Problems Continue for Toyota

Just sad.

I'm at the point now where I need to update my "family" car and I really do not want to. I don't want airbags so I have to worry about my kids ever being in the front seats, which they enjoy from time to time. I do not want to worry about a fly-by-wire throttle that means I'm not really driving the car. I do not want a car that might brake for me, because there is some stupid sensor that thinks I'm about to have an accident. I definitely will not buy a car with a Start button, unless it just actuates the starter and there is a separate control for engine ignition.

I'd happily by a classic saloon except that my current restoration project is a few years away from completion and I cannot have 2 cars that need extra attention ... "family" car must be reliable (and have air-conditioning, etc.)

What to do?
Pete

 

I have never driven/seen/heard of a car that doesn't allow you to shift into neutral at speed.

Most require you to hold the button down for a few seconds because of how incredibly easy it is to bump those buttons. Just imagine the testimonies then; "my car randomly shut off on the highway."

What? Your lack of automotive education does not condone a implication (however slight) of government officials elected by the body politic. Go back to teabagging.

The lady who testified before congress and said her car was a deathtrap that had a mind of it's own and she then proceeded to sell the car to another person? That lady? Yea..I feel sorry for that morally sound human being (tongue firmly in cheek).

You should buy a classic with no crumple zones, power steering, or disc brakes. Just imagine those fun days when you're feeling tired and can hardly move the unassisted steering wheel as you try to avoid the child in the street you don't have the brakes to stop for in time. Then you plow into a telephone pole and are instantly killed because the engine decided to go on a trip into your abdomen.

Yea. Dam technology! *shakes fist*

 

Be rational and buy a modern car.

 

There are classics with crumple zones such as my Alfa 1750 GTV, one of the first with this concept. It also has disc brakes (with dual circuits) and light steering.

I think an Alfa 75 v6 would make a good family car. A very competent car without all the "you are a human and thus cannot make decisions and drive computer power".
Pete

 

Thinking about this the other night while driving the Prius with the push button start. Doing 70 and shifted into neutral, cut all power instantly and slowed the car. The one thing I did notice was that you can't simply flip it to N, you have to hold it for about a second, which I see as a good thing because otherwise there would be more problems. That said you needto know that you have to hold it and that lies mainly with the driver, you gotta actually read the manual these days.

 

Italians never were much for crash safety. Crumple zones don't help you much if they collapse too easily. If you want a safe car of the older generations a Mercedes is probably your best bet. They did a lot of pioneer work in safety (Volvo's claims notwithstanding). A W116 Mercedes will offer you a lot of what you want, esp. the 6.9 (that is, the 450 SEL 6.9). Loads of power, torque, handling and comfort. And room.

 

I watched the TODAY show this am. Driver of a Prius had a CHP driving beside him in a cruiser telling him what to do for 30 miles while the car sped along at 90mph. The 61 year old male said he did everything to shut the car off before it backed off by itself, the CHP confirmed the brake lights were on. Worst of all, the car had been checked by the dealer since the recall. It wouldn't matter to me if I read the owner's manual or not, I know I'd want to see my car crushed if it did that to me.

 

I just posted this in the thread in silver.

"I can tell you how to start a Prius and how to drive it. Most of these idiots have no clue how to drive the car. You get in, put your foot on the brake and hit the big power button until the "0" on the speedometer pops up. Then you drag the shifter into "D" and it is now in drive. Not exactly rocket science.

To shift to neutral you all you do is take the shifter and drag it straight across to "N" until it cuts power. I will predict that this guy simply flicked the shifter to "N" without holding it there for a second or two in which case it stays in drive, which is probably a good thing since you could easy accidentally hit the shifter.

This is the very first report I have come across that the older gen Prius has had a sticking accelerator problem except for the floormats getting stuck. I have to say it would be a very very very large coincidence that the floormat gets stuck the same instant the car's computer decides to malfunction and that no one has had this happen for the last 6 years.
"

I'm really not trying to say Toyota has done wrong, they have but the chances of all this happening in a 3 month span is unbelievable.

The Prius the guy was driving the other day was only part of the recall with the floormats, simply removing the floormats solves the problem and that is what our local Toyota dealer told us to do with ours. The Prius is NOT part of the sudden acceleration recall, only US made cars are. So either he didn't remove his floormats and it just so happened the car's computer failed at the same point in time which is pretty hard to believe especially given the fact that these things have been on the road for 6 years.

 

You can't simply flick it into neutral you have to hold it there for a second or two, that is my thinking on why they can't get the car to neutral if they tried.

 

This, along with holding the start button for 3 seconds to kill the motor, is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The start button on my car protrudes from the dash and the motor shuts off immediately when I press the "Off" part. I've never even been close to accidentally hitting it. It's not like they put the start button right next to the radio volume. There are lots of buttons on the dash and I've never accidentally hit any of them. When I put it in N it goes into neutral right away. These delays are unnecessary and confusing to people.

 

I agree with you and I think the Prius' shifter position is awful. The delay on the Power button is very stupid since on the Prius it is less than flush with the dash but the delay on the shifter is good, I've hit it multiple times with my leg or reaching for the glove compartment, but this could be fixed if they moved the thing somewhere else.

 

IMO eventually driver error will be found to be the cause of most, if not virtually all, of these acceleration events. I'll bet occurrences of acceleration events follow a bell curve, beginning with the first widespread media attention, peaking, then gradually tailing off as the public loses interest. You now have people driving around expecting their cars to kill them - visualize failure, and you have a better chance of achieving it. Until proven otherwise, I have to think that only an idiot or a liar would drive for 30 miles at 90 mph with a stuck accelerator.

 

I could believe that the low speed incidents were caused by driver error but I don't buy it for the high speed ones.

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20100316/BUSINESS0104/3160361/1318/Are-cosmic-rays-really-causing-Toyotas-woes

 

Looks it was all mostly balloney and people to stupid to drive a car...

Kai


Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents.
By MIKE RAMSEY And KATE LINEBAUGH

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that at the time of the crashes, throttles were wide open and the brakes were not engaged, people familiar with the findings said.

The results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyota and Lexus vehicles surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes. But the findings don't exonerate Toyota from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats that can trap accelerator pedals to the floor.

View Full Image

Associated Press

A recalled Toyota gas pedal is posed next to a recalled Toyota Avalon at a dealership in Palo Alto, Calif.
.The findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve a sample of reports in which a driver of a Toyota vehicle said the brakes were depressed but failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.

The data recorders analyzed by NHTSA were selected by the agency, not Toyota, based on complaints the drivers had filed with the government.

The findings are consistent with a 1989 government-sponsored study that blamed similar driver mistakes for a rash of sudden-acceleration reports involving Audi 5000 sedans.

The Toyota findings, which haven't been released by NHTSA, support Toyota's position that sudden-acceleration reports involving its vehicles weren't caused by electronic glitches in computer-controlled throttle systems, as some safety advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged. More than 100 people have sued the auto maker claiming crashes were the result of faulty electronics.

NHTSA has received more than 3,000 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas, including some dating to early last decade, according to a report the agency compiled in March. The incidents include 75 fatal crashes involving 93 deaths.

However, NHTSA has been able to verify only one of those fatal crashes was caused by a problem with the vehicle, according to information the agency provided to the National Academy of Sciences. That accident last Aug. 28, which killed a California highway patrolman and three passengers in a Lexus, was traced to a floor mat that trapped the gas pedal in the depressed position.

Toyota has recalled more than eight million cars globally to fix floor mats and sticky accelerators.

A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to confirm the results from the data recorders. She said the agency was continuing to investigate the Toyota accidents and wouldn't be prepared to comment fully on the probe until a broader study is completed in conjunction with NASA, which is expected to take months.

Transportation Department officials, however, have said publicly that they have yet to find any electronic problems in Toyota cars.

Daniel Smith, NHTSA's associate administrator for enforcement, told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences last month that the agency's sudden-acceleration probe had yet to find any car defects beyond those identified by the company: pedals entrapped by floor mats, and "sticky" accelerator pedals that are slow to return to idle.

"In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect" in electronic throttle-control systems, Mr. Smith told the scientific panel, which is looking into potential causes of sudden acceleration.

"We're bound and determined that if it exists we're going to find it," he added. "But as yet, we haven't found it."

Toyota officials haven't been briefed on NHTSA's findings, but they corroborate its own tests, said Mike Michels, the chief spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales. Toyota's downloads of event data recorders have found evidence of sticky pedals and pedal entrapment as well as driver error, which is characterized by no evidence of the brakes being depressed during an impact.

Some company officials say they are informally aware of the NHTSA results. But Toyota President Akio Toyoda has said the company won't blame customers for its problems as part of its public-relations response.

Toyota is still trying to repair damage to its reputation caused as much by disclosures that the company hid knowledge of safety problems with its vehicles as by the reports of sudden acceleration.

NHTSA levied a $16.4 million fine against Toyota earlier this year for failing to notify the agency in a timely manner about its sticky-accelerator issue. Toyota's handling of a rash of safety complaints involving high-profile models such as the hybrid Toyota Prius has prompted Congress to consider a far-reaching overhaul of U.S. auto-safety laws.

Last week, Toyota announced it had taken steps to improve its vehicle quality, including moving 1,000 engineers into a new group that will try to pin down problems. The Japanese auto maker also will extend development times by at least four weeks on new models to do more testing and will cut down on the use of contract engineers.Toyota showed reporters the inner workings of its labs, including how it has been testing its electronic throttle control module to find any malfunctions. The system is controlled by a main computer and has a second computer as a backup if the first fails. In either instance, failures should be noted in the car's main computer and result in engine power being cut.

The car maker also has tested its vehicles' responses to strong electromagnetic radiation, such as the waves generated by cellphones and radio towers, which some critics have said could be causing a malfunction. The only interference engineers have encountered after bombarding cars with electromagnetic waves is static on the car radio.

—Josh Mitchell contributed
to this article.
Write to Kate Linebaugh at [email protected]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834604575364871534435744.html?mod=WSJ_myyahoo_module

 

Well, they are Prius drivers, lol, what do you expect?


Apparently much ado about nothing.


Kai

 

I guess the jury is still out but i always thought these claims of electronic accelerator errors were bogus.

I know from personal experience when your floor mat holds the accelerator down you can act out of fear and not do what you normally would to stop the car. I've been caught off guard quite a few times on my Z car with this. When i leave town i l put the floor mat in the rear hatch area just in case my girlfriend drives the car when i'm gone.