U.S. finds no defect in Toyota's electronic throttles
Automotive News -- February 8, 2011 - 1:55 pm ET
DETROIT -- The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that electric systems and electromagnetic interference did not play a role in the incidents of unintended acceleration involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles.
PS That's the 2nd major legal victory for them this year, the 1st being the $2.6 million win from the case against Dimitrios Biller of "Books of Knowledge" fame.
After tarring and feathering Toyota for alleged sudden unintended acceleration, after inventing a mass murder of 89 that creates a massive 261,000 hits on Google, after dragging executives in front of tribunals of the Washington Inquisition, after shaking down Toyota for unprecedented $48.8 million in fines, after NASA engineers subjected Toyota cars to torture worse than waterboarding, the NHTSA today announced that they found exactly nothing.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that electric systems and electromagnetic interference did not play a role in the incidents of unintended acceleration involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles.
Gagrice must be declaring a day of mourning - nah, it'll be a conspiracy! People shouldn't be surprised if you looked at the statistics rationally.
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Nah, busy trimming my fruit trees and fertilizing. Spring is just about upon us here in sunny San Diego. Not much time for blogging. And what was NASA's qualification to test automobiles? Next they will be testing our food and drugs.
No problem found does not equal to no problem; it could be no problem indeed or the test is not extensive enough to discover the problem. Just like a court decision of not guilty does not necessary mean innocent; it could mean innocent or just not enough evidence to prove guilty; like OJ Simpson.
For example, if you returned a TV to Sony complaining the picture intermittently blinks. Sony did some tests and told you no trouble found. It only means they could not duplicated the problem you indeed experienced in the limited test duration and none identical test environment they did their test comparing to the usage you had.
There's a double standard most manufactures and repair shops use. For example, when you bring a TV to a repair shop for evaluation, the repair shop would point out any problems, real or not, for the reasons you have to leave the TV for repair. They could test it 20 times and one failure would justify for repair. But after you paid the repair and you bring back the TV to the repair shop for the same problem demanding a "recall", all of a sudden the repair shop would deny any problem of the same TV they just "repaired" on. Now they could test it 20 times and one success would justify for a no trouble found.
Very intelligent logic... we probably should stop driving all together, as they have only checked deep into Toyota's, and we need to extend those checks to all other makes, and at the end nothing still would have been sure, it's just too scary out there...
And what was NASA's qualification to test automobiles?
Although I'm not a fan of NASA, I will say this in their defense: they do understand complex systems, & that understanding is more important than just knowing automobiles.
Think about it; if Toyota indeed knew that their products did not have problems, they would not have recalled 15 million cars in just over one year, they would not have settled millions of dollars with victims or their relatives; they would not have paid $50 million dollars fines.....
And there would not have been so many discussions here.
>>Think about it; if Toyota indeed knew that their products did not have problems, they would not have recalled 15 million cars in just over one year<<
Of course they would have . . . . . if that was the only way to stop the bleeding from the pounding the press was dishing out each day. Toyota's first response, driver error, was technically correct; from a public relations standpoint, it was a disaster. Blaming the customer, however true, is not longer permitted in America.
Belatedly, Toyota realized the full prostrate mode was the only way out. Apologize, apologize, and then apologize again. And of course pay lots of money to recall cars that didn't need anything done to them.
Will Toyota get an apology from Ray LaHood--who's obviously never looked under one? Hardly. And the news media will resort to, well, Toyota's problem was poor public relations. What a scam.
One of the problems was bad design, which was fixed by cutting off the bottom of the gas pedals. I do think LaHood got the message across to Toyota that you better change your business practices. Of course there is politics involved. Don't forget the BIG 3 CEO's got chastised in front of everyone, too. What do you think about those class action suits filed by Toyota owners for lost value on their vehicles? Related to vehicle values, I went my accountant yesterday. When he was reviewing the vehicle property tax bills, it reminded me that my 2010 tax bill for my '02 Explorer was more than the year previous. I remarked that I had never seen this before. He said 'You too? My '98 Civic went up too! Never saw that before either'. I like the fact that my accountant drives a '98 Civic.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
Think about it; if Toyota indeed knew that their products did not have problems, they would not have recalled 15 million cars in just over one year, they would not have settled millions of dollars with victims or their relatives; they would not have paid $50 million dollars fines.....
True....
But, Toyota never said they had NO problems, did they?
No question that the UA claims helped motivate them to be more attentive to their product quality, which is a good thing, IMO.
Toyota claimed there were NO electronic bugs causing UA, and up to this point, no one has demonstrated they were wrong in that claim.
Again, I'm no Toyota "fan-boy", but I don't feel the need to bash them (or any other brand) with unsubstantiated claims. In fact, they (along with most other manufacturers) have enough short-comings without having to make any additional ones up...
Toyota's marketing was based on the perception that their product was much better than any competitor. There was a time when that was probably true, but they rode that gravy train too long.
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In an interview on public TV this evening LaHood was very clear that on the cars that we tested and in the way we tested there were no electronic faults found.
His tone did not indicate that no flaws were possible: he just said the NASA crew testing with their antennas as shown and on the particular cars they were given to test, no faults were caught. That was a strikingly restricted statement.
Any car, or even an airliner for that matter can have a random occurrence or failure. The statistical probability of SUA on a Toyota, or other brand is so far in the tail of a bell curve that its not worth losing sleep over. Meanwhile everyone got a refresher on what to do when SUA occurs (and it used to occur much more frequently in the old carburetor linkage days!). Personally, I do not believe anyone is more qualified to study the area of EMI/R than NASA and DOD. I expect Toyota will be raising prices, or at least cutting incentives soon now so if you want to buy one you may want to move out while the deals are still good.
His tone did not indicate that no flaws were possible: he just said the NASA crew testing with their antennas as shown and on the particular cars they were given to test, no faults were caught. That was a strikingly restricted statement.
I agree, but how should he have said it?
There is simply no way he could have guaranteed NO flaws exists.
The fact remains, however, that no one to date has demonstrated electronically-induced UA in Toyotas. And, much of their testing was done on cars that had previously "experienced" UA episodes, so it wasn't simple random testing...
Toyota's marketing was based on the perception that their product was much better than any competitor. There was a time when that was probably true, but they rode that gravy train too long.
That's one way to look at it.
You could also say with equal validity that it was because of fierce competition from the Asian brands that the others in this market segment - notably, the American brands - have improved as much as they have - to the point where one can actually compare a Fusion to an Accord or a Camry with a perfectly straight face. That wasn't possible 20 years ago.
Does anyone think that the domestics would be as good as they are today without this competition? And does anyone think that the domestics would stay at this level of excellence in the absence of this competition?
So do I, which is why we need competition from the imports to keep the domestics on their toes.
I'm speaking from experience. We bought a Taurus in '92 for safety reasons: it was the only mid-priced sedan that offered dual air bags at that time. (Camry & Accord were driver's side only until '94.) Because of factory rebates, it was also $1500 cheaper than comparably equipped Hondas & Toyotas.)
But the Taurus fell noticeably short of our other car, an '87 Accord. Not only were fit & finish visibly inferior, but the Taurus at age 5 had problems - cruise control failure, non-working power window switches, A/C outages, among others - that the Accord didn't have at age 11. And I won't mention the Ford's head gasket failure, which saddled me with the biggest single auto repair bill of the last 15 years.
Eventually, the Taurus was demoted to railroad station beater duty, after my wife made it painfully clear to me that I would spend the rest of my life on the family room couch if I ever brought a Ford product home again.
I also learned that people will pay a whale of a lot more money for an old, high-mileage Accord than they will for an old Taurus with not as many miles on it.
Despite that, I don't doubt that the Fusion is a thousand percent better, just as I don't doubt that most of the credit for that should go to the Asian brands.
The fact remains, however, that no one to date has demonstrated electronically-induced UA in Toyotas.
That is not exactly true. There is still the Avalon driver that brought his car into the dealer with WOT. The pedal was not stuck. They replaced several parts and hushed it up. That owner was able to shift in and out of gear and make it to the dealer without having an accident. How many were not so lucky?
According to a report from The Safety Record, on December 29, 2009, the driver of a 2007 Toyota Avalon experienced a bizarre case of sudden and unintended acceleration while driving on the highway, just miles from a local Toyota dealer. The driver managed to switch the vehicle between Neutral and Drive multiple times, while en route to the dealer in order to show the dealer the problem as it was still occurring.
The driver was able to reach the dealer, place the vehicle into neutral, and allow it to continue operating at wide open throttle. The dealer sent out a tech who verified that the floor mat was removed, and pushing the gas pedal had no effect on the acceleration. The dealer was unable to stop the wide open throttle and was forced to shut the vehicle off.
This incident was apparently not the first for the driver, either, who had been to the dealer before about the problem. The first time the unintended acceleration occurred, the driver was able to slow the vehicle with the brakes and switch the vehicle into neutral – where the engine continued to hit maximum rpms. At the time of the first incident, dealer diagnostics revealed no problems in the computer.
The dealer eventually offered to replace the throttle body, accelerator pedal and associated sensors free of charge for the driver after the second incident.
"There are no problems in toyota vehicles with unintended acceleration beyond the floor mat problems and the sticking accelerator controls." Instead we got a weasel word statement which also included the phrase "high speed acceleration" which may imply there's a problem with "midspeed" or "low speed" unintended accelerations.
The dealer eventually offered to replace the throttle body, accelerator pedal and associated sensors free of charge for the driver after the second incident.
It appears the report did little to change very many minds on this issue.
I disagree - that is only true here in this thread, and that goes to show how biased people here are against Toyota.
Well, I would say that the bias extends further than this thread, but the point is well made.
Its developed into some sort of conspiracy theory, and there are many who can't seem to resist in believing in them.
JFK, Roswell, 9/11, moon landing, you name it... NO AMOUNT of proof will ever be sufficient to change their opinions.
Its almost as if some people live in an alternate reality.
Closer to home, the Audi experience shows what the public/Toyota can expect to see over the next several years, although IMO I think Toyota will fare better, if for no other reason than Audi "blazed the trail" for this type of event/criticism, and much of the public has been "desensitized" by their experience.
The Throttle body is an electronic controlled mechanical device. The sensors are all electronic devices. So what failed. We don't know what all they replaced as they covered the cost to avoid disclosure.
I am not arguing that the bulk of the SUA was not caused by a poorly designed throttle and floormat system. Just that we do in fact have cases proven to be electronic that caused SUA. Fixing the throttle brought the cases down to a reasonable number. It did not eliminate them altogether. And I would not be so bold to say that electronics could not cause similar SUA in other brands.
"The jury is back. The verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. Period." said LaHood in a prepared statement
That goes well beyond what people here are acknowledging.
FWIW, I am not convinced there is not a potential SUA issue with more than just Toyotas, because a lot of common electronics in today's modern cars are shared. There are numerous parameters that are all shared. Just a few of which, are: - electronic FI, auto trans, cruise control, much electronic communication between trans and engine and ESC and ABS systems, and many many more. The basic principle of operation is similar among all cars.
And I NEVER ever believed the SUA Audi fiasco. There was nowhere near the electronic content in those cars as there has been in the last 10 years. I say completely driver error in those instances and always have.
But I would like to put a question to those of you who are inclined to be on the ney side of the fence with Toyota's situation.
In event of an SUA, do you feel so confident in trusting owning one of these Toyotas, because of the confidence you have in your own ability and your plan (that even in an unannounced emergency) would be to ultimately rely on slipping it into neutral if an SUA surfaced? Or... are you so sure that there is no such thing as SUA and you would prove it by owning that same Toyota with 2 nonnegotiable stipulations; a) that your gear shift lever was to be padlocked out of any neutral ability once under way, and b) that any ability to turn the engine off was deactivated unless you were stopped?
Simple question, give it some serious thought within the parameters that I stipulated. I'd be willing to bet that, if honesty is front and centre here, we lose a few ney sayers right here and now. I know that would be the deal-breaker for me if i was slipping myself in behind the wheel> And to keep the question simple, I haven't even factored in including your wife or son or daughter behind the wheel.
Remember, for the purposes of this question, neutral is locked out and not an option, nor is being able to turn the engine off. Think about it..are you still that confident that you don't believe that computer crashes in a vehicle might render normal operations, inoperable?
Comments
Automotive News -- February 8, 2011 - 1:55 pm ET
DETROIT -- The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that electric systems and electromagnetic interference did not play a role in the incidents of unintended acceleration involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles.
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110208/RETAIL05/110209749/1- 143#ixzz1DOhxeaBB
In before the "they bribed the DOT!"
PS That's the 2nd major legal victory for them this year, the 1st being the $2.6 million win from the case against Dimitrios Biller of "Books of Knowledge" fame.
When is that anonymous thing set to be replaced, anyway? Will it be along with the GS? I forget.
They should bring over the diesel - as the competition will both soon have as an option.
After tarring and feathering Toyota for alleged sudden unintended acceleration, after inventing a mass murder of 89 that creates a massive 261,000 hits on Google, after dragging executives in front of tribunals of the Washington Inquisition, after shaking down Toyota for unprecedented $48.8 million in fines, after NASA engineers subjected Toyota cars to torture worse than waterboarding, the NHTSA today announced that they found
exactly nothing.
More here.
Glad I didn't waste my breath the last 10 months on this forum, and I'm STILL happy with my 2004 and 2005 Camrys, plus my 1998 Nissan Frontier!
Gagrice must be declaring a day of mourning - nah, it'll be a conspiracy! People shouldn't be surprised if you looked at the statistics rationally.
* NHTSA
* DOT
* NASA
* Consumer Reports
* JD Power
* Strategic Vision
* Motor Trend
* Motorweek
* Sikes
* Bernard
I'm sure I missed half a dozen or so...
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/02/07/suit-alleges-toyota-keyless-start-to-blame-fo- r-carbon-monoxide-d/
So the lady forgets and leaves her car running, and it's Toyota's fault? Because her Lexus is quiet, and she forgot to turn it off?
Seriously?
*Edmunds.com / InsideLine.com
Since the story was posted in one of the blogs, I think we deserve to be included. http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2011/02/federal-investigation-finds-no-- electronic-glitches-in-toyotas.html
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Typical Lexus driver...from everything I have seen anyway
Nah, busy trimming my fruit trees and fertilizing. Spring is just about upon us here in sunny San Diego. Not much time for blogging. And what was NASA's qualification to test automobiles? Next they will be testing our food and drugs.
For example, if you returned a TV to Sony complaining the picture intermittently blinks. Sony did some tests and told you no trouble found. It only means they could not duplicated the problem you indeed experienced in the limited test duration and none identical test environment they did their test comparing to the usage you had.
There's a double standard most manufactures and repair shops use. For example, when you bring a TV to a repair shop for evaluation, the repair shop would point out any problems, real or not, for the reasons you have to leave the TV for repair. They could test it 20 times and one failure would justify for repair. But after you paid the repair and you bring back the TV to the repair shop for the same problem demanding a "recall", all of a sudden the repair shop would deny any problem of the same TV they just "repaired" on. Now they could test it 20 times and one success would justify for a no trouble found.
> No problem found does not equal to no problem
Although I'm not a fan of NASA, I will say this in their defense: they do understand complex systems, & that understanding is more important than just knowing automobiles.
And there would not have been so many discussions here.
Of course they would have . . . . . if that was the only way to stop the bleeding from the pounding the press was dishing out each day. Toyota's first response, driver error, was technically correct; from a public relations standpoint, it was a disaster. Blaming the customer, however true, is not longer permitted in America.
Belatedly, Toyota realized the full prostrate mode was the only way out. Apologize, apologize, and then apologize again. And of course pay lots of money to recall cars that didn't need anything done to them.
Will Toyota get an apology from Ray LaHood--who's obviously never looked under one? Hardly. And the news media will resort to, well, Toyota's problem was poor public relations. What a scam.
I do think LaHood got the message across to Toyota that you better change your business practices.
Of course there is politics involved. Don't forget the BIG 3 CEO's got chastised in front of everyone, too.
What do you think about those class action suits filed by Toyota owners for lost value on their vehicles?
Related to vehicle values, I went my accountant yesterday.
When he was reviewing the vehicle property tax bills, it reminded me that my 2010 tax bill for my '02 Explorer was more than the year previous.
I remarked that I had never seen this before.
He said 'You too? My '98 Civic went up too! Never saw that before either'.
I like the fact that my accountant drives a '98 Civic.
True....
But, Toyota never said they had NO problems, did they?
No question that the UA claims helped motivate them to be more attentive to their product quality, which is a good thing, IMO.
Toyota claimed there were NO electronic bugs causing UA, and up to this point, no one has demonstrated they were wrong in that claim.
Again, I'm no Toyota "fan-boy", but I don't feel the need to bash them (or any other brand) with unsubstantiated claims. In fact, they (along with most other manufacturers) have enough short-comings without having to make any additional ones up...
There was a time when that was probably true, but they rode that gravy train too long.
His tone did not indicate that no flaws were possible: he just said the NASA crew testing with their antennas as shown and on the particular cars they were given to test, no faults were caught. That was a strikingly restricted statement.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
No, it was a typical Washington cover your [non-permissible content removed] legally statement.
I agree, but how should he have said it?
There is simply no way he could have guaranteed NO flaws exists.
The fact remains, however, that no one to date has demonstrated electronically-induced UA in Toyotas. And, much of their testing was done on cars that had previously "experienced" UA episodes, so it wasn't simple random testing...
The chances of them finding something was pretty small.
The chances of them finding something was pretty small.
Really???
That is exactly the most efficient and best way to do testing.
There was a time when that was probably true, but they rode that gravy train too long.
That's one way to look at it.
You could also say with equal validity that it was because of fierce competition from the Asian brands that the others in this market segment - notably, the American brands - have improved as much as they have - to the point where one can actually compare a Fusion to an Accord or a Camry with a perfectly straight face. That wasn't possible 20 years ago.
Does anyone think that the domestics would be as good as they are today without this competition? And does anyone think that the domestics would stay at this level of excellence in the absence of this competition?
I certainly don't.
That is where I live.
I do enjoy history, though.
So do I, which is why we need competition from the imports to keep the domestics on their toes.
I'm speaking from experience. We bought a Taurus in '92 for safety reasons: it was the only mid-priced sedan that offered dual air bags at that time. (Camry & Accord were driver's side only until '94.) Because of factory rebates, it was also $1500 cheaper than comparably equipped Hondas & Toyotas.)
But the Taurus fell noticeably short of our other car, an '87 Accord. Not only were fit & finish visibly inferior, but the Taurus at age 5 had problems - cruise control failure, non-working power window switches, A/C outages, among others - that the Accord didn't have at age 11. And I won't mention the Ford's head gasket failure, which saddled me with the biggest single auto repair bill of the last 15 years.
Eventually, the Taurus was demoted to railroad station beater duty, after my wife made it painfully clear to me that I would spend the rest of my life on the family room couch if I ever brought a Ford product home again.
I also learned that people will pay a whale of a lot more money for an old, high-mileage Accord than they will for an old Taurus with not as many miles on it.
Despite that, I don't doubt that the Fusion is a thousand percent better, just as I don't doubt that most of the credit for that should go to the Asian brands.
Where's the faith/trust man??
:shades:
That is not exactly true. There is still the Avalon driver that brought his car into the dealer with WOT. The pedal was not stuck. They replaced several parts and hushed it up. That owner was able to shift in and out of gear and make it to the dealer without having an accident. How many were not so lucky?
According to a report from The Safety Record, on December 29, 2009, the driver of a 2007 Toyota Avalon experienced a bizarre case of sudden and unintended acceleration while driving on the highway, just miles from a local Toyota dealer. The driver managed to switch the vehicle between Neutral and Drive multiple times, while en route to the dealer in order to show the dealer the problem as it was still occurring.
The driver was able to reach the dealer, place the vehicle into neutral, and allow it to continue operating at wide open throttle. The dealer sent out a tech who verified that the floor mat was removed, and pushing the gas pedal had no effect on the acceleration. The dealer was unable to stop the wide open throttle and was forced to shut the vehicle off.
This incident was apparently not the first for the driver, either, who had been to the dealer before about the problem. The first time the unintended acceleration occurred, the driver was able to slow the vehicle with the brakes and switch the vehicle into neutral – where the engine continued to hit maximum rpms. At the time of the first incident, dealer diagnostics revealed no problems in the computer.
The dealer eventually offered to replace the throttle body, accelerator pedal and associated sensors free of charge for the driver after the second incident.
http://www.leftlanenews.com/toyota-avalon-displays-unintended-acceleration-witho- ut-floor-mat.html
"There are no problems in toyota vehicles with unintended acceleration beyond the floor mat problems and the sticking accelerator controls."
Instead we got a weasel word statement which also included the phrase "high speed acceleration" which may imply there's a problem with "midspeed" or "low speed" unintended accelerations.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Still is. I just saw a commercial for the Corolla and the ad stated "Reliability, only better!"
All mechanical parts.
I disagree - that is only true here in this thread, and that goes to show how biased people here are against Toyota.
Show a co-worker of yours who isn't an auto enthusiast that headline. Print the full article and let them read it.
They won't think it's insignificant. In fact, read the stories again, the press DOES think it was a significant victory. AN:
"It was a major victory for Toyota"
TTAC even concluded:
"the punishment of Toyota before found guilty left lasting marks"
Some may recall they previously tested Ody vs. Sienna, but used a $40k plus Ody and a much cheaper, non-SE model Sienna.
Now that they leveled the playing field, the SE took top honors (for the 2nd time).
I disagree - that is only true here in this thread, and that goes to show how biased people here are against Toyota.
Well, I would say that the bias extends further than this thread, but the point is well made.
Its developed into some sort of conspiracy theory, and there are many who can't seem to resist in believing in them.
JFK, Roswell, 9/11, moon landing, you name it... NO AMOUNT of proof will ever be sufficient to change their opinions.
Its almost as if some people live in an alternate reality.
Closer to home, the Audi experience shows what the public/Toyota can expect to see over the next several years, although IMO I think Toyota will fare better, if for no other reason than Audi "blazed the trail" for this type of event/criticism, and much of the public has been "desensitized" by their experience.
YES, very true, but a key point - those people would never have bought a Toyota to begin with.
The Throttle body is an electronic controlled mechanical device. The sensors are all electronic devices. So what failed. We don't know what all they replaced as they covered the cost to avoid disclosure.
There's no mystery here....
That goes well beyond what people here are acknowledging.
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/02/08/feds-find-no-evidence-of-faulty-electronics-i- n-toyotas/
And I NEVER ever believed the SUA Audi fiasco. There was nowhere near the electronic content in those cars as there has been in the last 10 years. I say completely driver error in those instances and always have.
But I would like to put a question to those of you who are inclined to be on the ney side of the fence with Toyota's situation.
In event of an SUA, do you feel so confident in trusting owning one of these Toyotas, because of the confidence you have in your own ability and your plan (that even in an unannounced emergency) would be to ultimately rely on slipping it into neutral if an SUA surfaced? Or... are you so sure that there is no such thing as SUA and you would prove it by owning that same Toyota with 2 nonnegotiable stipulations; a) that your gear shift lever was to be padlocked out of any neutral ability once under way, and b) that any ability to turn the engine off was deactivated unless you were stopped?
Simple question, give it some serious thought within the parameters that I stipulated.
I'd be willing to bet that, if honesty is front and centre here, we lose a few ney sayers right here and now. I know that would be the deal-breaker for me if i was slipping myself in behind the wheel> And to keep the question simple, I haven't even factored in including your wife or son or daughter behind the wheel.
Remember, for the purposes of this question, neutral is locked out and not an option, nor is being able to turn the engine off. Think about it..are you still that confident that you don't believe that computer crashes in a vehicle might render normal operations, inoperable?