Toyota Acceleration Issues
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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.
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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 the crash that got all the attention, the driver was a California Highway Patrol officer driving a dealer loaner while his car was in for service. As an CHP officer he had extensive high speed driver training, so he was probably better equipped to handle this incident than most. The car he was driving reportedly had a keyless ignition button that had to be held for three seconds before your could shut off the engine. The car he owned did not have this feature; he probably tried to shut off the engine but in the heat of the moment forgot about the button or did not have a third hand free to hold the button while steering. The DOT had a similar problem shutting off the car during it's testing. The brakes were burned out, so obviously braking was not sufficient to overcome the engine. Why he did not shift into neutral or a lower gear is not so clear. There has been speculation that the computer locked out shifting at those engine RPMs(to protect the engine), but I have not seen a clear answer. (Anyone out there willing to push their new Toyota to 100MPH and shift it into neutral with the throttle floored? :confused:) So it is not as simple as "stupid driver". There is usually a strong component of design error that only becomes apparent in retrospect in these types of incident. Similar to the resent luge racer's death. The course was perfectly safe when everything goes as planned. But it suddenly revealed a fatal flaw (exposed steel poles and low retaining walls) that no one noticed until the unexpected happens.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
modified on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 10:40 PM
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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
The WOZ's problem is specific to the Prius and different from the general Toyota gas petal sticking problem.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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Like I said
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
> Like I said I won't argue the point that people in general can be stupid (all of us are to some degree or other). However, you made an assertion when you wrote that "those that are stupid will argue and those that aren't don't need an explanation." You didn't provide evidence for such wide ranging claim, so your "Like I said" really doesn't mean anything. Have nice day!
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If you have a car with a manual gearbox! You really can't do that in an automatic and it is probably asking too much of most drivers to do both whilst heartily panicking :-)
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
Even automatics have Neutral. But all the posts defending those who didn't know how to put their car in Neutral show how many people don't know or don't think about these things - and so crash at 100mph and blame the manufacturer. Blame the manufacturer for your engine blowing out because you HAD to put the car in neutral - but don't blame them for killing you because you don't know how to drive. 40,000 people/year die from auto accidents (often at the fault of others), yet we still hand every 16 year old with basic motor skills a license - and then worry about cell phone radiation causing cancer, or swine flu killing a couple hundred people, or terrorists a couple thousand. Then we complain about the subsidies to the train system, without realizing that automobiles (via the vast highway system) are actually granted much larger subsidies. And thats before taking into consideration research and bailout money.
