic interference and something else to try to confuse the electronics - it did NOT work, the system still functioned correctly.
that Toyota and the NHTSA are both [non-permissible content removed]uming that the floor mat got pushed up under the accelerator and caused the unstoppable speeding SD Lexus? Just because Toyota leads the league in this sort of fumble, eh?
Yes in the interim report by the NHTSA it stated that there was an incorrect All Weather mat in the vehicle. It was doubly incorrect. It was an All Weather mat designed from the hybrid SUV the RX400h. They identified it by the Part No. It has no place being in an ES350. It apparently wasn't secured into place either.
It was melted onto the gas pedal by the heat of the fire.
To answer the other point this was probably why the idiot at Toyota issued the ill-advised press release. He/she was immediately smacked down by the NHTSA and Toyota execs. STFU, stupid....or something to that effect.
As to the other reports of Unintended Acceleration there are many reports and they've been investigated all through this decade. The NHTSA has never been able to find anything other than All Weather floor mats as the cause...except driver error or outright lying ( fictitious report ). Neither has any crash scene investigator nor has any insurance company or any other indpendent impartial organization found any cause other than the occasional improperly placed All Weather mat.
No actually it was the NHTSA that made the first statement leaning toward the All Weather mats as the cause. It was in their first report with pictures.
did we answer the question asked a few posts ago about whether or not people on the accident scene actually saw a floor mat pressed up underneath the accelerator on this crashed Lexus in SD? Or was everything burnt up too bad?
See the two prior posts. Not only were they able to identify that the All Weather mats were there but they also could identify the Part No of the mats. The mats belonged in the hybrid SUV not the ES350.
This dealer is in a world of hurts from just about everybody on the planet. He might as well have rolled a bowling ball into the driver's footwell.
it's the evidence of the burnt mat fused to the accelerator pedal that is the real problem here. Not Toyota floorpan design or maybe not even pedal design. Although both of those may be re-designed as a result of this investigation, the fault is the dealer for stacking mats. And a mat from the wrong rig no less.
Did they find the car's OEM mat under the hybrid SUV mat, too?
That is the biggest question in my mind. It would be the first thing I would do, long before the car got to 120 MPH. I was expecting the NHTSA or CR or somebody to test that aspect. What happens if you try shifting out of gear at 100 MPH+ in an ES350 with the throttle stuck wide open? The CR tests were worthless in duplicating this situation and the NHTSA only took pictures and identified the floor mat as being the wrong one. They also said the brakes were burnt up from trying to stop.
The rev limiter will protect the engine.
I tried it today in two different vehicles, an 08 Highlander 4WD at 65 mph in traffic and an 07 Prius at 55 mph in traffic. Shifting to N is immediate and immediately disconnects the wheels from the throttle input.
Comments
Horses have been bred for, I dunno, centuries? They've been bred for a lot of qualities, including gentleness (i.e., safety). You want that Mustang to be a well behaved pony and not Pinto on you, don't you?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Again no independent reputable agency of any kind has found any substantiation for unintended acceleration in these reports. To me that speaks most loudly. All these reports have one vector. They come from the operators but no one can verify any of them.
The highest speed limit in the US (and Canada I think) is 80 mph on about 500 miles of I-10 and I-20 in west Texas and on 2 stretches of I-15 in Utah.
Why does any car in today's traffic need to go above 90 mph? If you say you need reserve power at 80 mph to get out of a jam, I'd find that hard to believe.
A friend of my wife's is big into horses. They have several including one that can trace its ancestry back to the big French warhorses in the middle ages that were bred for huge size. They had to be very big to hold not just the armored knight but the armor of the horses as well. This horse is enormous before it was even full grown, less then two years old it was already a good foot taller then me at the shoulder and is supposed to grow another foot or more. Only horses I have ever seen that were bigger are clydesdales and they weren't that much bigger.
Well, the other day, on a whim, I tried it on my 2000 Intrepid, on the way to work. On a back road, I stomped on it, and once I got up to around 50 mph I threw it into neutral, with my foot still on the gas. The revs had been climbing, and were around 4,000 rpm when I shifted to neutral. Once in neutral, it cut back a bit, to around 3800.
Also, I think most modern automatics are designed so that they're impossible to redline. FWIW, redline on my Intrepid is around 6500 rpm. If I stomp on it, usually it upshifts at around 6,000-6100 rpm. And even if you try to manually hold shift into the lower gears, it will upshift on its own. Plus, there isn't a place on the gearshift for 1st gear, so the lowest you can ever downshift to is second.
It's not just one company (Toyota) or two (counting Audi from the 80s). Here's a quote from the self-styled expert, Sean Kane, who runs Safety Research and Strategies, Inc.
Manufacturers may deny SUA [sudden unintended acceleration] exists, NHTSA may declare that it isn’t worth its time to thoroughly investigate these incidents, but consumers continue to lodge complaints about sudden unintended acceleration – and they can’t all be little old ladies in the first stages of dementia. The complaints data show clearly that some manufacturers and some vehicles are outliers, with significantly more complaints than their peers. In the last 10 years, the agency has collected some 24,000 consumer complaints (source: www.VSIRC.com). When these complaints are sorted by manufacturer and vehicle and charted, the vast majority of automakers flat-line at the bottom. The trendline of complaints for four manufacturers—Ford, GM, Chrysler, and Toyota, however, float above their peers with occasional spikes, leading one to conclude that either these manufacturers have a problem, or the most confused consumers gravitate to their vehicles.
Could the 4 cited manufacturers "float above their peers" because they happened to sell the most vehicles in the US until very recently? Kane doesn't say anything about a complaint rate.
Full link here (caution: tiny white font on a black background -- get out your reading glasses).
My intent, which most on here probably understand, was to see how much the brakes fad at full throttle in a lower gear with some time to apply the brakes if vacuum assist was totally lost.
I still had braking fairly easily after using the brakes on and off for several seconds after the power assist was depleted from the reservoir. It would have stopped the car against the motor in 2nd on a downslope.
The officer's ride was not completely downslope; it was a downslope at the end if I recall correctly. Otherwise he would have been below sea level always traveling downhill.
I cannot believe someone panicking (as I would) over not being able to turn off the "missing key" nor to get the car in neutral wouldn't have stood on the brakes hard at the beginning. Long before driving 2-3 minutes heating up rotors. Long before heating of brake fluid. And I'm sure he was much stronger than I am since he was a working officer.
What about the emergency brake--it doesn't use hydraulic fluid. Wouldn't someone press the emergency brake?
Frankly, it just doesn't add up here. Sweeping the problem under the mat as the sole problem just doesn't pass the test. As Judge Judy says if it doesn't sound right then it's not the way it happened.
Where is the black box report?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My owner's manual talks about setting the parking brake when starting the van or putting it in park. There's a whole chapter called "In Case of Emergency" and it just talks about overheating, flashers, the fuel inertia switch and flats. Nothing about the brakes.
I find that distinction an interesting one. Overly vigorous application could cause both rears to lock up on my cars which would lead to a twist sideways or spin if the brakes weren't released to maintain some traction. But I found it easy to make a stop.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I have done such testing for brake drag and testing rear rotors/drums for runout. And always with no cars around, well there was mine... :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Definitely downhill on the exit ramp at the end, but it's hard to tell from Google Street View how much the road sloped uphill or downhill in the mile or two preceding the ramp. Perhaps Gary can enlighten us.
I still don't understand why the officer:
1. Did not put the car in neutral.
2. Didn't use the guardrails along the median to try to scrub off speed.
3. Took the exit ramp instead of staying on the freeway, despite the sharp left coming up ahead. Even if traffic were backed up there in the through lanes, couldn't he have used the shoulder?
At that point, with 4 peoples' lives in danger and the car not even your own, who cares about damaging the car?
She said that she would have jammed the gearshifter into Park if she were driving and suddenly realized that the brakes weren't working and that she was going faster and faster.
Or put it in neutral? IS that one of the pushbutton models. I don't think they used electrical connections for the buttons so it would have worked and gone into neutral.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
you get to decide if you want to use it.
it's called Mykey.
I still don't understand why the officer:
1. Did not put the car in neutral.
That is the biggest question in my mind. It would be the first thing I would do, long before the car got to 120 MPH. I was expecting the NHTSA or CR or somebody to test that aspect. What happens if you try shifting out of gear at 100 MPH+ in an ES350 with the throttle stuck wide open? The CR tests were worthless in duplicating this situation and the NHTSA only took pictures and identified the floor mat as being the wrong one. They also said the brakes were burnt up from trying to stop.
I don't remember any guard rails. Only a gravel ditch on either side that would probably cause you to roll at that speed. Exiting onto 52 would get you into even heavier traffic. I believe he was trying his best to avoid other vehicles.
I believe we are being kept in the dark on the black box. Is it a bombshell for Lexus? I cannot imagine that it takes over 2 months to decipher what it holds. Will this go down like the other fatal accidents in Toyota built vehicles?
Basically says that the NHTSA still has found NO evidence of unintended acceleration except for when the floor mats were unsecured or incorrect. So, it still is a floor mat issue.
Regulators slam Toyota over 'no defect' claim
U.S. auto safety agency rebukes an assertion that it found nothing wrong in vehicles involved in a massive recall over incidents of unintended acceleration.
Federal safety regulators have sharply rebuked Toyota Motor Corp. for issuing "inaccurate and misleading" statements asserting that no defect exists in the 3.8 million vehicles it recalled after a Lexus sedan accelerated out of control in San Diego County, killing four people.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a statement Wednesday that the recalled Toyota and Lexus vehicles do have an "underlying defect" that involves the design of the accelerator pedal and the driver's foot well.
In response to the NHTSA statement, Toyota said it was "never our intention to mislead or provide inaccurate information." The statement added that it was still developing "vehicle-based" remedies to prevent unintended acceleration events, in which motorists say their vehicles suddenly speed out of control.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons suggested last month that these remedies might include changes in the placement of the pedals, or a change to the engine control software in the vehicles' onboard computers. On Wednesday, however, Lyons declined to comment on any specific fixes.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall5-2009nov05,0,7645994.story?t- rack=rss
100 posts a day and nothing new has been said for days.
Hey gagrice, this has been the "cover-up decade" at Toyota. Toyota IS the new GM (which leaves me unsure what the "new GM" is...). I think that might be what you want to hear, and I think it's a safe statement. But it would be neat to talk about other Toyota news as well...
In a way, it's kind of fascinating to watch these two mega-corporations gradually get themselves in more and more trouble as cost-cutting increases to the max and beyond (which was news this week at Toyota: they are projecting much smaller than expected losses this year now, due to a VERY successful, VERY aggressive cost-cutting program initiated 12 months ago; you have to wonder what costs they had left to cut after the devasatation they wreaked across the line in the 90s) while quality and design fall to the lowest common denominator in a misguided quest to remain the biggest...
:sick:
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
In ~7 weeks this discussion will be past its sell by date.
Right, it's pushbutton, and uses mechanical connections. However, it does have some safety features built in. If you press reverse going at a forward speed of more than 10 mph, it'll just go into neutral. And if you try to press 1st or 2nd at too fast of a speed (I think 50 and 75 mph, respectively, or somewhere close) it won't downshift. That's to keep from over-revving the engine, but in an emergency situation where you need to slow the thing down, I guess that would work against you.
However, you can throw it into neutral at whatever speed you want. And if you had to kill the power, it wouldn't be too hard to haul it down from a high speed. Power steering assist is negligible at highway speeds in most cars...you really only need it in tight, slow, cornering situations, parking, etc. And while you'd probably use up your vacuum reserve pretty quickly, it has beefy 12" drum brakes at all four wheels that will more than do the job. If you lose power, you're actually better off with all-drum brakes, because they require much less pedal effort from the driver.
As for the parking brake, it does clamp down on the driveshaft. However, I do know, from experience, that the engine can over-ride the brake. Years ago, I drove my grandmother to the grocery store in the car. I hadn't had the car very long, wasn't quite used to its idiosyncracies, and forgot to release the parking brake. Drove it about 2 miles to the store with it on. Back in those days, you had to pay extra if you wanted a warning light to remind you that the parking brake was on, and whoever bought originally bought this car didn't spring for that!
I don't think I did any permanent damage, though. That was 19 years ago, and the parking brake still works fine today (even if the real brakes don't! :surprise: )
Did they actually find a jammed floor mat in the crashed car? The LA Times article points to a rather potentially large number of unintended acceleration incidents on Toyota and Lexus. Seems kind of high for people just ignoring their floor mats or hitting the wrong pedal? Cars are getting very electronic, so isn't it possible there can be faults in a vehicle design? I mean it appears aircraft faults brought down the Air France Airbus. In the past two decades there have been previously undiscovered rudder faults on B737 and tail control faults on MD-80's, and aircraft are subject to much tighter design controls and maintenance and inspection than cars. Ford had incidents of cruise control igniting their vehicles into flames. At first it was poo-pooed, then it was supposed to be a minor number of vehicles and eventually it turned out to be a whole slew of vehicles potentially had the problem. What makes Toyota any less likely to have a hidden fault? So I guess I take a different perspective and remain a bit skeptical until Toyota factually proves otherwise. Its their product and they need to prove it isn't the problem and that their cars are safe! Besides, its not like Toyota is the only good vehicles out there, so why take a chance with your family until the matter is clearly resolved?
Read the stories about 1/4 of way down the page to the box titled Lexus Sudden Acceleration. Notice the statements. Most don't sound up or making excuses for driver carelessness to me!
Listen to the audio and fit it to the pieces the mechanic is described as earlier saying. then all of a sudden it's Mats, Mats, Mats.
Odd that some think it's the cruise control taking over.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
It was melted onto the gas pedal by the heat of the fire.
To answer the other point this was probably why the idiot at Toyota issued the ill-advised press release. He/she was immediately smacked down by the NHTSA and Toyota execs. STFU, stupid....or something to that effect.
As to the other reports of Unintended Acceleration there are many reports and they've been investigated all through this decade. The NHTSA has never been able to find anything other than All Weather floor mats as the cause...except driver error or outright lying ( fictitious report ). Neither has any crash scene investigator nor has any insurance company or any other indpendent impartial organization found any cause other than the occasional improperly placed All Weather mat.
What does that tell you?
See the two prior posts. Not only were they able to identify that the All Weather mats were there but they also could identify the Part No of the mats. The mats belonged in the hybrid SUV not the ES350.
This dealer is in a world of hurts from just about everybody on the planet. He might as well have rolled a bowling ball into the driver's footwell.
Did they find the car's OEM mat under the hybrid SUV mat, too?
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
The rev limiter will protect the engine.
I tried it today in two different vehicles, an 08 Highlander 4WD at 65 mph in traffic and an 07 Prius at 55 mph in traffic. Shifting to N is immediate and immediately disconnects the wheels from the throttle input.