So My Toyota Decided To Drive Itself

[Grandturk]

So what would have happened if you just stepped on the brake?

[RacerX]

Let me interject that studies were made after the Audi unintended acceleration scare of the 1980s and it was found that EVERY incident was "driver error" (for a fix Audi basically placed the gas pedal farther away from the brake). I'm not absolving Toyota of anything but I would not be so quick to blame mechanical / software for EVERY incident. You are ALWAYS hearing on the news about some (usually elderly) person that slams their car into a wall or through a store front. Those cases usually turned out to be pedal confusion. Audi almost went out of business in the early 90s, and it took them 15 years (!!) for their sales to come back. I really wouldn't wish that on any manufacturer.

[Vass]

The Car and Driver writer is a total ass. Just looking at his "statistics" should show that.

He claims that there are 20 "alleged" deaths due to the accelerator issue. OK, 20 is too many, but if it's THAT uncommon, you've got to make some sort of tradeoff....if you are a safety absolutist, well then no one should drive at all logically.

Here's some statistics for Mr. Mensa Chapter President Car & Driver guy: of the 34000 traffic fatalities in 2008, almost 20,000 were drivers. Even if you were a passenger in an acceleration accident who survived while the driver died, would you be able to say, "Hey, the car accelerated on its own"? How could you know for sure? So of 34000 fatalities, almost 60% of the time the guy that would tell you, "the accelerator stuck" isn't around to tell you anything.

Of course he's also not all that concerned about property damage or injuries, since they get no mention at all and one would assume, just by virtue of someone being alive to report the experience, the percentage of these would be higher.

The weakest part, however, is the bolstering of his argument by bringing up the Audi story. That's like hearing a rapist got arrested and saying, "Well, I know a guy who was accused of rape and he didn't do it. Therefore I bet there's a good chance this guy didn't do it either." Is it POSSIBLE that, similar to the Audi situation, this is much ado about nothing? Sure. But to trot Audi 5000's out as some sort of evidence of same is illogical.

Plus, Audi fought tooth and nail against the charges that their cars took off on people. They were right. Toyota has acknowledged that there IS something wrong. They are also probably right. This genius ascribes this to some sort of public relations ploy. Some ploy. Toyota sure is getting a ton of great publicity right now, aren't they?

Car and Driver, of which I am a subscriber (actually now that I think of it it ran out...) is a great mag but there's always this thread running through it that suggests that anything that promotes safety at the expense of some of the "excitement" of driving is automatically bad. The corrallary of that is that if you can't drive like a STALLION you are some sort of wimp.

I wonder if this tough guy would like his 16 year old daughter to be driving one of these. There are lots of poor and inexperienced drivers on the road. It's just the way it is and always will be. They sometimes cause accidents. They always will. But that in NO WAY makes it OK that a car ACCELERATES WHEN IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO. I don't care how easy the "fix" is in such a situation. It SHOULD. NOT. DO. IT.

I'd like to see this genius fix it in stop & go traffic in a major metropolitan area. A large cohort in this country do not have the luxury of winding out a Corvette on a pin-straight desert highway with no traffic. They contend with bad weather, bad drivers, stop & go traffic, and the like. And yes, sometimes they are distracted. Let's not make it worse by having a car that plays the equivalent of a dangerous game of "THINK FAST!"

[shreddermon]

So what would have happened if you just stepped on the brake?

With many manufacturers (maybe most?), stepping on the brake pedal would cut down the throttle. This is not the case with Toyota's ECU programming. You can throttle the engine and try to brake the car at the same time. So, if the gas pedal is stuck, and you do the natural first reaction to hit the brakes, in a Toyota the engine continues trying to make the car go faster.

Eventually, the brakes will win over the engine, but it will take a lot more distance to stop the car. And, potentially, you may still have crashed by then. (Read the related C&D articles - they tested this very scenario.)

C&D is absolutely right, though, that the safest and most correct thing to do is shift the car into neutral. The engine will still rev like a mother, but it won't be providing any power to the wheels. So then just hit the brakes and pull over, normally.

Unfortunately, the C&D choad is not sympathetic to the loads of inexperienced and/or simply not-quick-thinking drivers who might panic in this scenario, and not shift to neutral. ...That includes an experienced off-duty Cali State Highway officer, who was killed along with his family in a loaned Lexus ES350.

[nateb]

The funny thing about this...

I went and brought my 2010 Camero into the chevy dealership to have the exhaust changed out. The service center manager and I were talking and he gave me a little tasty tidbit of info.

It appears and I believe that they have this going through the OnStar network. They are in constant communication with your vehicle. When you get a custom tuneup, install a hypertech chip, redline your car, overexcessivly speed that causes damage to your car. This gives them the ability to void your warranty if you intentionally fuck your car up. The dealership knows about it. Especially in the event of damage or mechanical failure.

Makes you wonder if they have been tracking issues like this and just denying it the whole time.

-Nate

[Grandturk]

I guess that's one reason not to get on-star.

[Ben...]

My dad works as an accountant at a GM dealership and his says this whole thing is fantastic for sale for them. He says people may finally realize that just because it's an import doesn't make it automatically better. Especially since some imports are now made in the US which makes the quality on par with any domestic brands.

I heard on the news that Honda sales are starting to go down to because their "People will pay more for the name" ideology that Sony and other companies *Cough*Gibson*Cough* have just doesn't fly when the economy is in bad shape. Just look at the Sony PS3. When it came out it was around $600 for a basic one. The Sony execs even said people would buy it solely based on the Sony brand. That thing did horrible until they lowered it to a reasonable price comparable with the competition. Companies need to learn that brand name will only get you so far when money is tight.

[m2pmd70]

Dunno much about Toyotas, but I know two people with brand new Cobalts that are falling apart.

[bibz]

Its not that us domestics have caught up its that us 'imports' are now built in the us. We get japanese made toyotas down here and rightfully so they're number one in sales over all. Boring ass cars but reliable. No sticky throttles. Mazda/Honda even higher quality. The us cars we get that I see at motorshows hopefully aren't representative of normal cars over there! Granted its mainly chrysler cause gm/holden and ford have their act together down here. Although most of the cheap 'domestic' models are infact korean sourced.

[Ben...]

Dunno much about Toyotas, but I know two people with brand new Cobalts that are falling apart.

Cobalts are the new equivalent of the late-model Pontiac Sunfires. Cheap but not very good and made of tin foil. My brother had his Sunfire written off after a 15ish or less Km/h collision because he looked down to change the songs on his CD player while he was turning. He didn't realize the person in front of him had slowed down more. The other person's car had a slight ding in the bumper. His car was completely folded in in the front. The insurance people totaled it off for him because the frame was damaged apparently. He was glad to be rid of that thing. I think I've seen like 2 Sunfires in the last year or so and they used to be everywhere here.

[Trypp Powell]

It did actually take a few moments to get up to speed, so that did provide me with time to react. I actually didn't hit the brakes until after I put the car in neutral. When I had a Firebird twelve years ago, I experienced an actual stuck gas pedal and learned then to drop into neutral (after ending up in a ditch).

I too believe some of the supposed acceleration incidents are driver era, but I didn't have my foot on the pedal at all.

While I would have loved to have bought a Ford, in my area the dealers are rather "proud" of their product, and a comparable car would have run about $4500.00 more than the Toyota.

I'm going to see what Toyota does about my car and, quite possible, just take the hit and buy a Ford.

[skorb]

I just got a new 2010 Prius and it's a fantastic car. it's loaded with kickass and innovative features and with the mileage and the conveniences built into it, you can't beat it. plenty of room inside and in the trunk too.

it's one of the ones with the brake recall just now, but that is a minor issue really. you brake over rough road and it takes a second to kick in the brake power, and the brake pedal can go to the floor, it's weird but very easy to anticipate and to then adjust how you drive so that it never happens. it happened to me twice when braking over rough pavement, and since I figured out what it was, never once since.

apparently it's a software fix that takes all of 40 mins. I'm not really concerned.

now the accelerator problems they've had, those are serious. but I'm sorry to tell you American car company defenders who have spoken up, the subject bad accelerator parts are supplied by American parts manufacturer CTS. none of the Japanese-made cars (like my Prius) have the accelerator problems.

[Chad]

...I'm sorry to tell you American car company defenders who have spoken up, the subject bad accelerator parts are supplied by American parts manufacturer CTS.

As a side note, on another forum, a member researched and found that the CTS involved in this Toyota fiasco is the same CTS that makes the pots that are used in guitars.

[Vass]

As a side note, on another forum, a member researched and found that the CTS involved in this Toyota fiasco is the same CTS that makes the pots that are used in guitars.

I need to get me some of them. Maybe my legato will accelerate to a dangerous speed for once.

[pagemalicious]

I had an accelerator cable go on my Ford Focus early 2009. It accelerated so much that the temperature gauge shot up to hot.

Just by instinct I put it straight into neutral, turned off the engine and slowed down the car gently.

Called out the recovery company and turned out the cable had frayed inside its plastic tubing, so the metal got stuck inside and wouldn't budge. Scary stuff when it happens in morning rush hour in a busy town

So this sort of things happens more than people realise, cable or not.