Loved Ones - Toyota

[studor]

The last jeep I owned (and ever will own) had a mat that would cause the throttle to stick -- twenty plus years ago Chrysler had an answer -- cut the mat.
I think I have never seen as much coverage and as much of a response by a car company as there has been on this one. I am already sick of seeing the Canadian head of Toyota apologizing and outlining what they are doing to fix it on commercials. Now some idiots have launched a class action suit to see if they can extract some money from Toyota for the lawyers when they have not suffered any damages

 

[Deerlope]

R stands for race

Then you are one of those people that should give up your DL. This is just a big ploy by other auto makers so Toyota doesn't run away with the car market. I have been fixing things all my life and I find it hard to believe that over 5 million vehicles have the exact same mechanical problem.
For that transportation person to tell national tv and the media that people should stop driving their cars, well the guy has got to be an idoit. It would have not caused anymore panic if he had said there was going to be a terrorist attack on NYC.

 

[aczlan]

Then you are one of those people that should give up your DL. This is just a big ploy by other auto makers so Toyota doesn't run away with the car market. I have been fixing things all my life and I find it hard to believe that over 5 million vehicles have the exact same mechanical problem.

I think that the issue is that they used the same pedal (or a variant of the same pedal) in all these cars and there is a piece in all of them that is the same which can wear causing the gas pedal to PROGRESSIVELY become sticky. Thus the recall on all of them.

For that transportation person to tell national tv and the media that people should stop driving their cars, well the guy has got to be an idoit. It would have not caused anymore panic if he had said there was going to be a terrorist attack on NYC.

Yes, he should be personally responsible for the damage he has caused to Toyota's reputation.

For comparison, anyone remember the 14 MILLION vehicles made between 1992 and 2004 that Ford recalled for a bad cruise control shutoff switch that can burn your vehicle up? As I understand it, the danger for MOST of the cars under this recall can be avoided by the application of some common sense and a little bit of basic knowledge of how to operate the controls of the 3000+ pound piece of steel that you are driving around at high speeds. If you pay attention to how your car handles and responds to driver input you should be able to notice this before it becomes an issue.

In most any modern car (post 1990, post 1980 if it is a Volvo ) if you stomp on the brakes you will have more than enough power to overcome the force of the engine no matter what gear it is in or how fast it is revving.

The above may not apply to the Prius braking issue as I have not read why it is happening yet.

Aaron Z

 

[20 20]

Then you are one of those people that should give up your DL. This is just a big ploy by other auto makers so Toyota doesn't run away with the car market. I have been fixing things all my life and I find it hard to believe that over 5 million vehicles have the exact same mechanical problem.
For that transportation person to tell national tv and the media that people should stop driving their cars, well the guy has got to be an idoit. It would have not caused anymore panic if he had said there was going to be a terrorist attack on NYC.

 

[PILOON]

My background is aviation electronics.
Whenever we installed a new to the aircraft radio we had to do EMI-RFI tests.
That involved every radio frequency cross checked against every aircraft function.

Once we found that transmitting an a certain frequancy would cause a helicopter to instantly loose some 400 RPM on the main rotor. That's RFI! (radio frequancy Interferance)

On a car, could it be that a cellphone, IPOD, or GPS causes that type of RFI?
Might even be overhead hydro power lines or a hospital Xray machine.

In my opinion cars are getting much too high tech and down the road we might just find that even a pacemaker might cause a brand X car to run amock if a passenger uses a cellphone within 2 ft of the pacemaker due to RFI.

Scary stuff!
Next thing you know a mechanic will need a spectrum analizer to diagnose and tune up your car.

Geve me a 55 chev with a V8 and stick shift and I will never se a garage again as that I can tune up repair with minimun of skills.--- and still get decent MPGs.
Heck, remember the old VW beetles-- they got 30ish MPG.--and ran for 200,000 miles, OK the heater left some to be desired, I know.

 

[Danno1]

What I don't get is how the cell phone caller ............and there was time for a call...........

I'd like to call a friend please.


It seems that nothing is more important than talking on the phone nowadays!


.

 

[numbnutz]

my wife just hired a toyota for me. do you think shes trying to tell me something!

 

[Gator6x4]

Piloon: I had a sixties model VW Bug with a Gas Heater, talk about heat. Some parts for the VW Gas Heaters are still available. You could drive the thing forever on 2-3 dollars of gas. The VW Bug made for an exceptional beach vehicle.

 

[patrick_g]

It was a CHP officer in San Diego.

I have 3 Toyotas and one is drive-by-wire (electronic throttle control).
I am not concerned. The brakes can easily overcome any engine, and
they are mechanical/hydraulic.

What I don't get is how the cell phone caller in the San Diego tragedy stated
that the car had no brakes, and there was time for a call, but not time
to shift into neutral. And why the brakes would not work.

Anyway, remember the unintended accelleration problems that plagued
Audi 5000s back in the early 80s? No technical problem was ever found.

Sorry but I have a different take on the possibility of brakes stopping a runaway engine. I had an unexpected "rogue" acceleration event with my '97 1 ton diesel Dodge pickup in 1998. I was on Interstate I-5 northbound nearing the I-8 running at the speed limit on cruise control. Suddenly for no apparent reason the cruise control gave the engine lots of throttle. I hit the off switch on the steering wheel with no results. I then got on the brakes BIG TIME but the engine provided more than the brakes could dissipate and I continued to accelerate. I switched the key off and carefully with no power steering and reduced power brakes changed lanes and took an off ramp. I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the ramp and restarted the engine warily expecting to have to kill it as soon as I got up to say 10-15 mph and alternately coast and sprint till I found a safe place to pull over and stop BUT when I restarted the engine it acted normally and the "sudden acceleration event" never repeated subsequent to that one time. The Dodge dealership pooh poohed my claim and refused to search for a cause as a warranty job.

I'm sure the brakes on our Prius would stop it even with the ICE at full throttle and the electric motor assisting the ICE. Not so with my '97 Dodge truck which I still have and use with no further wild rides.

Patrick

 

[PILOON]

I switched the key off and carefully with no power steering and reduced power brakes changed lanes and took an off ramp.

Were U ever lucky!

Many cars will lock up the steering if you turn off the key (anti theft U know)

Still thing a KISS (temporary solution) for Toyota owners would be to tie a string to the accelerator peddle that you could yank on to retrieve the peddle.