Loved Ones - Toyota

[SpringHollow]

For legal reasons, the following is just my opinion:

GM had a problem with their speed sensors in the wheel bearings on their pickups. All of sudden, the speed sensors would turn on your antilock brakes even when you were braking on dry pavement, significantly increasing your stopping distance. Mine went bad at less than 12,000 miles. Looked on the web and found out it had been a problem for many years. Called up GM (main company, not a dealer). The rep said first time they ever heard of the problem but nothing they could do. I mentioned the tens of thousands of vehicles that had the problem and that GM had a silent recall. They then admitted that was true so if i gave them the dealer's name, they would tell them ok. But since i had it done as an emergency repair, they would not help. I had the old parts and was willing to send them back to them. All i wanted was reimbursement for parts, not labor.

I asked to speak to her manager who gave me the same spiel, that she had never heard of that problem occurring until i mentioned all of the web articles, NTSB reports, etc. at which point she also admitted knowing that this was an ongoing problem. So TWICE they blatantly lied to me. I told them i had always bought GM trucks but would never buy another and would let people know the troubles i had if they did not pay for the parts. They did not care. And i said "and you wonder why your sales are slumping?" This was about 2 years ago.

When a person posted about the same problem and the same result, someone commented that they had posted (here i believe) that they had seriously abused their Kubota tractor and it broke, said it was their fault, not Kubota's. Someone from Kubota read the post and contacted them, saying where should they ship the part. He said it was his own fault and Kubota said it should not break and so they replaced it for free.

What a difference in how the customer was treated.

And GM kept making the faulty parts for years after they knew there was a problem.

Ken

 

[rich_ncal]

PRESS RELEASE

Toyota Announces Safety Recall on 2000 through 2003 Tundra Frame Rear Cross-Member

November 24, 2009 Torrance, Calif., Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. will launch a Safety Recall involving approximately 110,000 Tundra vehicles sold in the United States.

Certain 2000 through 2003 model year Tundra vehicles operated in cold climate areas with high road salt use, may exhibit excessive corrosion on the frame rear cross-member. In the worst case, the spare tire stowed under the truck bed may become separated from the rear cross-member. Spare tire separation will create a road hazard for following vehicles and increase the likelihood of a crash. ...............................

......................................

 

[The Haymaker]

I was going to say, at least Toyota has the berries to recall an issue, but ksimolo beat me to it. I am a GM owner and they won't recall anything shy of a 7.00 tailgate strap.

Most recent issue was a lh front wheel bearing at 37k miles, 1k outside of warranty. The dealer, located in a small city in Washington county, was doing a minimum of 15 a week. They wouldn't even talk to me. The truck in question has NEVER gotten over 14mpg, when that package, going by other owners, should be running 16 to 21. In the first year of ownership, I got "Wow, it should be doing better than that", then after schedding an appt. to put it on the computer, which found nothing, the same sales rep said "There's nothing wrong with your truck, what do you want from us Mr. Foster?". They blame my driving, despite the fact I get 14 with the cruise on.

Bottom line is that they can't afford to fix the issues because all their cash (now ours) is bound up paying for unfair UAW contracts.

How many of these Toyota incidents aren't even the fault of the vehicle? We've had numerous stores and restaurants here become drive throughs after some "we can't retest the elderly" drivers mashed the wrong peddle. Didn't someone also do that recently through a parade?

I'm not a conspiricist, but does anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that the administration is targeting Toyota with a few accidents because they are turning a profit without becoming a franchise of The ObamaNation?

Going throw on my flameproof undies.......

 

[civesnedfield]

I am seriously beginning to think this is a
witch-hunt by the Feds to help US automakers
regain some market share. EVERY manufacturer
has had recalls, millions of cars, and never have
they come out and said "stop driving your cars".
sounds fishy to me

I agree totally with this. I was getting some work done on my truck yesterday (not a Toyota) and I was talking to my service rep. Who by the way is a mechanic, not some flunky that sits behind the desk. We were talking about manufacturers and recalls. He told me that on average EVERY new model experiences 4 recalls.

Ford is having problems with the brakes on it's Hybrid models right now. I have seen one news story in the past week on this, yet it seems that I see Toyota news stories on the quarter hour every hour of the day.

Me thinks something SMELLS REALLY BAD with this whole media event.

 

[75H2]

I am seriously beginning to think this is a
witch-hunt by the Feds to help US automakers
regain some market share. EVERY manufacturer
has had recalls, millions of cars, and never have
they come out and said "stop driving your cars".
sounds fishy to me

Ask yourself who is to gain if this were to be true. GM used to be the world's largest auto maker. They got smoked by Toyota. Chrysler has been at death's doorstep since the late 1970's. SOO, since the government stole a controlling interest from the bondholders of 2 of the former big 3 & gave control to the unions & kept a nice chunk for themselves I'd say they have the most to gain. How convenient that this came about. I was always a GM guy. It's ford or foreign from now on...How sad

 

[some zilch]

Also, Pat's truck was a diesel which doesn't generate vacuum from the intake (no venturi) - my Ford 7.3 has a vacuum pump that runs off the accessory belt. This would suggest that a WOT would not cause brake failure (on a diesel).

For your V10, could the surge problems be caused by antilock brakes (as well as WOT, loss of vacuum)? If the rear wheels are spinning and the fronts locked it would make sense that the fronts would release.

*i think*-at least mine do, have an engine driven vacuum pump, mounted behind the power steering pump, that make the vacuum necessary to operate the brakes correctly.

i dont think pat said that he shifted to neutral. should have been the first thing he did, and ANYONE who find their car accelerating.

Pat's truck is a 97. The 97 RAM diesels don't have vacuum brakes. They work from a engine powered hydraulic pump.

I also have a Cummins powered RAM and with the torque it produces it is not hard to imagine the brakes not stopping it.

see above, its not a hydraulic pump, its a vacuum pump

I'm still don't get the "brakes overpowering the engine thing" or "turn the key off"

Shift to Neutral, apply brakes and/or parking brake - right? Engine acceleration won't matter at that point and the brakes should "win" - Worst case, slam it in Park
Is the tranny failing to shift in any of these cases?

that is the dumbest thing i ever heard, why would you even say that? chances are, the little "pawl" that actually locks the trans stationary, will just break due to the massive forces for the rolling car and a little mechanical thingie trying to stop it. and say it did work, now the car goes skidding out of control as one or two tires are now unable to turn (roll), there goes your steering on just about any front wheel drive car. now you hit 6 other cars at 60mph, because of your stupid actions. same thing would happen if you applied the parking brake; the wheels lock up and you skid out of control. oooof


so in general, i would feel more than ok letting my loved ones drive a toyota. even my girlfriend knows enough that if something like that ever happened to just put it in N, and hit the brakes like you always do. who cares what the engine does when you are in N? i drive a late model tacoma, which fortunaly is not part of this. if it was, i would keep right on driving it--i have a brain and know how to put that transmission stick in N. i also only buy standards-i dont need a computer telling my truck when to shift.

 

[eepete]

Back in the late 70's and early 80's, car companies were starting to use microprocessor based engine controllers. Some of the early efforts had problems when a sensor became disconnected or broke. Things would go really wrong. I remember interviewing with Doge and finding out that they were putting resistors on the inputs from sensors so that if the signal went away, things would still sort of work. They called it "limp home" capabilities.

My JD 4520 tractor has the pedals for the eHydro. There is a 3 wire cable to the pedal. +5 volts, ground, and signal back to the transmission control computer. The signal back will be between 1 and 4 volts. If the signal is out of range, the computer stops everything. It can also tell if the +5 it is making available to the pedal has been shorted to ground or +13.8 (battery). Many of the input sensors I use in my home automation designs are +5 driven and have 1 to 4 volt outputs so can have some idea if there is a problem. By the way, the pedal has a small computer in it so it can use an optical encoder shaft to sense position instead of a "good 'ol" potentiometer (variable resistor). A humidity sensor I use is 1/4 the size of your pinky nail and it has a computer in it.

I point out this 30 years of progress in electronic control of vehicles to show that just like mechanical stuff, it takes a long time for the "technology" to get right. Not an excuse for what's going on, just an observation.
I think there are three separate problems going on with all these vehicles, both Toyota and Ford. First there is a sensor design problem with force feedback on the accelerator pedal, and that mechanical mechanism had problems. Then there is a problem with the "drive by wire" braking system, which marks a turning point in automotive design in that much like the accelerator, the brake pedal is now just an input to a computer with force feedback to the user. Then there is a 3rd problem of software bugs in these systems and all the joys of how to update computers (ok, cars) in the field.

I think the shim fix is dealing with the mechanical problem. The fact that the same part is in so many models made this problem both stand out more and easier to fix. Decades ago, there were many more parts that where common across car lines, and these parts had many years of being designed into cars. If a similar problem happened in a US car, where they may be a different accelerator design each model year or between models, then it would be harder to see a problem. Won't comment on if that's good or bad, I'm just saying having the same part across many product lines for many years allowed a type of focus on this problem that wouldn't be seen in most US made cars today.

The software bug problem will probably grow with time as the software to run these machines (cars and tractors) gets more complex. My biggest fear is that the car/tractor people will hire young pup geeks from the computer and consumer arena. There is a regrettable trend in these areas for products to be both manufactured and even shipped before the software is "right". How many times have you bought a new electronic gizmo and the first thing you had to do was update the firmware? So all manufactures have the immensely difficult task of deciding when the software is sufficiently bug free that it can be released. The complexity of these beasts means the software will never be bug free any more than a modern car or tractor will never have mechanical problems due to the design. This problem is made worse by the legal system, which would treat any firmware update as a sign there was a problem. And now you have lawyers and laymen trying to figure out in a court environment how critical a bug in a piece of software is. Was this a bug fix or a feature upgrade?

As for the drive by wire systems, they will undergo a lot of learning curve just like the engine controllers. Any vehicle with batteries will want to use regenerative braking. The idea there is to take the electric motor that powers the car and turn it into a generator, dumping the electricity back into the battery. All braking operations take the energy of moving and do something with it. Traditional brakes turn it into heat, regenerative puts it back in the batteries. I'm sure there were heated discussions by the designers of these systems as to if they should be all regenerative or have both regenerative and traditional braking systems. I suspect that all systems out there have both types, and even a 3rd type for the emergency/hand parking brake. I suspect that these incidents will shape the design of vehicles to come in the future. I'll bet you there are lots of discussions going on about brake pedals that have electronic feedback to the computers, and also some hydraulic action that occurs at the very end of the travel as a worst case safety feature for when the electronics have problems. Note that his hybrid braking problem has elements of sensor design, computer software, updating this software, and failure modes behavior involved with them. Talk of Toyota adding an "Emergency Stop" button for the driver speaks to the evolution.

Finally (so sorry for droning on...) I'm not liking the media having "fun" stating how modern cars have 30 to 100 computers in them. Modern vehicle systems replace the wiring harness of old with a small shared "buss" that has power and control information. It can be as simple as 4 wires (two for power, two for the control such as a CAN bus). Then, at various places in the vehicle, there are very small computers. For example, there might a computer on the left rear light cluster that drives the turn light, parking light, brake light and back-up light. The device on that computer that can apply power to these lights also senses if the bulb is burned out. It can also sense if there is too much current going to the bulb. As such, it can report back to the much bigger computer running the instrument cluster that the driver sees if there is a problem. Then, because product designers are more interested in getting you back to the dealer then they are helping you out, you get a check engine light for a burned out bulb instead of a nice English message as to the problem of some display screen.
At any rate, this small computer that controls the lights is 1/1000 the complexity of the engine controller, and as such can be verified to be working to a very high degree of accuracy. So you car may have these computers at the rear lights, at the switches on the door (for windows), in the steering wheel, in the radio, for the air conditioner, and the like.
My JD 4520 had three computers: The engine controller, the transmission controller, and the display and lights controller. Cars have many more. So high end cars have more computers because they have more creature comforts to control. So the focus should be on the complexity of the computer system and software, not the number of computers in the car.
The correct focus here is the two or three computers in a car that control the braking, transmission, engine, and sensor input. Hybrids are going through a learning curve on all this stuff. In much the same way that cars today are safer and need less maintenance than 30 years ago, hybrids are just starting down this road.

And yeah, if people had more than a dashboard deep knowledge of their machines, the impact would be less. But you can't blame the poor person who is hurt by these problems, and how many people here claiming that it should be obvious what to do have the same level of internals knowledge about how their home computers that they have with vehicles? Yes, I know a computer crash and car crash are very different. The world is too big and too complex for everyone to have deep levels of knowledge on everything. We are all idiots in many arenas. You should see me trying to buy clothing...

Pete

 

[brandoro]

I'm taking a guess here but, don't most if not all modern electronically controlled engines have RPM limiters? If so, throwing it into neutral probably wouldn't automatically result in an exploded engine.
Shutting the key off would still be my first considered action, right after reflexes pounded the brake pedal. And as far as vacuum assist, if you press the brake pedal and maintain pressure you shouldn't deplete the vacuum before stopping. Pumping the brake pedal will deplete the vacuum quickly.

 

[texbaylea]

I don't see how that is possible, and it is unlikely that 2 unrelated things
would go wrong at the same time (throttle and brakes). I suppose an
engine fire could damage both at the same time.

I am sure that slowing down a vehicle under accelleration and at-speed
would not be the same as with the engine not accellerating. But
remember that there are plenty of 500+hp cars with ATs that go to the
drags and the drivers hold the cars back at full throttle with left foot braking.

Anyway, I am not trying to make light of what I am sure was a very
harrowing experience, Patrick.

There is a major difference between what brakes with cold rotors and cold pads can hold versus hot brakes. I have been in situations where the brakes could not overcome the engine torque after running a while.

You are also dealing with the differences between the coefficient of static friction and the coefficient of kinetic friction.

Vernon

 

[eepete]

brandoro - the design dilemma is do you rely on the engine controller to limit the RPM, or do you also build in some mechanical device. When you shift into neutral, is there linkage doing that, or is that also just an input into the transmission controller. And is there a real "key", or is that just an input to a computer? How about the "push to start" buttons on some cars?

Don't know the answers here, but it speaks to the problems that crop up as you move more and more to drive by wire. What sorts of back-up mechanisms do you have for when something goes wrong with the electronics?

I hope the designers of these systems keep a lot of the mechanical folks around so valuable knowledge is not lost. It's too easy to remove parts that cost money and just say "do it in software". Especially in todays "What's my quarterly profit" driven world where the balance between the technical people and management is a bit out of skew.

Pete