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This is a key question. For at least 20 years the main problem for vehicle makers has been controlling weight; secondarily, complexity; thirdly, in the NA market, the demand for increased size and power. The three are generally non-compatible. Less weight with more power and more size? Next to impossible at the same time.
With CAFE standards and penalties for different weight classes saving even 0.1 lb was critical ( there are more than 14000 parts in a vehicle ). In addition with the advent of micro computers and controllers the weighty mechanical components such as distributors and rotors and heavy spark plug wiring could all be replaced by an electronically controlled induction coil atop the plug.
Simplicity with added reliability and less weight BINGO! The TDI implementation back in 1998 began a trend to switch to an electronically controlled vehicle as soon as possible with each renewal and each new iteration. Ditto, BMW, MB, Honda.
From there to VVTi, ECTi, ETCi, EPS, VDIM, VSC, Trac, 4Whl ABS with BA and EBD. 10 years ago most of this was just under development and not implemented. The vehicles were not much different then than those of the 50's and 60's. Now it's as if we were all transported with a 'flux-capacitor' into a new world of vehicles and driving.
In the mid-80's in cold damp weather I often had to jump out of my Dodge Charger in the middle of NJ traffic to unscrew the wingnut and take off the huge round airfilter over the carburator and lodge a hardpack cigarette box in the carburator to keep it from stalling while I jumped back into the car and restarted the stalled engine; then reversed course and reassembled the top of the engine. How about carrying a can of spray ether in the auto to spray the inside of the carburator on cold wet days.
Now? ECU's control everything and when they need correction they are reflashed. That's the direction of auto manufacturing and it's getting faster and faster.
well, it's a good thing they implemented a remote reprogramming capability on the MARS or other deep-space vehicles. they just can't be brought back home to fix or circumvent an issue that raises it's ugly self in orbit or say on the martian surface.
but our vehicles? if we start going down the path of "windows update" in our vehicles, where will it end?
"car will restart when download is complete...please leave in park with engine running until your vehicle reboots"
yeah right.
i honestly don't think toyota thoroughly designed nor tested these implementations. it's like they keep refining and refining and have been doing so for a few years now.
they are just too complex, and engineering is being forced to roll stuff out before its attempted by the competition. also, vehicle manufacturers are becomming more integrators than OEMs. and lots and lots of parts and subsystems are being shared across model lines.
it really makes you think manufacturers are perfectly fine treating the purchasing public as test subjects.
we should be weary of allowing them to "ship it, and fix it later".
it's one thing to do that with a multi-billion dollar space vehicle very very far from earth orbit, and quite another with your grandmother, father, sister, wife, son, or you.
next time you get a re-flash, ask them for detailed documentation on what was defective, how they implemented the fix, and what to expect.
yeah, i doubt they'll be revealing that information to the public.
Without the initial warm airflow during startup or if the intake air was too cold the carburator throat would freeze, choking the engine to the point of stalling about halfway into my 25 mile drive home.
All I had to do was coast to the side of the road, open and then close the hood, and then get in, restart the engine and continue my drive home. After a few moments of not being cooled by fuel evaporation the engine heat would melt the ice and I'd be on my way.
By-the-by, it doesn't help to be able to reprogram, reflash in the field, if you have a hardware problem that cannot be overcome by a software change.
I should know.
If you've ever developed a spreadsheet or a software program there is always one more tweak that can be done. An improvement noted by a colleague. A design change demanded by a user. It's never ending really, like the approach to infinity.
Is 95% acceptance rate a good 'launch' point? Or is it 97%? Or is it 99.2%%? Before, when processes were mechanically controlled it was different. In the case of the throttle is was far less complex, pedal, wire, throttle opening. Damn the rest. Now fuel economy has to be factored in and the overall weight has to be less and more features have to be added and it's got to be more powerful - all at the same price.
It accomplished a lot of goals, less weight, better performance, more features. However it is only 6-8 years old at the most.
Every new customer seems to bring a new set of problems.
No product can be tested to perfection, not even close. The real, final, testing occurs in actual use, in the customer's always unique environment.
But I continue to stand by my position that something anomalous happened in this instance that resulted in the manufacturers bypassing normal design and QA procedures.
Toyota, come on.
Something really serious had to happen for them to willingly sacrifice their good, stellar, standing in the automotive community.
One could say that they didn't foresee, initially, the un-intended consequences of the shift pattern change. But by '01 it had become clear that the new shift pattern should be discarded until more testing could be done and the overall design made more complete(ly).
Yet they didn't discard the new shift pattern.
I'm actually in a position to know if anything like that happened, and I can assure you, it did not. Besides, how in this day and age when nothing can be kept secret, did this escape media attention? There's always an insider willing to leak a story or blow the whistle, especially if enough green stuff is waved in front of them!
Silly me: I always thought rear-wheel-drive vehicles were more likely to get "squirrely," especially the overpowered V8s with little weight on their rear ends (think unloaded large pickups).
Anyway, I was taught way back in driver's ed never to touch the gas, brakes, OR the shift lever (manual or automatic) if you got into a skid in slippery conditions. OTOH, if you could keep your wits when such a skid happened, you were supposed to depress the clutch (manual) or shift into neutral (auto) -- easier said then done for those clunky column-mounted shifters.
I was always able to do the first part, but never got the hang of getting on the clutch in such a situation (most of my cars had manuals back when we had "real" winter). But I never went off the road or hit anything, just "steered the way you wanted to go," as they now say.
Oh yeah, there was one time I was "fooling around" in the snow with my RWD Impala, and got sideways heading for the curb. Luckily I had the sense to point the front wheels perpendicular to the curb and just went over it -- no damage done.
I for one think the electronics are far better than the clunky mechanical linkages, carburetors, and "Rube Goldberg" emissions controls we had decades ago. Remember the rat's nests of vacuum lines under the hood?
Then again, my '04 and '05 Camrys' automatic transmissions work just fine. But I do think there is an issue especially with the new V6 6-speed powertrain -- lots of complaints on these boards, and not even replacement transmissions resolve the problems for many.
Something really serious had to happen for them to willingly sacrifice their good, stellar, standing in the automotive community.
My opinion, and that's all it is, is that Toyota took the advanced decision to move to an electronically controlled vehicle rather than a mechanically controlled one. It's a strategic decision for the entire product line and one that every vehicle maker is taking now.
It was and is a risk ( to its stellar reputation as you say ) until it's 'perfected' ( as much as any program can be perfected). We have to adjust to this new electronically controlled type of vehicle.
I have noticed in the last couple of monthes I can't seem to find a V-6 se on the street. Did they stop prodution?
And the V6 to 4-cylinder ratio is something like 16% to 84%, last I remember reading, so V6s alone are far less common as well.
On second thought you're correct, we didn't discover Bush's well kept secret, there were never any WMDs, until well after he started his war.
"I'm actually in a position to know if anything like that happened, and I can assure you, it did not."
Sorry, but that's exactly what someone in your "position" would be expected to say if a secret needed to be kept.
I don't know about you, but had something like I proposed actually happened and I knew of it for CERTAIN and were asked to keep it on the QT I probably would.
As it is, and as you can see and have plainly stated, my proposed happening is only a guess based on the little bits of information gathered here and there.
But again, if there was no serious motivation why not just drop the new engine/transaxle upshift firmware until the design can be more well thought through and fully tested?
The only motivation other than the FWD safety issue I have proposed might be better FE, something even I have proposed as a factor. But here we are with virtually a myriad of hybrid systems in the marketplace that use regenerative braking to "simulate" engine compression braking and thereby slow the vehicle artificially.
Why not wait until I at least "touch" the brake pedal, indicating a desire to slow down to a lower speed, before beginning to "brake" the vehicle artificially?
and good for them... just not for us. yet.
being in a complex engineering field, i see daily what happens when senior engineers are pushed by management to conceed to release something before its ready; many engineers retiring and taking the knowledge with them. a whole host of newbees that fail to ask simple questions, don't draw upon the lessons learned from the past, and tend to get rattled, throwing everything including the kitchen sink at a problem in an attempt to fix what they don't understand and haven't take the time to understand.
re-programability of these sub-systems also enables sloppiness. trust me, if you couldn't reflash these control units, they wouldn't have released this stuff with such blatent issues.
shame. really.
you read the stories about the toyota management regretting the drop in quality, and the engineers being up all night with the lights on.
my additional take: they are outsourcing this stuff, integrating it rather than specing it and building it themselves.
that's lean baby. :surprise:
everyone toting toyota's methodology should take note of the consequences of lean... but i suspect they won't. they'll latch onto the next best thing and write books about that.
we landed on the moon with truly, truly a tiny fraction of the CPU and memory that exists in these cars.
now that was engineering. but this, this is all quite "unfortunate".
ahh, no, predictable might be a better word.
so let us not just think software here. there are hardware design and implementation issues afoot as well.
the reason why these vehicles don't operate properly is toyota putting first to commercialize / market / margin / profit / lean... yes yes $$$ above what was once engineering excellence.
and they are not alone. there's a whole wave of companies trying to learn from the successes of toyota. :lemon:
that's my opinion, and i'm sticking to it. :shades:
If a new Camry was $20k in 1990 and $20k in 2007 something had to give. Cheaper materials, outsourcing, and junior inexperienced designers (cheaper labor) cannot build a superior vehicle it once was in the 90's.
It still amazes me though how a company could release a Beta Camry which is Toyota's bread & butter. I test drove a '07 4cyl Camry when it was first realeased in the summer. I knew immediately after a 1/4mile that the car had a hesitation problem & confused transmission.
I don't know about you, but had something like I proposed actually happened and I knew of it for CERTAIN and were asked to keep it on the QT I probably would.
Well, I certainly would too, but as I said, there are plenty of players who'd be all too willing to spill the beans if they were paid enough to "tell all." Just think how much one of the national TV
scare mongerersnews shows would ante up for a breathless "exclusive."As for Bush and WMDs, there were plenty of skeptics before he started his fine mess we're in now. Enough said on that.
However being an engineer you have taken logic and you well know that you cannot draw conclusions from the specific to the general. It still remains to be shown that these specific problems being experienced are not in a very small minority. Apparently by the sheer weight of numbers growing evey month the technology does work for the vast majority of drivers.
Is it a perfect technology? No, it never will be. However you paint a picture from a tainted viewpoint. Your problems are certainly real and need to be addressed. However from the weight of evidence the technology does what it has been programmed to do.
It doesn't appear from your last statement that you are analyzing the overall data in a balanced and impartial manner.
Now I know many (most?) Edmunds commenters seem to despise Consumer Reports' reliability surveys. But FWIW, the first-year results for the Camry are in, and the transmission gets the highest mark (red circle) for reliability. Of all problem areas, electricals get the lowest mark (half black circle).
Then again, since the V6 sells in much smaller proportions to the 4-cylinder, there may not have been very many responses received from V6 owners.
And, if you want to help build a better mousetrap (reliability survey, that is), you might want to check out this guy's website. (I am not affiliated with him, BTW, so no self-promotion here.) Click here.
Thanks.
Let's try to respond to the couple of recent on-topic posts and leave these other things for more appropriate venues.
You can also search for and read the complaints on the 2007 Camry (as well as all other cars).
no, i really believe toyota's pursuit of lean speeds up the introduction of defects. and lean is the means to make margin / profit.
so - i honestly don't think i'm being unbalanced. didn't toyota issue more recalls last year than cars produced? (or something like that).
and those TSBs. you've been reading them. how many models had an issue with the steering column? how many models had or have issues with the cat convertor?
and how many models are affected by transmission issues?
i did not say EVERY vehicle has these issues. heck, i think the problem lies in their sub-contractors. i'm still thinking accelerator pedal non-linearity, or throttle body sticktion.
i'll repeat something someone very wise told me: don't try to fix hardware problems with software.
for the v6 transmission, how do you think they got that cobbled? you think they're gonna program their way out of it? i doubt it. they can throw more and more valve assemblies at it too. doubt it will help.
honestly, this isn't a dig at toyota as much as it is for all companies that are outsourcing and moving to lean practices; following in toyota's light.
what i really hate is hearing that loyal customers, many with decades of toyota ownership are being given the line by their dealers and corporate on brand new vehicles. geesh. "they all hesitate... it's normal". yeah right.
and who of us should even QUESTION someone's concerns that their safety is compromised? that takes the cake.
Toyota's recalls were way down last year -- from 2.2 million to 766,000. GM and Ford also saw dramatic drops in the number of recalls, although DCX saw an increase.
I have all the TSBs on my '04 Camry (as of a couple of months or so ago). Most of these also apply to the '05 Camry, also in my "fleet."
At first you look at them and say, "wow, there's a whole lot of them." But when you dig deeper, you find many are updates of previously issued TSBs, with maybe one or two paragraphs changed. A lot of them deal with initial delivery issues, like how to remove rail dust corrosion spots on the paint. Some deal with specific options, like stability control or nav. The whole section on glass deals solely with sunroof "initialization," a problem I had when I replaced my battery -- which I fixed myself thanks to the TSBs. Some give info on improved service techniques or tools, and others simply give info like paint codes.
I am sure kdhspyder could provide more info, since he has direct access. I got my TSBs through a "back door" provided by a small-town public library on the internet. (That door may be shut now.)
I don't have the '07 model TSBs, since I don't have the newest model Camry. I agree there's a problem with some of the V6 transmissions. How many is unclear. But I wouldn't indict the Toyota Production System at this point.
No. Actually it was the lowest in numbers of all the Big 4.. If recall numbers are your sole criteria then you don't understand today's environment.
You missed my point entirely. The weight of evidence seems to show that the vast majority of owners do not have dissatisfaction with the vehicle and in fact love it. A small minority does have problems and these need to be fixed. They have to be fixed, period. But only those actually having the problems nned to be addressed.
There are lots of sites that have summaries of what these are.
http://crashsafety.com/news.php?id=361
last year:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13046349/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13916606/
this year:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070119toyota-story,0,678451.story?col- l=chi-business-hed
See this.
But I acknowledge the recent recall (in 2007 of course) of 533,000 Tundras and Sequoias in the US isn't a good way to start the new year. We'll see how the rest of the year plays out....
Thank you.
for example, i found this:
http://www.yourlemonlawrights.com/state_laws/florida.htm
i think you were entitled to file after the 3rd attempt, but i'm not an expert.
Since you've had your vehicle in a couple times for the same problem, if it was me I'd ask whether they thought the TSB might potentially help....and whether it has been applied. You can say that you came across this solution on the internet. (Note: if they did the TSB prior, they would have put a sticker on the inside of your hood indicating the TSB is on, so you can actually know the answer before you ask the question.)
Thanks
Then just before noon today, I received a call from my dealership stating they wanted my vehicle in as they have received a recall from Toyota for the shifting problems. Vehicle is to be re-calibrated for these shifting problems and I'm to let the dealership know if there is any difference.
So, if everyone having a problem follows through in calling the Toyota company and on to arbitration, maybe Toyota will fix the problems.
EVERYONE WHO HAS A PROBLEM SHOULD: Call your Toyota district office and make a complaint. CALL TOYOTA AT 800 331-4331. Get a case number and tell them of your problems. If enough people call with the same/similar problem(s), Toyota will have to do something.
EVERYONE WHO HAS A PROBLEM SHOULD: Call your Toyota district office and make a complaint. CALL TOYOTA AT 800 331-4331. Get a case number and tell them of your problems. If enough people call with the same/similar problem(s), Toyota will have to do something.
Also, due to the way the gas pedal works (foot bounces up and down when on rough road/bumps) and when doing all in town driving, I am getting 17 mpg. Every time your foot bounces, it is feeding gas and therefore mileage will definitely be down. If I am on the highway with cruise on, mileage will go up to 29 - 30. Still not good for this vehicle.
I've heard everything now!!!!!!!!