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Comments
Still better than having your throttle stuck wide open.
I think your take on the ECU firmware is a very likely problem.
Toyota products? Why would they be in "denial" if the majority of
the Toyota owners are not having these problems?? I'm still very
confident in the reliability of my '07 RX. It's been a great car for the last three-and-a-half years. So I refuse to start panicking about this. Just step back and take a deep breath!!! Frankly, I just think this is all a bunch of hysteria that's taking over here.
Last night, the local TV news had one lady blaming her Prius for slamming into another car, with the narrator informing everyone that the Prius was not "for now" part in the recall. The first rule of TV news, scare first, inform later . . . if ever.
Let the games begin!
A Ford Motor Co. venture suspended production of a full-size commercial van in China as it investigates accelerator pedals made by CTS Corp., the supplier involved in Toyota Motor Corp.’s vehicle recall.
Denso's original name was NipponDenso. When my mom and I were shopping for cars during the 1980's we sought of had a "Nippon Only" philosophy. No pun intended.
I've never had an issue with Denso, but ALPS switches have failed on me. Car guys have always known about Lord Lucas or Holley, but these days the general public learns about CTS and Denso and all the other suppliers as soon as something breaks.
Wwest, maybe you can get on the Hyundai tech site and see how their "throttles" are set up. A few Santa Fe owners have reported unintended acceleration problems.
karen@edmunds.com
Well done sir. If I looked up prevaricator, duplicitous or two-faced what would that definition say? What about professional marketing shill for a competitor to Toyota? Is that definition nearby?
Quite small....
Yes, and so is the number of Toyota owners who would willingly participate in a game of russian roulette even with those same "odds", 2 million empty chambers but only one or two (three..?) bullets.
Yes, let the "games" begin....
Perhaps in the future.
Thanks to all that respond!
karen@edmunds.com
I did as you asked and browsed about on the various Hyundai specific forums on the internet. Two things jumped out at me.
Hyundai cars are experiencing the same 1-2 second downshift delay/hesitation as are all the FWD and F/awd (not ruling out RWD) Toyota/Lexus/Scion products. My conclusion is that Hyundai using the same transaxle supplier as is Toyota/etc.
Hyundai is also experiencing what is seemingly an unusual level of accelerator pedal position sensor failures. The nice thing, for Hyundai, is that the engine/transaxle control firmware is detecting the sensor failures and simply putting the control system in "limp home" mode.
But at the very "core" of all this I think I see the "hands" of NipponDenso, Denso US, in "play". I would bet good odds that the controlling firmware for both the transaxle shift sequence/pattern and the accelerator monitoring came from one source...DENSO.
Raising, for me, the distinct possibility that DENSO has not enough oversight, KNOWLEDGEABLE oversight, to provide high quality assurance of their software design's overall reliability.
Some years ago I discovered that some of the B767 flight control surface firmware was being "certified" by hardware engineers with NO software development nor software specification writing experience. So what should we expect from software development/specification from Japanese/Denso engineers operating in an ancient "heads-down" cultural environment.
Does anybody know if the recalled models use a similar fly-by-wire approach to accelerator control?
And question no. 2, how many Toyota vehicles do you own/drive?
Thanks Toyota for yet again screwing over the customer and be more worried about getting your sales up and ready. And people say Toyota cares about its customers.
Toyota is sending new gas pedal systems to car factories rather than dealerships who want the parts to take care of millions of customers whose pedals may stick.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons confirms information in a company e-mail obtained by the AP that says parts were shipped to factories. Lyons says that's how the company normally distributes parts.
But some dealers say they should get the parts first because they now have no way to fix the pedals on any of the 4.2 million recalled vehicles affecting eight U.S. models.
Here's the MSNBC story:
Toyota sends new pedals to plants, not dealers
Meanwhile, Toyota apologies (but not for that):
Toyota CEO Apologizes; Company Advertises Apology in U.S. Media (AutoObserver)
Yawn...Nothing to see here, just Mr Toyoda apologizing yet AGAIN.
Nothing to see...move along...
Next
:shades:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnFp2yLBnNQ
From reading your very logically thought out post, I infer that you believe there's something wrong or at least something happening in the firmware in the computer reading the accelerator sensor? So there may be something wrong beyond the accelerator pedal sensor. You're suggesting that involves Denso rather than only CTS even though CTS has been named by Toyota because of the accelerator pedal sensors. Am I correct?
Would this be consistent with some postings (true or false) of quick acceleration from a stop?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I cannot see how condensation would occur inside causing inhibition of physical movement and giving a friction to the pedal movement. The initial descriptions said there was a wiping contact and condensate buildup after wear and polishing could cause the sensor to not work properly. I don't see anywhere in this well done tear down showing that to be possible. The only "rubbing" is on the brass bearing contact, not the contact sensing pedal position.
Thank you.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHotbtd7HJA
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I am not sure what you mean by a heads down environment, but it sure beats the disrespectful, arrogant, and immature attitudes at many US work environments. I heard on either CBS or Bloomberg radio that up to 65 percent of American workers do the minimum work just to get by, while up to 15% are actively working against the companies they work for because they are disgruntled employees. Scary, don't you think. Poor companies like GM and Toyota have to deal with this to do business in the US.
I'm thinking someone keeps a very dirty car floor and something got stuck in it.
I think Toyota should hire an aircraft company or a miltary lab to test out these computer and electronic areas. EMI is a major issue there, especially on a carrier deck or missile launch area, so this industry and the AF and Navy are pretty advanced in these areas.
DETROIT - Toyota is sending new gas pedal systems to car factories rather than dealerships who want the parts to take care of millions of customers whose pedals may stick.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons confirms information in a company e-mail obtained by the AP that says parts were shipped to factories. Lyons says that's how the company normally distributes parts.
But some dealers say they should get the parts first because they now have no way to fix the pedals on any of the 4.2 million recalled vehicles affecting eight U.S. models.
Lyons said Toyota did not send the parts to dealers because it has not decided whether to have the systems in the recalled vehicles repaired or replaced.
But dealers and customers were unhappy with the delays in getting parts.
Earl Stewart, owner of a Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach, Florida, said his service technicians might not know the details of how to fix the gas pedal systems, but they know to install new ones, and the parts should have gone to dealers rather than factories.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35143209/ns/business-autos/
It seems strange that Toyota has not displayed these so-called corroded throttles attributed to CTS. Could this just be Toyota buying time to find what is really wrong with their systems?
This video shows the internals of the CTS pedal. I don't see where the condesate and polishing due to friction with aging have the potential to cause a problem. There's no mechanical contact as in an actual potentiometer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHotbtd7HJA&feature=related
This one sums up the potential areas for the problems to occur clearly. Sounds like firmware problem in at least some of the cases.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The floor mat excuse once you look into it is not going to fly.
This isn't Toyota's excuse. It's the action that NHTSA forced on Toyota so that stupid owners and others ( like stupid Lexus dealers ) would have a larger margin of error in case these morons decided to try to kill themselves and others by stacking multiple mats on top of one another.
Basically NHTSA is saying that some in the driving public are going to do stupid things. We're going to force you to try to compensate for these dopes by putting more space in the footwell - just in case someone does an idiotic thing like put an SUV All Weather mat into the footwell of a smaller sedan...then not secure it in place. This recall is the NHTSA thumping its chest.
He simply states that in his opinion it's a good design but it might be flawed but he doesn't know for certain.
Now as regards to facts. CTS has stated publicly that it is redesigning that pedal under instructions from Toyota to make it better, but they imply that the redesign didn't make it into the field yet. CTS is the true source of knowledge and the owner of the patent here. If in it's opinion, implying also Toyota's opinion, that the pedal needed improvements then it leaves this guy twisting in the wind.
It's interesting to see inside the pedal but he like almost everybody herein has no facts and no inside knowledge of what the real defect is. He admits that he simply doesn't understand. Another non-factual opinion.
The NHTSA issued a recall on certain Toyota vehicles back in 2007 based on mats trapping the gas pedal. They found a significant number of people were putting multiple mats on top of one another and not securing them in place. This could cause the top mat to slide forward and to trap the pedal in WOT. In this recall owners and dealers were instructed NOT to stack mats top of one another and to make sure that the mats were secured to the anchors in the floor. ( ISSUE No 1 )
However some people since then have complained about the pedals becoming stuck when there were no mats involved. ( ISSUE No 2 )
Last August a CHP driver and his family were killed in an ES350 Lexus loaner car and the NHTSA after its investigation found that the likely source was..........
..the Lexus dealer stacked two mats on top of each other
..the Lexus dealer used an All Weather mat from an SUV ( ! ) which was too large for the footwell sedan
..the Lexus dealer didn't secure the top mat in place and it slid forward apparently
Everyone of these actions was in contravention of the 2007 recall. It was simply stupid and possibly criminal. ( ISSUE No 1 again )
So what should be done? Due to the high visibility of this case the NHTSA had to do something to try to protect certain stupid people ( like the Lexus dealer ) from inadvertantly trying to kill themselves and others by doing idiotic things. The NHTSA can't have a 'safety rider' going along with every owner in the US reminding them "Don't do stupid things". So they forced Toyota to reshape the gas pedal to make it shorter and to take padding out of the floorpan. In this way if someone ignored ALL the warnings and still tried to do something really stupid like stack two or three mats on each other and not secure them there would be a larger margin of error. ( ISSUE No 1 again ). This is the large recall back in November. It's the NHTSA thumping its chest saying "See what we did."
But all along a few isolated people were still complaining about the pedal being stuck like the Avalon driver in NJ. He did nothing wrong and had his OEM mats secured properly ( ISSUE No 2 ). This is the voluntary recall last Tuesday where Toyota determined that certain isolated CTS pedals might 'become sticky' over time and use under certain specific circumstances. It has nothing to do with mats, never did.