New round of jingle mail?

[pwcmba]

http://wcbstv.com/consumer/toyota.re...2.1453416.html

"Toyota Owners Frustrated With Massive Recall
Dealers Flooded With Hundreds Of Calls, Few Answers For Concerned Customers"

Might some/many of these Toyota drivers with auto loans decide not to pay the loan when they can't/won't drive the car?:eek:

[thunderdownunder]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

I'm confused, since 1991 all Australian Toyota's with electronic injection (diesel and petrol) had electronic throttles. No cable exists from the throttle peddle to engine fuel management.
May be it is an American design rule to have cable operated fuel management as we have had no such recall on the models mentioned.
BTW fuel control is excellent using the electronic version but a small reaction delay when "blipping" the throttle is the only evidence of indirect control through the CPU.
I can see the huge problem to rectify this ancient mechanical method tied to electronic fuel management hybrid.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

http://wcbstv.com/consumer/toyota.re...2.1453416.html

"Toyota Owners Frustrated With Massive Recall
Dealers Flooded With Hundreds Of Calls, Few Answers For Concerned Customers"

Might some/many of these Toyota drivers with auto loans decide not to pay the loan when they can't/won't drive the car?:eek:

Maybe the plan is to drive their toyotas through their houses and blame it on the car.

[GRG55]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

I'm confused, since 1991 all Australian Toyota's with electronic injection (diesel and petrol) had electronic throttles. No cable exists from the throttle peddle to engine fuel management.
May be it is an American design rule to have cable operated fuel management as we have had no such recall on the models mentioned.
BTW fuel control is excellent using the electronic version but a small reaction delay when "blipping" the throttle is the only evidence of indirect control through the CPU.
I can see the huge problem to rectify this ancient mechanical method tied to electronic fuel management hybrid.

Where did you get the idea that it is a mechanical cable issue?

In the vehicles in question there is no direct mechanical linkage between the throttle pedal and the engine controller - it's all electronic. The problem is in the component which translates the pedal position into an electronic signal. It appears that under certain extreme conditions of high humidity or low temperature or high temperature it can "stick" [indicate no change in pedal position even when there has been one]. Toyota says there have been 8 instances of sticking out of 2.5 million components delivered. This problem is specific to certain North American assembled vehicles, all with parts from one particular North American supplier.

They are now frantically shipping the Japanese made equivalent so they can replace in vehicles already on the road or delivered to dealers. That is why they are shutting down the production lines – not enough parts to keep production going as all are being diverted to existing customers so new vehicle assembly gets bumped. In the meantime the North American supplier has an engineering problem which will probably take some time to fix and test satisfactorily.

Never get a car nut going...

[Verrocchio]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

About six months ago a friend in the Midwest told me that he and his wife were driving their six-week-old Toyota on an Interstate highway about 100 miles from their home when the throttle stuck in the full position. He burned up his brakes, including the parking brake before he could bring it to a halt. They were badly shaken over the incident.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

About six months ago a friend in the Midwest told me that he and his wife were driving their six-week-old Toyota on an Interstate highway about 100 miles from their home when the throttle stuck in the full position. He burned up his brakes, including the parking brake before he could bring it to a halt. They were badly shaken over the incident.

Wouldn't that have been a good time to slip the transmission into neutral?

You'd probably lose the engine about 3 seconds later, as it rev'd up past the red line, "to infinity and beyond." But that beats the risk of crashing.

It used to be you could just turn off the engine with the key, but I'm not sure how that would interact with the ignition lock on the steering wheel these days. Steering is a rather nice "feature" in a moving vehicle.

[GRG55]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

About six months ago a friend in the Midwest told me that he and his wife were driving their six-week-old Toyota on an Interstate highway about 100 miles from their home when the throttle stuck in the full position. He burned up his brakes, including the parking brake before he could bring it to a halt. They were badly shaken over the incident.

I've never heard of any automotive engine/transmission that can overcome a hydraulic brake system.

Try it in an open area. Step on the brake pedal firmly with the vehicle in gear and then try to get it to move with the throttle. Unless the brakes are seriously faulty the car will not move under any throttle setting.

Now as I think about your friend's situation what should have happened if the vehicle was in motion when the throttle stuck is the brakes should have easily locked up the wheels, and the tires should have been what burned up.

But I wonder if the now common anti-lock brake system might have had an influence in this situation? The anti-lock system would have repeatedly released and re-applied the brakes preventing wheel lock up, and with the vehicle running with the throttle open I can see a scenario where it just keeps sailing right along...I wonder if we have one of those unintended consequences engineering moments :eek: ? Presumably he had the presence of mind, once he recovered from the initial surprise, to shut off the ignition?

[GRG55]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

Wouldn't that have been a good time to slip the transmission into neutral?

You'd probably lose the engine about 3 seconds later, as it rev'd up past the red line, "to infinity and beyond." But that beats the risk of crashing.

It used to be you could just turn off the engine with the key, but I'm not sure how that would interact with the ignition lock on the steering wheel these days. Steering is a rather nice "feature" in a moving vehicle.

You can still shut off the ignition in a spark ignition engine...the steering column usually doesn't lock until you turn the key through the last of several positions.

[thunderdownunder]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

Sorry but the information is confusing.
One is that the pedal sticks under the floor mat when fully depressed - Note to self remove floor mat, problem solved.
Two appears to be, as you say, the electronic throttle positioning sensor 'Freezing' for an unexplained reason. This is baffling the engineers at Toyota.
Now if you owned a 450 ci big block Chevy you would never have either problem because to place ones foot to the floor would be instant suicide and the Worlds rotational axis would be effected.
Remember Milk and juice come in 2 liters and there is No substitute for Cubic inches - Yes I'm a cast iron car junkie as well and the sticker on the back window of the "Old Girl" says "Old skool lessons taught here"
Ah Quadrajets -small primary's but the secondaries unleash hell on the Nismo kiddies

[chr5648]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

Toyota: moving you forward, even when you press the brake

[Verrocchio]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

You can still shut off the ignition in a spark ignition engine...the steering column usually doesn't lock until you turn the key through the last of several positions.

It's been too long ago for me to remember the details, but I recall thinking about what I would have done in a similar situation and asked him similar questions. He was preoccupied with attempting to slow the car and avoid hitting other vehicles.

The California Highway Patrol officer in the article linked here apparently wasn't able to respond quickly enough, either.

[flintlock]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

Exactly, anti-lock brakes. Though some cars will shut the fuel off if you stand on the pedal. Sounds like the Toyota won't.

I think the problem will turn out to be a software issue. Just a hunch.

I had a Land Cruiser that would just quit while driving down the road. Engine would go to idle, but that was it. Real fun while in a busy intersection. Always the mechanics could find nothing. Turns out it was a software "mistake" corrected on later models, but not on mine. They failed to put in a limp home mode when the TPS failed. So it just ignored any throttle input. I had to figure this out on my own, through a Land Cruiser forum. The dealer wanted to install a new throttle body, which had nothing to do with the problem!:rolleyes: Apparently on my year model, the computer could not be upgraded without removal from the vehicle! Hence no software update. I found this out when I needed a replacement key. The dealer had to replace the entire computer to replace the key. Pure genius. Sold that POS.

My Dodge Pickup will stall if you shift too fast from reverse back to Drive. Software glitch again. Throttle response is crappy at low speeds with the "drive by wire" throttle. When backing out of a driveway, people think I can't drive because it either goes nowhere or lurches when pressing the pedal. Hopefully they have improved this on later models.

I think some software engineer failed to write a program that would take into account mechanical issues with the gas pedal interface on these new Toyotas. So the problem probably lies first with the interface, then with the software that controls the engine. This will turn out to be very expensive for Toyota. People don't like the idea of a runaway car.

Anyone remember the Audi 5000 sudden acceleration problem back in the 80s? That single handedly ruined Audi's reputation in America for years.

[GRG55]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

It's been too long ago for me to remember the details, but I recall thinking about what I would have done in a similar situation and asked him similar questions. He was preoccupied with attempting to slow the car and avoid hitting other vehicles.

The California Highway Patrol officer in the article linked here apparently wasn't able to respond quickly enough, either.

I don't think very many people would have reacted any differently...confronting a completely unexpected open throttle, and then having the anti-lock brakes work "against" you, would be a real adrenaline rush alright. Sometimes, however, it's not clear exactly what happened. In the infamous Audi case [which predates the widespread use of anti-lock brakes and didn't have "drive-by-wire"] they discovered that people who insisted that they were stomping on the brake pedal, had in reality mashed the throttle wide-open in their panic.

It's the reason that pilots are put through recurring training in emergency situations. Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffery Skiles were able to get US Airways 1549 back on the ground [okay, water ] intact because they had practiced what to do in an engine out situation many, many times before. Not just the mechanics of flying the airplane in that situation, but the whole process of cockpit resource management and decision making. And in that situation it showed.

There's also good evidence that the survival rate for people who have thought through how they would get out of a crashed airliner is higher than average...those safety demonstrations that we all ignore are done for a good reason.

It's obviously impractical to apply this sort of human factors training to everybody driving cars, but probably not a bad idea to do what you have done...think through how you would react if...

[c1ue]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

#13 Today, 08:58 AM

GRG55 iTulip High Commissioner; iTulip Select Premium Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Bunker Ag Centre: dairy below; poultry above... Posts: 6,033

Re: New round of jingle mail? Quote: Originally Posted by Verrocchio It's been too long ago for me to remember the details, but I recall thinking about what I would have done in a similar situation and asked him similar questions. He was preoccupied with attempting to slow the car and avoid hitting other vehicles. The California Highway Patrol officer in the article linked here apparently wasn't able to respond quickly enough, either. I don't think very many people would have reacted any differently...confronting a completely unexpected open throttle, and then having the anti-lock brakes work "against" you, would be a real adrenaline rush alright. Sometimes, however, it's not clear exactly what happened. In the infamous Audi case [which predates the widespread use of anti-lock brakes and didn't have "drive-by-wire"] they discovered that people who insisted that they were stomping on the brake pedal, had in reality mashed the throttle wide-open in their panic. It's the reason that pilots are put through recurring training in emergency situations. Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffery Skiles were able to get US Airways 1549 back on the ground [okay, water ] intact because they had practiced what to do in an engine out situation many, many times before. Not just the mechanics of flying the airplane in that situation, but the whole process of cockpit resource management and decision making. And in that situation it showed. There's also good evidence that the survival rate for people who have thought through how they would get out of a crashed airliner is higher than average...those safety demonstrations that we all ignore are done for a good reason. It's obviously impractical to apply this sort of human factors training to everybody driving cars, but probably not a bad idea to do what you have done...think through how you would react if...

Doesn't just apply to cars...

How would you react if...

The government starts confiscating gold?
The government starts forcing Americans to put their savings into Treasury Bonds?
The government gets taken over by banksters?

:p

(jtabeb, your turn)

[GRG55]

Re: New round of jingle mail?

Doesn't just apply to cars...

How would you react if...

Your mother-in-law turns up at the doorstep, suitcases in hand, and announces she's moving in...:eek: