I once experienced my Volvo 240's engine revving up unexpectedly while I was braking for a red light. This was near the height of the Audi 5000 hysteria, but before the 60 Minutes broadcast. But I had a manual transmission car, so there was no drama in bringing the car to a stop with the help of the 3rd pedal.
I even reported it to NHTSA, and someone from the agency later called me back to query me about the incident.
Months later, I realized what likely had happened. I was wearing boots that day, and these had wider soles than my dress shoes or sneakers. The right edge of the sole had caught the gas pedal while I was depressing the brake pedal.
After the interesting article.. As a Crash Scene Investigator (CxSI), I have an advantage: I previously was the Auto Safety Engineer for Consumer Reports. There, I test drove the Audi 5000 when it was new. I knew that this car had large wide tires to accommodate the powerful 5 cylinder engine. There is a bulge on the left side of the space for the brake and accelerator pedals. This displaced the pedals toward the center of the car more than on most automobiles because of the wide tires. Because of that lateral shift, it was easy to press on the accelerator pedal with the right side of your foot while also pressing on the brake pedal. It occurred to me that drivers, especially older drivers with degraded hearing, would start the car and place it in gear quickly, without hearing the engine revving much faster than idle. Then when the car took off, they pressed hard on the accelerator, thinking it was only the brake pedal. What do we know about other cars that had unexpected acceleration like this? A CSxI who is working with a possible client has a demonstration to show that the problem was misplacement of the driver’s right foot. I could take almost any car with an automatic transmission to show how unlikely a real runaway would be. Even if the car had a powerful V-8 I would start the engine and shift into Drive normally. Then with my left foot on the brake pedal, we would mash the accelerator pedal. The driven tires might begin to spin and make blue smoke but the car would remain in place. All four wheels had locked brakes, but the engine was overpowering only two of them. The front brake and tires were very effective if we started that with the car not moving. If I attempted this demonstration when the car was going 60 mph, overcoming the inertia would be more difficult – maybe impossible. I could get a runaway under another scenario. If we pumped the brake pedal while the engine was revving hard, that would deplete the power-brake vacuum booster reservoir. Then the brake effect would be like having non-power brakes – requiring greatly increased pedal force to hold the car back. That was good reason to adopt another means of assuring that the brake booster is not dependent upon engine intake vacuum. Audi did that. We proved that the “ghost under the hood” was not real. Runaways were the result of careless drivers. True, the Audi made the error more likely with the weirdly placed pedals. None of this seemed to affect the adverse publicity generated by the TV show “60 Minutes”. The result was greatly reduced sales for Audi. Another result of this scandal was the adoption of the brake-shift interlock mechanism that made it necessary to depress the (real) brake pedal in order to get the gear shift out of Park.
it still doesn't excuse the servicing dealer for plopping an extra mat over the other one, eh? What's the point there? Covering up a muddy mat with a clean one from the wrong Toyota vehicle? Or what? Seems simple, but that mistake shouldn't be repeated over again.
Sometimes the mistakes just pile up. Maybe it was all just the mat. But maybe it was the mat, plus the on/off switch that was unfamiliar to the driver, plus overheated brakes, plus everything else.
If it had just been one of these things by itself, maybe the wreck could have been avoided.
If the All Weather mats had not been put into the car incorrectly ( at all ) by the Lexus dealer that officer and his family would likely still be alive.
Nope that's not what he was saying at all. He was recounting his own experience in the Audi case after the article explained how CR did their testing on how to what the effects of braking had on throttles stuck Wide Open.
There were two interesting parts of that post. The CR results are very informative and probably the basis of what every vehicle maker will be doing in the future....or they better be.
The other is the unsolicited testamony of an expert in the field based on his own experiences. His conclusion as I read it was that such errors are almost always driver-induced errors. In the Cali case I think as Steve said it was a combination of errors but IMO originally caused by the mats being where they shouldn't have been.
by putting the mats where they were. That's preposterous. But I think you're right, kdhspyder, it's the All Weather mat placement that caused that accident.
If the All Weather mats had not been put into the car incorrectly ( at all ) by the Lexus dealer that officer and his family would likely still be alive.
Of if the car had a key switch instead of an on/off button. Lots of ifs.
I think it was the All Weather mat placement wholly to blame. It stuck to the accelerator(the exact science of it may some day be illustrated for us in newspapers and on the net)in a manner that rendered the accelerator stuck in the "fully on" position and it could not be pried loose. Going 100+ is a tough time to unstick an accelerator, huh?
I mean, I've bent down while driving to pick up things like candy bars, donuts, french fries, hamburgers, etc. But that was done very quickly and to tell you the truth, I don't think one could bend down, reach up forward and unstick a floor mat/accelerator combo while driving. Present 100+ mph speeds and you're really up a creek without a decent aluminum paddle.
Right. I'm just saying that the accident might have been avoided if the other factors had not been present. Lots of us have had pop bottles or carpets get stuck under the brake pedal and we've still managed to stop the car.
So you had a driver in a loaner vehicle that he was unfamiliar with, with the wrong, oversized mat, an unfamiliar on/off switch, unfamiliar gear selector lever, maybe some other stuff.
The mat may be the cause, but all that stuff together added up to the tragedy.
what Toyota will do to remedy this situation. I was reading today something about the shape of Toyota floorboards and the accelerators both coming under close strutiny. Imagine a recall in which a carmaker had to refit a floorboard piece under the driver and replace an accelerator! Good golly Miss Molly! The time and expense and embarrassment!
Good golly Miss Molly! The time and expense and embarrassment!
Toyota has known the accelerator peddle was problematic since late 2003. No sooner had the 2004 Prius come out and people were reporting runaway acceleration. Not only did Toyota ignore the obvious, they continued to use the same crappy design with fatal accidents across the country. I blame it on the arrogance that Toyota engineering has portrayed since the 1990s. They feel superior to the rest of the World when it comes to automotive design. Now they get to pay for that arrogance. Germany went through the same thing and Lexus kicked Mercedes butt. Sadly the D3 has had little to be proud or arrogant about for several decades when it comes to automobiles.
the last time the D3 have had any reason for feeling good about themselves was the glorious 60's. What a crop of Mopar's, Ford's and Chevy's!
This Toyota mat and pedal charade is going to be an interesting one to follow to it's conclusion. Will they run and hide or will they honestly remedy the problem?
I've been interested in actually buying only three Toyota cars in my life. They are a 2007 Toyota Yaris 4-dr. sedan, a 2006 Scion xA and a 2005 Scion tC RS 1.0. Looking back the one I would've been most happy with would've been the Polar White 2006 Scion xA. 5-speed tranny, foglights and i-Pod connection all for about $14,190. Loved the test-drive, however, my son was with me on the test drive but Mrs.iluv was not. She was slaving away in Pocatello, ID, at her job while we were playing up in Idaho Falls, ID. I tried briefly to talk her in to trading our '01 Kia Sportage 4X4 but she'd have nothing of the deal. Kept the Sportsman about another year when we eventually traded it for the '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS.
So I came kind of close to buying a Toyota product in 2006. I have no particular axe to grind with Toyota but in general am not a huge fan. The Scion xA was a quirky design that was not really popular with everybody but I liked it.
My interest in this case is strictly one of watching the industry and market and watching how a huge worldwide automaker reacts to and remedies a situation. If they gloss this one over they will pay dearly for it.
My interest in this case is strictly one of watching the industry and market and watching how a huge worldwide automaker reacts to and remedies a situation. If they gloss this one over they will pay dearly for it.
It is going to be interesting to see what happens because, despite the compelling arguments by Gagrice and others, I believe that Toyota does not have an engineering problem to remedy. What they do have is a problem with users not following clear instructions and not having sufficient common sense. I'm including the Lexus dealership personnel with users. I have no idea how you go about fixing that sort of problem.
this morning on the way in to work, I found out what happens when you throw a 2000 Intrepid into neutral with the gas pedal jammed down. Now granted, I didn't get up to 90 mph or anything like that. It was a back road, and I stomped it. Once it got up to about 50 mph and 4000 rpm, I threw it into neutral, with the pedal still to the floor. The tach dropped slightly, to about 3800 rpm, but the engine seemed to get a lot quieter. Maybe because it wasn't under load at that point?
I wonder how far back they started making cars that were "smart" enough to cut back like that? My uncle's '97 Silverado doesn't have that feature. Throw it into neutral with the pedal jammed down, and it just keeps revving. It has a 6,000 rpm tach but no redline, so I dunno if it's possible to over-rev it or not. I got nowhere near that, though...as soon as I noticed that the revs weren't cutting back, I let up on the pedal.
sounds like your Intrepid would've released you from real danger if the same scenario happened to you as it did to this poor SD family. What I wonder about is how come these gated shifters are confusing people-especially when they ought not to be corn-fusing anyone, in a real emergency?
I have not taken my '08 Mitsu Lancer GTS out and tried the same scenario but you're getting me interested in doing just that. When I'm in CVT tranny mode going in to neutral would be a matter of ignoring my steering wheel paddle shifters and reaching over to the gearknob and putting it two notches in the "up" direction to neutral. The paddle shifters go "up" one at a time 1-6.
Then they go back "down" the scale one at a time. Come to think of it I could in that kind of an emergency paddle shift my way back down and slow the car back down, conceivably, then reach over and throw it into neutral. Even with a stuck accelerator? Huh? I can't even imagine my Lancer's accelerator actually getting stuck...my mats are securely tied down and go no where at all.
If I was feeling too much mat under my foot and near the accelerator, I would think about stopping the rig, getting out and adjusting the situation, if that meant taking a mat out and throwing it in the trunk, then so be it. Not trying to be condescending, just trying to think logically in a situation like this.
As I understand it, Toyota has instructed all Toyota vehicle owners to take out their mats for now, right? Evalutate what you've got and fix what might me wrong in your mat situation.
The mat may be the cause, but all that stuff together added up to the tragedy. I don't agree. Bad car design is a problem. Brakes must be stronger than engine. Even under full acceleration car must stops at list once, when brake pedal pushed.
So what should you do if you are put in such a situation? The answer is simple: Put the car in neutral. In each one of the cars we tested, we were able to easily nudge the gear lever into neutral and stop the car quickly. All modern engines have rev limiters that prevent the engine from over revving and damaging the engine. You can safely shut off the engine after you come to a stop. However, we do not advise shutting off the engine while still driving. We tried this with our Toyota Venza—as Toyota suggests—by holding down the start/stop button for three seconds. While this also allowed us to stop, we lost power steering and had trouble maneuvering the vehicle due to the extremely heavy steering.
So why could the officer in the Lexus crash not just put it into neutral?
Anyone have a good reason why he could not do that?
I was hoping CU would have tried that in their tests at a higher speed with a WOT. Also in a Toyota that is in the recall. I would think that all ToyLex are drive by wire. So Toyota knows which vehicles are suspect and which are not.
We may not know until the contents of the black box are made public. Not sure why it is taking so long the box is in the Sheriff's custody.
Just measured my Sequoia. It is 2 inches to the added floor mat. Which has only one hook holding it in place. I could stack 5 rubber mats on top and not get hung up in the accelerator.
I have a hard time believing a seasoned CHP officer would not try to put it in Neutral as soon as he realized the brakes would not slow him down. Or at least try to downshift in some fashion. This terror ride had to last at least a couple minutes. The 911 call lasted 50 seconds. The call was placed when they realized they could do nothing to stop the car. The fact that it is a cop being killed will carry a lot more weight in the investigation by the law enforcement community. I don't expect Toyota Lexus to come out smelling very well on this one. The dealership is already toast. If I ran Lexus their franchise would already be pulled. They seem to still be in business when I drove by a few days ago.
that the dummy who overstacked floor mats in the CHP officer's loaner Lexus should be poop-canned immediately, if not sooner.
larsb-man, I respectfully disagree with you on this one. We agree on many "green" issues and are both living in the beautiful state of Arizona, but, I can't seem to work out of my mind that this Patrol Officer had a mat stuck under there. Sure, like you surmise, he could've called out to his wife, "Hone, could grab the wheel for a sec, I need to unstick somthing."
But you forget how fast that Lexus was accelerating on him. You think that at over a 100mph he's gonna look away from the road for long?
What we don't know also is how long it took before the Lexus started propelling out of control and speeding up so fast. If he had noticed the accelerator early on it might've been easier to unstick it.
And yes, after my main surmisal, I realize that it still might be an ECU problem, electronic controls failure of some kind. Man, I wish the Sherrif's office would give Nancy Grace some news to report to us on this story that would silence some of this surmising.
Floor mats were already under recall. So who do you punish if not the owners for such a blunder. Was it the Service manager, shop guy, the parts guy, the yard man? Who sets the policy at the dealership? Why in the world would you need rubber floor mats in CA?
Besides my involvement with that dealership has been much less than positive over the years. I have posted negative remarks about them long before this tragedy occurred. So you think those good workers at the dealership would have a hard time finding another job at a competing Lexus dealership? That dealership indirectly has cost Toyota $millions and possibly $billions of dollars. Yes I would pull their franchise for both Toyota and Lexus. We have plenty of both in San Diego County.
The computer on some modern cars won't let you rev over 4,000 rpm or so in neutral or park. The Nissan I had would cut out around that rpm, and I think GM uses a similar system, but I've never tried it in my Pontiac.
I hope that instead of ugly stickers on the dash explaining engine emergency stop procedure, they change their design to have an "on" and separate "off" button.
Plus, in a true emergenecy, it would be so easy and intuitive, just hit the "off" to stop unintended acceleration.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
and none of this holding the button in for 3 seconds nonsense. We need that operation to be even more simple than that. A separate "on" and "off" button should suffice well.
It is going to be interesting to see what happens because, despite the compelling arguments by Gagrice and others, I believe that Toyota does not have an engineering problem to remedy. What they do have is a problem with users not following clear instructions and not having sufficient common sense. I'm including the Lexus dealership personnel with users. I have no idea how you go about fixing that sort of problem.
Just noticed this, and I have to say a huge "DITTO". Automakers these days need to assume that owners are ignorant of basic safety measures related to operating an automobile, and that no-one will read the operator's manual. It may be that Toyota didn't take that into account enough with the design of their recent models. I think it quite likely.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Hey, you can certainly disagree - but allow me to attempt to dissuade that disagreement.
We know he was accelerating for more than 50 seconds, because the 911 call lasted 50 seconds.
How long was it "stuck" before the 911 call started? My guess is at LEAST 30 seconds - that gives them time to realize, "hey, we might need outside help here."
That gives him at least 80 seconds to think clearly enough and realize, "hey, the floor mat is causing this problem. I just need to get it unstuck."
No other thought pattern makes a lick of sense, does it?
If he thought the floor mat was about to kill him, his wife, his daughter, and his brother in law, then nothing short of God Himself would have stopped him from going into the floor and solving that problem.
And no amount of RUBBER, even if it is 2" thick, would stop ME from pulling that mat out, if my kids and I were about to die if I did not pull it loose.
Why would it have stopped HIM, either?
I can't envision a scenario when I would have 80 seconds to pull a floor mat off of a stuck accelerator pedal and NOT be able to do that.
Everyone can sit in their nice chairs and speculate about this situation (about why this CHP person did not pull out the mat, or if he did), but until you are actually in this situation, it is all bunk.
I still bet the improper use of the mats are THE problem.
It seems now that people want Toyota to engineer for ignorance, to put it nicely. You might as well just stop selling cars!!
This false and you're making it up. Stick to facts and not fabrications. I'm involved in a lot more Prius and hybrid boards than you are and it's NEVER been a problem.
It's unproven innuendos like this trash that make most of your posts worthless.
In fact the very opposite is true. In the beginning of the Gen 2 Prius' there was an over protective buffer between the gas supply and the ICE that shut people down too early. This made the vehicle seem to 'stall'. It was made less protective at the end of 2004 and it's never been a problem since then. This is the actual situation but truth and accuracy are not very important apparently in your neck of the woods.
Facts are the only arbiter. Post actual facts if you want to be taken seriously.
So why could the officer in the Lexus crash not just put it into neutral?
Anyone have a good reason why he could not do that
Maybe for the same reason that he didn't think to move the mat off the pedal. Having learned to drive on a manual tranny my first impression in a panic situation is brake/clutch/shift into Neutral.
As to why he didn't move the mat? Maybe he never considered it. In the latest report by the NHTSA it noted that the All Weather mat was moved forward and apparently melted onto the top of the gas pedal due to the fire. It apparently was out of place and the driver may not have been aware of it.
What I do know from meeting the public daily is that cars and their operation are not a major interest of 90+% of the population. Even this situation involves all of 12 of us . We might look at the mats as a cause but we don't know for certain. Take 10 random people off the street and ask them this question..'You're driving a car and suddenly find yourself going 100 mph and you can't slow down. What do you do?' How many of the general public do you think will respond, 'Move the All Weather mat backward.'? Not many I'd guess.
As to why he didn't move the mat? Maybe he never considered it. In the latest report by the NHTSA it noted that the All Weather mat was moved forward and apparently melted onto the top of the gas pedal due to the fire. It apparently was out of place and the driver may not have been aware of it.
Well, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. I'll admit, that if this had happened to me, I wouldn't have thought to check the floor mat, simply because I've never had a car that was designed that way. All of my cars either have the gas pedal suspended so far above the floor you can actually get your foot under it, or they've had the pedal mounted to the floor, hinged at the base, so if a mat slid, it would slide up and over the pedal, but not catch the bottom of it and jam. My first thought would be to put the car in neutral and kill the power to the engine.
Of course, now that this floor mat thing has been blasted from the rooftops, the mat is probably the first thing I'd check!
Older cars would allow you to throw it in reverse and you'd drop the transmission. I'd rather a dead transmission than a dead me. Of course, if you tried it with an old Torqueflite, the transmission might survive too!
I just got back from lunch with my wife and we took the minivan that has a column shifter. I asked her if she knew how to shift the van into neutral if it were moving and to show me how (she was riding shotgun).
So she indicated that she would put her palm on the shift lever facing her, and pull the lever in and then over.
She didn't know she was doing it "wrong". I bet 99.9 % of the population does it that way too.
Somewhere along the way I learned that the correct way to shift a running vehicle into Neutral or 3-2-1 was to put your palm on the shift lever facing away from you (ie, your palm faces the hood).
Try it - it's easy to shift into neutral or low, but you can't shift into reverse or park without moving your hand and pulling the lever toward you. One bud of mine uses the flat of his palm - pushes down for 3-2-1 and pushes up (but not toward his body) for neutral.
Does anyone have a column shifter that doesn't work this way (and how many of y'all know about this technique?).
Here's a pic from my manual; I was thinking I could go from D to 2 without pulling the lever forward but I guess not:
Facts are the only arbiter. Post actual facts if you want to be taken seriously.
The NHTSA ODI is loaded with complaints. I will give you a few to think about as you only go to the Rah Rah Prius boards.
2004 TOYOTA PRIUS HAVING PROBLEMS STARTING.**CC THE CONSUMER STATED AFTER SEVERAL TRIES, THE VEHICLE STARTED, HOWEVER WHEN HE SHIFTED INTO THE DRIVE, THE ENGINE RACED AND THE VEHICLE LURCHED FORWARD RAPIDLY, EVEN THOUGH THE ACCELERATOR HAD NOT BEEN APPLIED. THE CONSUMER WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE VEHICLE BY USING THE BRAKES. THE VEHICLE CONTINUED FORWARD ABOUT 25 FEET AND CRASHED INTO A GARAGE. THE CONSUMER RECEIVED MINOR SCRATCHES TO HIS KNEE. THE CONSUMER ALSO NOTED THAT THE AIR BAGS DID NOT DEPLOY. *JB
THE ACCLERATOR STUCK CONTINUOUSLY, CAUSING THE VEHICLE TO STALL AND SHUTDOWN. DEALER HAS BEEN UNABLE TO DUPLICATE THE PROBLEM ,AND THE MANUFACTURER OFFERED NO SOLUTION. *AK
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2004 TOYOTA PRIUS. WHEN HE APPLIED PRESSURE ON THE BRAKE PEDAL AT 50 MPH IN THE DARK, THE VEHICLE WOULD NOT STOP. THE ANTI-LOCK BRAKE SYSTEM ACTIVATED, BUT THE VEHICLE DID NOT STOP. CONSEQUENTLY THE VEHICLE CRASHED INTO A TREE. THE VEHICLE WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. HE SUSTAINED INJURIES. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 62000. THE VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER WAS UNAVAILABLE.
I picked the first 3 with accidents out of 100s of complaints filed with the NHTSA on just the 2004 Prius. I am sure that Toyota would like to forget about all the problems they had with that vehicle when it came out. You can try to discredit what I say all you want. I am not that easily intimidated by car salesmen.
September 10, 2007
Federal safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say they are "aware of" complaints of runaway acceleration in the popular Toyota Prius hybrid and are in a "monitoring mode."
"It is currently like dozens, or maybe hundreds, of other issues of this kind," an agency official said.
Of course, if you tried it with an old Torqueflite, the transmission might survive too!
Try that with an old pushbutton Torqueflite, at least the 1957 model, and it wouldn't work. At any forward speed greater than 10 mph it just goes into neutral as a safety feature. Or at least, it's supposed to. I never tried it out on my DeSoto, and I'm not about to!
I do know from experience though, that throwing a '68 Dart into park at a forward speed of roughly 30 mph will stop it almost immediately. And stall it out. But thankfully, do no permanent damage (at least, that one time it happened it didn't)
It seems now that people want Toyota to engineer for ignorance, to put it nicely. You might as well just stop selling cars!!
No absolutely not, false conclusion. There is plenty of money to be made in car manufacturing, even for an ignorant customer base. Just look at all the fuss around child car seats these last few years, instructions all over the inside of the car AND the outside of the car seat, still AAA regularly publishes estimates that over 50% of them are mounted improperly.
Point is, they slapped stickers and warnings everywhere, added gear (LATCH system) to every car sold to try and make it easier for the consumer (whose life is much too busy to make sure that his/her kids are safely installed in the car by reading the manual of either the car or the child seat), and they go right on selling cars at a tidy profit. When that first improperly secured child goes rocketing onto the interstate, they will have lots of evidence to show the judge that they took extra precautions to keep that kid safe.
Toyota has to assume the American consumer is even more ignorant than their current assumptions, and engineer accordingly, as do all car manufacturers.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
There were Tacoma acceleration out-of-control posts in the posts following an article. Of course a Toyota person will claim 101% of those were lies, but have there been Tacoma problems also with UA (Unintended Acceleration)?
Googling "toyota tacoma acceleration problem" or "'Toyota throttle problems"
gave
lots of links to Tacoma problems with UA:
toyota tacoma acceleration problem in toyotanation which amusingly had all kinds of Toyota floor mats ads on it!!!
One person in the RAV4 discussion said, "I did look up throttle problems and as a result my dealership had a Toyota engineer from Boston come up to Maine to inspect my vehicle. At one point while I was driving the Rav started to act up when I lightly pressed the accelerator while proceeding out of an intersection. The engineer said my computer was "confused" and that was due to "applied learning" by the computer. He said it has a "memory" and if you are lead foot it will remember that after 5-6 hours of driving and will try to respond accordingly. I said then why isn't it consistent every time I step on the gas I am not a lead foot anyway] and what about all the city drivers who need to be quick on the pedal, why aren't they having my issues. He changed the subject. He drove it for the afternoon and of course it wouldn't act up. He concluded it was due to the all season rubber mats I bought thru Toyota even tho I told him the problem occured when there was no floor mat at all. While we were driving I had him try with his foot to get that rubber mat to budge and he couldn't do it. He told me not to use the $100.00 mats anyway I bought from Toyota and he will see that they give me free of charge a set of factory floor mats. I said he was insane and now I knew Toyota was trying to kill me if they want to give me the very floor mats that they are blaming for my problem and what caused the death of that family this past summer. He said not to worry that they will be permenently secured to the seat. Since when does my floor mat need a seatbelt??? I really am out of viable options now and must pray that someone else brings it to their attention before I or anyone else get killed. Consumer affarirs.com has since received numerous complaints from new Prius owners complaining of the same problem"
the Toyota rep told the owner it was "confused" computer due to its memory...
Kind of interesting... that the guy changed the subject to floor mats to avoid the real question that's the elephant behind the tree: Is it a computer problem?
By October 2009, Toyota was forced to finally acknowledge sudden acceleration problems in the following vehicles:
2007-2010 Toyota Camry 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon 2004-2009 Toyota Prius 2005-2010 Toyota Tacoma 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra 2007-2010 Lexus ES350 2006-2010 Lexus IS250 2006-2010 Lexus IS 350
>WASHINGTON -- A relatively new technology, the electronic throttle, is a leading suspect in a wave of claims that some vehicles unexpectedly accelerate out of control. Government investigators are looking at 2002-03 Toyota Camrys and Solaras and Lexus ES 300s to determine if they are defective. More than a million cars are in service. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun a preliminary investigation of the latest claims. It is gathering about 37 complaints of sudden acceleration by owners of the Toyota and Lexus cars. The complaints include 30 reports of crashes. They involved injuries to five people; one of them was seriously hurt.
According to AutoSafety.org, by the year 2000, there had been more than 22,600 reported complaints of sudden acceleration.
More than five years ago, Toyota and NHTSA identified the electronic throttle as the most likely source of the sudden acceleration defect.However, Toyota continued -- and continues today -- to dismiss concerns about its throttle control system and has looked only at the floor mat issue.b>
Hard to believe a La Mesa PD officer would rear-end me, but it happens. In fact, I'd argue that most CHP and police officer's are lousier drivers than the people they ticket most of the time.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Comments
That includes all attachments including shampoo unit., IIRC>
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I even reported it to NHTSA, and someone from the agency later called me back to query me about the incident.
Months later, I realized what likely had happened. I was wearing boots that day, and these had wider soles than my dress shoes or sneakers. The right edge of the sole had caught the gas pedal while I was depressing the brake pedal.
After the interesting article..
As a Crash Scene Investigator (CxSI), I have an advantage: I previously was the Auto Safety Engineer for Consumer Reports. There, I test drove the Audi 5000 when it was new. I knew that this car had large wide tires to accommodate the powerful 5 cylinder engine. There is a bulge on the left side of the space for the brake and accelerator pedals. This displaced the pedals toward the center of the car more than on most automobiles because of the wide tires. Because of that lateral shift, it was easy to press on the accelerator pedal with the right side of your foot while also pressing on the brake pedal. It occurred to me that drivers, especially older drivers with degraded hearing, would start the car and place it in gear quickly, without hearing the engine revving much faster than idle. Then when the car took off, they pressed hard on the accelerator, thinking it was only the brake pedal.
What do we know about other cars that had unexpected acceleration like this? A CSxI who is working with a possible client has a demonstration to show that the problem was misplacement of the driver’s right foot. I could take almost any car with an automatic transmission to show how unlikely a real runaway would be. Even if the car had a powerful V-8 I would start the engine and shift into Drive normally. Then with my left foot on the brake pedal, we would mash the accelerator pedal. The driven tires might begin to spin and make blue smoke but the car would remain in place. All four wheels had locked brakes, but the engine was overpowering only two of them. The front brake and tires were very effective if we started that with the car not moving. If I attempted this demonstration when the car was going 60 mph, overcoming the inertia would be more difficult – maybe impossible.
I could get a runaway under another scenario. If we pumped the brake pedal while the engine was revving hard, that would deplete the power-brake vacuum booster reservoir. Then the brake effect would be like having non-power brakes – requiring greatly increased pedal force to hold the car back. That was good reason to adopt another means of assuring that the brake booster is not dependent upon engine intake vacuum. Audi did that.
We proved that the “ghost under the hood” was not real. Runaways were the result of careless drivers. True, the Audi made the error more likely with the weirdly placed pedals. None of this seemed to affect the adverse publicity generated by the TV show “60 Minutes”. The result was greatly reduced sales for Audi. Another result of this scandal was the adoption of the brake-shift interlock mechanism that made it necessary to depress the (real) brake pedal in order to get the gear shift out of Park.
Otherwise the article is nicely written, may be true or not true, but has no relevance to the Toyota at hand.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
If it had just been one of these things by itself, maybe the wreck could have been avoided.
There were two interesting parts of that post. The CR results are very informative and probably the basis of what every vehicle maker will be doing in the future....or they better be.
The other is the unsolicited testamony of an expert in the field based on his own experiences. His conclusion as I read it was that such errors are almost always driver-induced errors. In the Cali case I think as Steve said it was a combination of errors but IMO originally caused by the mats being where they shouldn't have been.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Of if the car had a key switch instead of an on/off button. Lots of ifs.
I mean, I've bent down while driving to pick up things like candy bars, donuts, french fries, hamburgers, etc. But that was done very quickly and to tell you the truth, I don't think one could bend down, reach up forward and unstick a floor mat/accelerator combo while driving. Present 100+ mph speeds and you're really up a creek without a decent aluminum paddle.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
So you had a driver in a loaner vehicle that he was unfamiliar with, with the wrong, oversized mat, an unfamiliar on/off switch, unfamiliar gear selector lever, maybe some other stuff.
The mat may be the cause, but all that stuff together added up to the tragedy.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Toyota has known the accelerator peddle was problematic since late 2003. No sooner had the 2004 Prius come out and people were reporting runaway acceleration. Not only did Toyota ignore the obvious, they continued to use the same crappy design with fatal accidents across the country. I blame it on the arrogance that Toyota engineering has portrayed since the 1990s. They feel superior to the rest of the World when it comes to automotive design. Now they get to pay for that arrogance. Germany went through the same thing and Lexus kicked Mercedes butt. Sadly the D3 has had little to be proud or arrogant about for several decades when it comes to automobiles.
This Toyota mat and pedal charade is going to be an interesting one to follow to it's conclusion. Will they run and hide or will they honestly remedy the problem?
I've been interested in actually buying only three Toyota cars in my life. They are a 2007 Toyota Yaris 4-dr. sedan, a 2006 Scion xA and a 2005 Scion tC RS 1.0. Looking back the one I would've been most happy with would've been the Polar White 2006 Scion xA. 5-speed tranny, foglights and i-Pod connection all for about $14,190. Loved the test-drive, however, my son was with me on the test drive but Mrs.iluv was not. She was slaving away in Pocatello, ID, at her job while we were playing up in Idaho Falls, ID. I tried briefly to talk her in to trading our '01 Kia Sportage 4X4 but she'd have nothing of the deal. Kept the Sportsman about another year when we eventually traded it for the '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS.
So I came kind of close to buying a Toyota product in 2006. I have no particular axe to grind with Toyota but in general am not a huge fan. The Scion xA was a quirky design that was not really popular with everybody but I liked it.
My interest in this case is strictly one of watching the industry and market and watching how a huge worldwide automaker reacts to and remedies a situation. If they gloss this one over they will pay dearly for it.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
It is going to be interesting to see what happens because, despite the compelling arguments by Gagrice and others, I believe that Toyota does not have an engineering problem to remedy. What they do have is a problem with users not following clear instructions and not having sufficient common sense. I'm including the Lexus dealership personnel with users. I have no idea how you go about fixing that sort of problem.
I wonder how far back they started making cars that were "smart" enough to cut back like that? My uncle's '97 Silverado doesn't have that feature. Throw it into neutral with the pedal jammed down, and it just keeps revving. It has a 6,000 rpm tach but no redline, so I dunno if it's possible to over-rev it or not. I got nowhere near that, though...as soon as I noticed that the revs weren't cutting back, I let up on the pedal.
I have not taken my '08 Mitsu Lancer GTS out and tried the same scenario but you're getting me interested in doing just that. When I'm in CVT tranny mode going in to neutral would be a matter of ignoring my steering wheel paddle shifters and reaching over to the gearknob and putting it two notches in the "up" direction to neutral. The paddle shifters go "up" one at a time 1-6.
Then they go back "down" the scale one at a time. Come to think of it I could in that kind of an emergency paddle shift my way back down and slow the car back down, conceivably, then reach over and throw it into neutral. Even with a stuck accelerator? Huh? I can't even imagine my Lancer's accelerator actually getting stuck...my mats are securely tied down and go no where at all.
If I was feeling too much mat under my foot and near the accelerator, I would think about stopping the rig, getting out and adjusting the situation, if that meant taking a mat out and throwing it in the trunk, then so be it. Not trying to be condescending, just trying to think logically in a situation like this.
As I understand it, Toyota has instructed all Toyota vehicle owners to take out their mats for now, right? Evalutate what you've got and fix what might me wrong in your mat situation.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I don't agree. Bad car design is a problem. Brakes must be stronger than engine. Even under full acceleration car must stops at list once, when brake pedal pushed.
Why, you ask me?
Let me say it again.
"Honey, take the wheel, I'm going down to pull the floor mat off the accelerator !!!"
Since THAT conversation did not happen, it could not have been the floor mat ALONE which caused the problem.
Any grown man is strong enough to pull ANY floor mat off an accelerator when he gets down and puts full strength of will into the action.
The fact that he did not do this to solve the problem means that he knew that was not the problem.
So what should you do if you are put in such a situation? The answer is simple: Put the car in neutral. In each one of the cars we tested, we were able to easily nudge the gear lever into neutral and stop the car quickly. All modern engines have rev limiters that prevent the engine from over revving and damaging the engine. You can safely shut off the engine after you come to a stop. However, we do not advise shutting off the engine while still driving. We tried this with our Toyota Venza—as Toyota suggests—by holding down the start/stop button for three seconds. While this also allowed us to stop, we lost power steering and had trouble maneuvering the vehicle due to the extremely heavy steering.
So why could the officer in the Lexus crash not just put it into neutral?
Anyone have a good reason why he could not do that?
I was hoping CU would have tried that in their tests at a higher speed with a WOT. Also in a Toyota that is in the recall. I would think that all ToyLex are drive by wire. So Toyota knows which vehicles are suspect and which are not.
We may not know until the contents of the black box are made public. Not sure why it is taking so long the box is in the Sheriff's custody.
Just measured my Sequoia. It is 2 inches to the added floor mat. Which has only one hook holding it in place. I could stack 5 rubber mats on top and not get hung up in the accelerator.
Car instantly began revving down to idle, even though my foot still had the accelerator on the floor.
Do you really think that all the people employed at that dealership need to be 'punished'? No, wait, what am I asking, of course you do.
larsb-man, I respectfully disagree with you on this one. We agree on many "green" issues and are both living in the beautiful state of Arizona, but, I can't seem to work out of my mind that this Patrol Officer had a mat stuck under there. Sure, like you surmise, he could've called out to his wife, "Hone, could grab the wheel for a sec, I need to unstick somthing."
But you forget how fast that Lexus was accelerating on him. You think that at over a 100mph he's gonna look away from the road for long?
What we don't know also is how long it took before the Lexus started propelling out of control and speeding up so fast. If he had noticed the accelerator early on it might've been easier to unstick it.
And yes, after my main surmisal, I realize that it still might be an ECU problem, electronic controls failure of some kind. Man, I wish the Sherrif's office would give Nancy Grace some news to report to us on this story that would silence some of this surmising.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Besides my involvement with that dealership has been much less than positive over the years. I have posted negative remarks about them long before this tragedy occurred. So you think those good workers at the dealership would have a hard time finding another job at a competing Lexus dealership? That dealership indirectly has cost Toyota $millions and possibly $billions of dollars. Yes I would pull their franchise for both Toyota and Lexus. We have plenty of both in San Diego County.
How about, "Honey, I'm going to take my foot off the brake while you grab the mat"?
Why in the world would you need rubber floor mats in CA?
Beach sand? I think the dealer was just trying to save wear and tear on the carpet and the correct mat.
Plus, in a true emergenecy, it would be so easy and intuitive, just hit the "off" to stop unintended acceleration.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Just noticed this, and I have to say a huge "DITTO". Automakers these days need to assume that owners are ignorant of basic safety measures related to operating an automobile, and that no-one will read the operator's manual. It may be that Toyota didn't take that into account enough with the design of their recent models. I think it quite likely.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
See, we're doing automotive imagineering here.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
We know he was accelerating for more than 50 seconds, because the 911 call lasted 50 seconds.
How long was it "stuck" before the 911 call started? My guess is at LEAST 30 seconds - that gives them time to realize, "hey, we might need outside help here."
That gives him at least 80 seconds to think clearly enough and realize, "hey, the floor mat is causing this problem. I just need to get it unstuck."
No other thought pattern makes a lick of sense, does it?
If he thought the floor mat was about to kill him, his wife, his daughter, and his brother in law, then nothing short of God Himself would have stopped him from going into the floor and solving that problem.
And no amount of RUBBER, even if it is 2" thick, would stop ME from pulling that mat out, if my kids and I were about to die if I did not pull it loose.
Why would it have stopped HIM, either?
I can't envision a scenario when I would have 80 seconds to pull a floor mat off of a stuck accelerator pedal and NOT be able to do that.
Can you?
Everyone can sit in their nice chairs and speculate about this situation (about why this CHP person did not pull out the mat, or if he did), but until you are actually in this situation, it is all bunk.
I still bet the improper use of the mats are THE problem.
It seems now that people want Toyota to engineer for ignorance, to put it nicely. You might as well just stop selling cars!!
It's unproven innuendos like this trash that make most of your posts worthless.
In fact the very opposite is true. In the beginning of the Gen 2 Prius' there was an over protective buffer between the gas supply and the ICE that shut people down too early. This made the vehicle seem to 'stall'. It was made less protective at the end of 2004 and it's never been a problem since then. This is the actual situation but truth and accuracy are not very important apparently in your neck of the woods.
Facts are the only arbiter. Post actual facts if you want to be taken seriously.
Anyone have a good reason why he could not do that
Maybe for the same reason that he didn't think to move the mat off the pedal. Having learned to drive on a manual tranny my first impression in a panic situation is brake/clutch/shift into Neutral.
As to why he didn't move the mat? Maybe he never considered it. In the latest report by the NHTSA it noted that the All Weather mat was moved forward and apparently melted onto the top of the gas pedal due to the fire. It apparently was out of place and the driver may not have been aware of it.
What I do know from meeting the public daily is that cars and their operation are not a major interest of 90+% of the population. Even this situation involves all of 12 of us
Lot's of unknowns.
Well, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. I'll admit, that if this had happened to me, I wouldn't have thought to check the floor mat, simply because I've never had a car that was designed that way. All of my cars either have the gas pedal suspended so far above the floor you can actually get your foot under it, or they've had the pedal mounted to the floor, hinged at the base, so if a mat slid, it would slide up and over the pedal, but not catch the bottom of it and jam. My first thought would be to put the car in neutral and kill the power to the engine.
Of course, now that this floor mat thing has been blasted from the rooftops, the mat is probably the first thing I'd check!
Why??? :confuse:
So she indicated that she would put her palm on the shift lever facing her, and pull the lever in and then over.
She didn't know she was doing it "wrong". I bet 99.9 % of the population does it that way too.
Somewhere along the way I learned that the correct way to shift a running vehicle into Neutral or 3-2-1 was to put your palm on the shift lever facing away from you (ie, your palm faces the hood).
Try it - it's easy to shift into neutral or low, but you can't shift into reverse or park without moving your hand and pulling the lever toward you. One bud of mine uses the flat of his palm - pushes down for 3-2-1 and pushes up (but not toward his body) for neutral.
Does anyone have a column shifter that doesn't work this way (and how many of y'all know about this technique?).
Here's a pic from my manual; I was thinking I could go from D to 2 without pulling the lever forward but I guess not:
The NHTSA ODI is loaded with complaints. I will give you a few to think about as you only go to the Rah Rah Prius boards.
2004 TOYOTA PRIUS HAVING PROBLEMS STARTING.**CC THE CONSUMER STATED AFTER SEVERAL TRIES, THE VEHICLE STARTED, HOWEVER WHEN HE SHIFTED INTO THE DRIVE, THE ENGINE RACED AND THE VEHICLE LURCHED FORWARD RAPIDLY, EVEN THOUGH THE ACCELERATOR HAD NOT BEEN APPLIED. THE CONSUMER WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE VEHICLE BY USING THE BRAKES. THE VEHICLE CONTINUED FORWARD ABOUT 25 FEET AND CRASHED INTO A GARAGE. THE CONSUMER RECEIVED MINOR SCRATCHES TO HIS KNEE. THE CONSUMER ALSO NOTED THAT THE AIR BAGS DID NOT DEPLOY. *JB
THE ACCLERATOR STUCK CONTINUOUSLY, CAUSING THE VEHICLE TO STALL AND SHUTDOWN. DEALER HAS BEEN UNABLE TO DUPLICATE THE PROBLEM ,AND THE MANUFACTURER OFFERED NO SOLUTION. *AK
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2004 TOYOTA PRIUS. WHEN HE APPLIED PRESSURE ON THE BRAKE PEDAL AT 50 MPH IN THE DARK, THE VEHICLE WOULD NOT STOP. THE ANTI-LOCK BRAKE SYSTEM ACTIVATED, BUT THE VEHICLE DID NOT STOP. CONSEQUENTLY THE VEHICLE CRASHED INTO A TREE. THE VEHICLE WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. HE SUSTAINED INJURIES. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 62000. THE VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER WAS UNAVAILABLE.
I picked the first 3 with accidents out of 100s of complaints filed with the NHTSA on just the 2004 Prius. I am sure that Toyota would like to forget about all the problems they had with that vehicle when it came out. You can try to discredit what I say all you want. I am not that easily intimidated by car salesmen.
September 10, 2007
Federal safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say they are "aware of" complaints of runaway acceleration in the popular Toyota Prius hybrid and are in a "monitoring mode."
"It is currently like dozens, or maybe hundreds, of other issues of this kind," an agency official said.
Try that with an old pushbutton Torqueflite, at least the 1957 model, and it wouldn't work. At any forward speed greater than 10 mph it just goes into neutral as a safety feature. Or at least, it's supposed to. I never tried it out on my DeSoto, and I'm not about to!
I do know from experience though, that throwing a '68 Dart into park at a forward speed of roughly 30 mph will stop it almost immediately. And stall it out. But thankfully, do no permanent damage (at least, that one time it happened it didn't)
No absolutely not, false conclusion. There is plenty of money to be made in car manufacturing, even for an ignorant customer base. Just look at all the fuss around child car seats these last few years, instructions all over the inside of the car AND the outside of the car seat, still AAA regularly publishes estimates that over 50% of them are mounted improperly.
Point is, they slapped stickers and warnings everywhere, added gear (LATCH system) to every car sold to try and make it easier for the consumer (whose life is much too busy to make sure that his/her kids are safely installed in the car by reading the manual of either the car or the child seat), and they go right on selling cars at a tidy profit. When that first improperly secured child goes rocketing onto the interstate, they will have lots of evidence to show the judge that they took extra precautions to keep that kid safe.
Toyota has to assume the American consumer is even more ignorant than their current assumptions, and engineer accordingly, as do all car manufacturers.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Googling "toyota tacoma acceleration problem"
or
"'Toyota throttle problems"
gave
lots of links to Tacoma problems with UA:
toyota tacoma acceleration problem
in toyotanation which amusingly had all kinds of Toyota floor mats ads on it!!!
One person in the RAV4 discussion said,
"I did look up throttle problems and as a result my dealership had a Toyota engineer from Boston come up to Maine to inspect my vehicle. At one point while I was driving the Rav started to act up when I lightly pressed the accelerator while proceeding out of an intersection. The engineer said my computer was "confused" and that was due to "applied learning" by the computer. He said it has a "memory" and if you are lead foot it will remember that after 5-6 hours of driving and will try to respond accordingly. I said then why isn't it consistent every time I step on the gas I am not a lead foot anyway] and what about all the city drivers who need to be quick on the pedal, why aren't they having my issues. He changed the subject. He drove it for the afternoon and of course it wouldn't act up. He concluded it was due to the all season rubber mats I bought thru Toyota even tho I told him the problem occured when there was no floor mat at all. While we were driving I had him try with his foot to get that rubber mat to budge and he couldn't do it. He told me not to use the $100.00 mats anyway I bought from Toyota and he will see that they give me free of charge a set of factory floor mats. I said he was insane and now I knew Toyota was trying to kill me if they want to give me the very floor mats that they are blaming for my problem and what caused the death of that family this past summer. He said not to worry that they will be permenently secured to the seat. Since when does my floor mat need a seatbelt??? I really am out of viable options now and must pray that someone else brings it to their attention before I or anyone else get killed. Consumer affarirs.com has since received numerous complaints from new Prius owners complaining of the same problem"
the Toyota rep told the owner it was "confused" computer due to its memory...
Kind of interesting... that the guy changed the subject to floor mats to avoid the real question that's the elephant behind the tree: Is it a computer problem?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Virtually every one of them has been proven, when tested in court, to be "driver error."
Certainly and of course not saying that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them has been, but many of them are.
By October 2009, Toyota was forced to finally acknowledge sudden acceleration problems in the following vehicles:
2007-2010 Toyota Camry
2005-2010 Toyota Avalon
2004-2009 Toyota Prius
2005-2010 Toyota Tacoma
2007-2010 Toyota Tundra
2007-2010 Lexus ES350
2006-2010 Lexus IS250
2006-2010 Lexus IS 350
>WASHINGTON -- A relatively new technology, the electronic throttle, is a leading suspect in a wave of claims that some vehicles unexpectedly accelerate out of control. Government investigators are looking at 2002-03 Toyota Camrys and Solaras and Lexus ES 300s to determine if they are defective. More than a million cars are in service. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun a preliminary investigation of the latest claims. It is gathering about 37 complaints of sudden acceleration by owners of the Toyota and Lexus cars. The complaints include 30 reports of crashes. They involved injuries to five people; one of them was seriously hurt.
According to AutoSafety.org, by the year 2000, there had been more than 22,600 reported complaints of sudden acceleration.
More than five years ago, Toyota and NHTSA identified the electronic throttle as the most likely source of the sudden acceleration defect. However, Toyota continued -- and continues today -- to dismiss concerns about its throttle control system and has looked only at the floor mat issue.b>
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
throw that mat into just about any other vehicle on top of what was already on the floor, and those same people are still alive.