Toyota Acceleration Issues
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It is relatively difficult to find a standard transmission for sale in the US anymore.
not really. the honda civic si vw jetta toyota/nissan/ford/gmc/chevy trucks mazda speed3 mini cooper real and bmw versions jeeps blah blah blah....
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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??
He did not make the call - it was one of the passengers. If you listened to the tape you would not hear any panic or screaming until the last seconds before the crash.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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He did not make the call - it was one of the passengers. If you listened to the tape you would not hear any panic or screaming until the last seconds before the crash.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
Snowman58 wrote:
If you listened to the tape you would not hear any panic or screaming until the last seconds before the crash.
Then that's even worse. At least panic would explain the complete failure to take any one of a number of actions which would have saved their lives (and which should have been blindingly obvious). How they managed to make a calm phone call but not knock the gearbox into neutral, stand on the brake, pull the handbrake or turn off the engine is all the more confusing.
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Snowman58 wrote:
If you listened to the tape you would not hear any panic or screaming until the last seconds before the crash.
Then that's even worse. At least panic would explain the complete failure to take any one of a number of actions which would have saved their lives (and which should have been blindingly obvious). How they managed to make a calm phone call but not knock the gearbox into neutral, stand on the brake, pull the handbrake or turn off the engine is all the more confusing.
See my post further down - it was not so "blindingly obvious" as you might think. Dept of Transportation drivers had similar problems in stopping a car when they simulated the problem (at a much lower speed).
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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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
You can still turn a wheel with the power steering off. If the engine is switched off, you also lose your vaccuum assisted brakes. But you can STILL use them, you just need to literally put your back in to it. A person of average strength could have controlled the car for the short time it would take to guide your car and stand on the brakes. Most modern cars also disregard the throttle input if you even touch the brakes. I know Volvos and European Fords do. So all you'd have to do in this instance.... is press the brakes. If you were to shift it in to Neutral, you would NOT blow the engine as the engines are fitted with fuel/spark cut rev limiters. This would also give you power steering and vaccuum assisted braking. Either way, not doing ANYTHING and PHONING someone is the most ridiculous of ANY other option. Even slowly griding your car against the central reservation would be a less retarded thing to do. I've had a throttle stick WIDE open on a supercharged 700kg 200bhp hatchback once. If I'd had dipped the clutch, it would have smashed the supercharger in 30 seconds (G-Lader) So I stood on the brakes (single piston sliding caliper useless things) and that WORKED, when they started to get hot and I was near an exit, I turned off the engine and brought the car to a stop. All this was done in a panic, in the dark and rain, with other traffic around me at 70mph. I'd also only been driving for 2 years at the time. Anybody like this guy who killed himself and his poor family should be taken off the road. It's terrifying to think that someone as brain dead as that could be behind me. And this isn't an elitist rant, this should be OBVIOUS information to ANYone who thinks they should be on the road with other people in a dangerous machine. tl;dr http://www.sniffpetrol.com/[^]
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a) in some cars you can't turn the engine off while it's driving b) when you're going that fast you don't need power steering.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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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?
Call me crazy, but don't all cars have brake pedals? :)
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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.
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modified on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 10:40 PM
Why would he (or the DOT) need both hands on the wheel to reach the ignition button? Was it on the other side of the car or something? Also, as a highway patrol officer, shifting it into neutral should have indeed been "blindingly obvious". I don't see any indication that he even tried it, although your speculation that the gearbox ECU refused to allow a shift out of drive is worth testing. Perhaps some modern ECUs will refuse to shift into, say, reverse while travelling forwards at a high speed, etc, in the same way that tiptronic gear shifts with autoboxes can be ignored/delayed by the ECU under certain conditions (like "it would send the revs too high" as you suggest)... I wouldn't expect such a limitation to apply to shifting out of gear, but then again, perhaps they thought "shifting from drive to neutral with the accelerator floored is bad, why would anyone do that?". Definitely worth testing (by an independent testing company, not yours or mine... even if I had a nice new car I wouldn't try that even on axle stands :D). Sure, there are some design (and serious usability) errors from Toyota and they should be rectified ASAP, but that doesn't negate the fact that there were options which are obvious to anyone with a clue how cars work.
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Call me crazy, but don't all cars have brake pedals? :)
Yes - in this case they burned out the brake pads trying to stop the car. The drive system was more powerful than the braking system.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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Why would he (or the DOT) need both hands on the wheel to reach the ignition button? Was it on the other side of the car or something? Also, as a highway patrol officer, shifting it into neutral should have indeed been "blindingly obvious". I don't see any indication that he even tried it, although your speculation that the gearbox ECU refused to allow a shift out of drive is worth testing. Perhaps some modern ECUs will refuse to shift into, say, reverse while travelling forwards at a high speed, etc, in the same way that tiptronic gear shifts with autoboxes can be ignored/delayed by the ECU under certain conditions (like "it would send the revs too high" as you suggest)... I wouldn't expect such a limitation to apply to shifting out of gear, but then again, perhaps they thought "shifting from drive to neutral with the accelerator floored is bad, why would anyone do that?". Definitely worth testing (by an independent testing company, not yours or mine... even if I had a nice new car I wouldn't try that even on axle stands :D). Sure, there are some design (and serious usability) errors from Toyota and they should be rectified ASAP, but that doesn't negate the fact that there were options which are obvious to anyone with a clue how cars work.
Either ABC or NBC recently reported on the DOT testing including video of the driver trying to shut off the engine with the ignition button. I have no idea why it did not work, but they have documented the problem. That reportedly was why DOT came down hard on Toyota. By the way I am not trying to pick on Toyota, all complex systems have hidden design issues that all too often are discovered by users. Some are benign, others are deadly. The point of my posting is to highlight that the operator is not always at stupid as it might appear at first light. In the aircraft industry, the first response is always pilot error. But deeper reviews frequently point out design or system errors that turn a minor operator error into a disaster. As an aside, Mercedes apparently has a bug in the software (for some models) that causes rapid acceleration away from stops. It is momentary but startling to the driver. Mercedes is aware of the problem, but has not (yet) made any changes.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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It is relatively difficult to find a standard transmission for sale in the US anymore.
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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:
Why don't people just turn off the engine?
Because it's not that easy. These cars are electronic brakes, throttle, auto-trans and push button start/stop. These devices have built into them restrictions that stop you from damaging the car, like not being able to change from drive to neutral/reverse/park while under acceleration/speed, and you can't turn off the car until you come to a stop, hence saving you from turning off the power steering/brakes/trans etc and crashing. The only way you can turn off the electronic systems & engine at speed is by holding in the Stop/Start button for 4+ seconds, it's in the drivers manual, unfortunately people don't RTFM so its not common for the driver to know that little trick.
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Chris Maunder wrote:
in some cars you can't turn the engine off while it's driving
I'm curious as to what cars do that. I keep hearing this claim, but nobody ever names the cars.
Jaguar S-Type, Audi A6, and AFAIK, most autos.
