Toyota Acceleration Issues
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I understand the throttle got stucj under the edge of the carpet/mat. So you give it a bit coming out of a junction say, ease off, and the thing just keeps going. You have a few milli seconds to realise somehting is worng and work out an alternative strategy to cope with it. Said strategy is NOT normal car control, thus NOT instinctive and thus SLOW to decide and implement. At which stage you are burried into the car infront/shop window etc. Someone used to driving dodgy cars where bits fall off and things go wrong might cope beter, but average joe is screwed.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
I think it was last week I heard a little news bite, where it was reported that this was happening on the Toyota Prius, and not a floormat problem. What I found really interesting was that this was reported by Steve Wozniak (yup, that Steve), and he claimed he could even reproduce the conditions which caused it. Something about a software error... What I hope is if this legit, that this info never gets out to the public, or you are going to have a bunch of out-of-control 16 year olds trying to recreate it....
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Chris Losinger wrote:
because they are, understandably, panicking.
They are also, understandably stupid. One person had the wherewithall to get on his cell phone and call 911 while careening 100 mph down the highway. I would say that person was easily capable of turning the ignition switch backward one click.
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Indeed. I just bought a used car, and my criteria were (1) front-wheel drive, (2) manual transmission, (3) under $10,000. It took a couple weeks of searching web sites before I finally found one (2002 Honda Civic), and most of the listings were kid cars or other junk. I wanted the manual transmission because I simply don't feel safe driving an automatic in snow. The stupid things constantly shift at the wrong times causing you to lose traction and steering at the worst possible moment.
Software Zen:
delete this;Exactly! Many people are too lazy to drive a manual, though.
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I think it was last week I heard a little news bite, where it was reported that this was happening on the Toyota Prius, and not a floormat problem. What I found really interesting was that this was reported by Steve Wozniak (yup, that Steve), and he claimed he could even reproduce the conditions which caused it. Something about a software error... What I hope is if this legit, that this info never gets out to the public, or you are going to have a bunch of out-of-control 16 year olds trying to recreate it....
His was a cruise control issue. Not a stuck accelerator pedal.
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I can't understand the stories of people who crashed after going 100+ mph in Toyota cars due to unintended acceleration. Why don't people just turn off the engine?
In 1972 I had a Renault 16 with an accelerator cable which snapped. Back then, the words "fail safe" (used together) were unknown. The subsequent ride around the "Middle Ring" in Munich was exciting, but with judicious use of clutch, brake and gears, I was able to drive "safely" at full revs from the failure point to my home on the Leopoldstrasse (about 5 Km). I was relatively luck with the parking spot though... By the way, I had left my home country (The United States) only one year prior to that incident, so overgeneralisation about country of origin and driving ability is definitely wrong. Admittedly, I was used to the "stick shift" because of my farming background: one of my dad's tractors (a John Deere 420 ("putt-putt")) had a 5(forward)-speed transmission and it was possible to change into any forward gear (except for 1st) without using the clutch. I think that the modern computer controlled "fly by wire" systems are probably at least as dangerous as letting the driver make all the mistakes decisions. Remember the first Airbus! :-D
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Why not just slip the tranny into neutral? Then you can safely apply the brakes and still have pwr steering. Many years back I had a '78 Ford Crown Vick and the accelerator stuck when I floored it to pass on a two-lane road. I slipped it into neutral, applied the brakes, and moments later was safely on the shoulder, head under the hood, cursing Henry Ford for all he was worth. :-) Seriously, I don't believe people are as smart as they used to be where driving is concerned. Too many distractions (cell phones, etc), and a sort of helpless, "OMG what do I do" attitude when faced with a problem. Whatever happened to the good old "just deal with it" attitude of years past?
The OMG what do I do attitude is almost everywhere. 90% of people I see have that attitude. Their brains are non-existant in emergency situations.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Why don't people just turn off the engine?
Most modern cars have power steering. If the engine were to be switched off you would then be in the position of not only going quite fast but also of it being potentially difficult to steer out of danger (although the steering should lighten at higher speeds). Best to stand on the brakes to attempt to slow the car to a stop.
Tychotics: take us back to the moon "Life, for ever dying to be born afresh, for ever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars." H. G. Wells
I'll take "no more uncontrollable acceleration" over "heavy steering" any day. More important is that you also lose power braking when the engine is off, but that doesn't matter because people have claimed that when the accelerator is stuck, the brakes don't work (maybe there's no more power to send to the hydraulic brake pump when the engine is at full throttle).
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
I would say that person was easily capable of turning the ignition switch backward one click.
IIRC, the car in that case had a push-button ignition. and with those you have to press and hold the button for a few seconds. perhaps they did try, but didn't hold it long enough - since it wasn't their car they might not have known how long they needed to hold it. they probably didn't have a lot of time to read the owner's manual. plus, you know, he was busy trying to control a strange car going way too fast while everybody in the car was probably screaming. but, of course, i wasn't there, so i'll withhold judgment about how "stupid" the guy was.
Chris Losinger wrote:
plus, you know, he was busy trying to control a strange car going way too fast while everybody in the car was probably screaming.
He had time to pick up his phone, dial 911 and explain the problem before crashing fatally. That was plenty of time to knock it into neutral (or even reverse, which at best, slows the car down, at worst, slows it down a bit then stalls the engine and destroys the gearbox - either way better than crashing at the car's maximum speed), stand on the brake, pull the handbrake and knock off the engine. Anything other than panic on the phone. Also, the guy was a traffic cop??
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Why don't people just turn off the engine?
Try it yourself with your car. I guarantee you the loss of power-stearing (and the associated heaviness of the stearing due to having to turn the wheels and power stearing system) is just as scary as unintended acceleration. A better question would be; why don't they just limit their speed using the gearbox. And the answer; Americans don't know how to drive manual transmission cars.
Have you never driven a car without power steering? It's only a pain when you're parking the car or otherwise manoeuvring at very low speeds. It feels practically the same once you're travelling at speed. Also, throwing the wheel around at >100mph is a bad idea anyway. It only takes a small turn to swerve around cars.
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I can't understand the stories of people who crashed after going 100+ mph in Toyota cars due to unintended acceleration. Why don't people just turn off the engine?
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
I can't understand the stories of people who crashed after going 100+ mph in Toyota cars due to unintended acceleration.Why don't people just turn off the engine?
It's bizarre, especially the case where the driver (or at least one of the passengers) was a traffic cop, and instead of knocking the transmission into neutral, turning off the engine, pulling the parking brake etc., he called 911 and explained the problem before eventually crashing and killing all occupants of the car. I made a blog post on it a while back. Darwin indeed! People are getting too cushy driving these massive heavy blocks of metal about with power steering, cruise control and automatic gearboxes. Maybe they should be trained on a manual transmission before they can pass their driving test?
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I can't understand the stories of people who crashed after going 100+ mph in Toyota cars due to unintended acceleration. Why don't people just turn off the engine?
The Woz claims this is a software problem and that it can be reproduced. His description for reproducing the bug starts: "Suppose you are on a road where 85MPH is a legal speed limit" ... when you are going 85 and your accelerate sticks 100 isn't that far away. I'm avoiding the issue by keeping my Prius under 85 :-D
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I'll take "no more uncontrollable acceleration" over "heavy steering" any day. More important is that you also lose power braking when the engine is off, but that doesn't matter because people have claimed that when the accelerator is stuck, the brakes don't work (maybe there's no more power to send to the hydraulic brake pump when the engine is at full throttle).
The 'brakes don't work' because the people were stomping on them for so long, water that the brake fluid absorbed boiled.Once that happens, the brake pedal compresses water vapour instead of moving the brake cylinder and brake pad/shoe. People have had enough time to ring 911 and talk to the operator for a minute or two before crashing. Throw it into 'N', and come to a halt safely. Sure the engine will over rev and might throw a con-rod out of bed... but I'd rather pay for an engine than be DEAD. Yes, I drive in major cities across the US and on freeways.
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Mythbusters actually did an episode on shifting to Park or Reverse while driving at highway speeds and what was discovered was that automatic transmissions have a protective feature that locks out park and reverse while in forward motion at damaging speeds. Instead what happens if you shift to park or reverse while driving is the car goes into a state such as if you had depressed the clutch on a manual transmission vehicle and the vehicle will lose forward momentum. I cant remember if the engine shut off, but i know no damage was caused due to the shifting.
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DavidCrow wrote:
I do, both with and without a clutch.
Same here, but for the same reasons I don't churn my own butter... I choose not to. ;P
Churning your own butter can be fun sometimes. Nudge nudge wink wink :laugh:
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J4amieC wrote:
And the answer; Americans don't know how to drive manual transmission cars.
Wow, what a great overgeneralization! Most of the time those are simply false. Kind of like all Brits have bad teeth, because I've never seen one that didn't. I'm sure the previous statement is false. For the most part, manual transmissions are just about dead in the US. The ones that do exist have drastically reduced resale value.
-Sean ---- Fire Nuts
modified on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 1:34 PM
Since being in the US I've seen BAD teeth WAY more than I ever did back home!
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Why not just slip the tranny into neutral? Then you can safely apply the brakes and still have pwr steering. Many years back I had a '78 Ford Crown Vick and the accelerator stuck when I floored it to pass on a two-lane road. I slipped it into neutral, applied the brakes, and moments later was safely on the shoulder, head under the hood, cursing Henry Ford for all he was worth. :-) Seriously, I don't believe people are as smart as they used to be where driving is concerned. Too many distractions (cell phones, etc), and a sort of helpless, "OMG what do I do" attitude when faced with a problem. Whatever happened to the good old "just deal with it" attitude of years past?
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
I can't understand the stories of people who crashed after going 100+ mph in Toyota cars due to unintended acceleration.Why don't people just turn off the engine?
It's bizarre, especially the case where the driver (or at least one of the passengers) was a traffic cop, and instead of knocking the transmission into neutral, turning off the engine, pulling the parking brake etc., he called 911 and explained the problem before eventually crashing and killing all occupants of the car. I made a blog post on it a while back. Darwin indeed! People are getting too cushy driving these massive heavy blocks of metal about with power steering, cruise control and automatic gearboxes. Maybe they should be trained on a manual transmission before they can pass their driving test?
Maybe he used to be a scientist - wanted to describe the problem fully so that others could duplicate it?
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Which - to be technical and nit-picky - is still between P and D: P*ND* vs *RND*
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Why don't people just turn off the engine?
Most modern cars have power steering. If the engine were to be switched off you would then be in the position of not only going quite fast but also of it being potentially difficult to steer out of danger (although the steering should lighten at higher speeds). Best to stand on the brakes to attempt to slow the car to a stop.
Tychotics: take us back to the moon "Life, for ever dying to be born afresh, for ever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars." H. G. Wells
digital man wrote:
Most modern cars have power steering. If the engine were to be switched off you would then be in the position of not only going quite fast but also of it being potentially difficult to steer out of danger
Hmm.. maybe that's why the speed limit was 75 (day) back before all cars were equiped with power steering. They had to go faster to "lighten" the steering to the point the cars were steerable :) Of course, that does lead to the question of how they got going that fast in the first place. The effect of having power steering isn't even noticable once the car is moving. The BIG danger is that the power brakes eventually loose their power assist. And brakes are something that you notice the lack of power assist on when moving fast. Shifting to neutral solves that problem.. until the engine throws a rod and abruptly stops rotating, but hey, then the sudden accelleration problem is fixed, and at no cost to Toyota :)
patbob
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Ed.Poore wrote:
Put your foot down and nothing happened for a few seconds
Reminds me of Ford automatics. :laugh: That's why I always preferred Mitsubishi's adaptive auto: it does response immediately, and you always feel like it does what you want.
