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I agree; hard to trust a company when you start finding out things like this. I keep hearing in my head that Toyota always puts the customer's safety first; now I wonder.

 

It's a lot easier to bash a Japanese company than an American one. We have had plenty of American targets- banks, health insurers, oil companies, etc. It doesn't change the fact that Toyota forgot that we Americans have 80% of the world's lawyers for a reason. You have to be very diligent about not making mistakes.

Are Toyota's electronics different from those used by other manufacturers? From what I've heard they aren't. That might explain why Toyota doesn't believe Mr. Nader and his Center for Auto Safety. Of course, maybe it's our cell phones...

NHTSA was just working the way it was supposed to under the last administration.

 

Wow, does anyone here actually work for a large organization? Have you ever had to put together a PowerPoint for a management presentation? This is simply a case of someone who wants to make Toyota look bad taking an internal document and trying to make is seem like "boasting or bragging" has taken place. It makes me want to puke when I see things like this taken out of context....

 

Yep, that's exactly what's going on, along with the Secretary of Transportation's "stop driving the recalled cars immediately."

 

Yes GM made toyota hide the fact they had a problem, then recall floor mats and then the gas pedals. The cover up is what always sinks something or someone. GM had nothing ot do with the toyota cover up. Its a short between two circuits. toyota has screwed themsleves.

 

I agree with you. Floor mats and sticky accelerators do not cause unintended acceleration, they will only sustain the speed corresponding to the accelerator position where it got "stuck". That would seem to be common sense. And in most cases, that would be much less than full throttle.

To avoid the remotely possible condition of "shorted accelerator signal wires" etc., I have ordered a decelarator unit that overrides any computer commands to the ICU/electric motor in case of unintended acceleration. Peace, brothers! May Toyota recover its former glory, but wiser.

 

No, your common sense fails you in this example. Accelerator position controls the power output of the ICE/MGs, not the speed of the car. Drivers often use higher power settings to more rapidly accelerate to a desired speed, then back off the gas to maintain the speed.

Using your logic, if a driver floored the gas at 10 mph and the pedal stuck, the car would continue to drive at 10 mph. This is obviously not correct.

Tom

 

Wouldn't a short between two circuits blow a fuse? If not, the current level would be too small to activate any motor activity. So I don't think that is the cause of any UA.

 

Sorry, but I cannot agree on this as its all depended on power of the engine and the speed you are travelling.

If you travelling at low speed and the accelerator stuck while you are speeding up. You will keep accelerating until your speed and the engine power reach an equilibrium. The time took to get to this equilibrium will depend on the power of your engine. For the Prius, it would took a long time and at a low rate. For a 700 hp Ferrari, its only took a few seconds to reach over 100 mph. That is quite some acceleration.

 

I understand what you are saying, but it is not exactly what I meant. The point is that a floor mat or high-friction pedal would not usually cause full-throttle acceleration, which has been reported as the problem with unstoppable Toyotas. Sorry if my logic doesn't match your logic.

 

The stated short would be between some signal wires to the computer, the way I understand the good professor in Illinois. The consequence would be to cause the computer to command the throttle servo-motor to rotate to the full open position, as he demonstrated. No fuses involved in the signal circuits.

 

I don't now, but have worked for large corporations. Nothing as large as Toyota.

I think the problem for toyota is when we do look at the statement in the context of other things toyota was doing at the time. In that context there is some evidence of criminal negligence. I'm not sure in what context the statement sounds good. Maybe you can tell me that. From a corporate point of view, even if this was an anomaly, it would be best to walk away from it, and no longer ever have ex employees of the nthsa interface with that agency. A stronger course for Toyota is to show how they are open to safety concerns now. Pretending they did everything possible in the past is just beyond the gullibility of most Americans today.

 

This depends on the driver. In my case you are correct: I almost never use full throttle. On the other hand, Pat Sparks uses full throttle frequently, according to his posts.

In addition, there is more than one way that a floor mat can interact with the pedals. One of the more insidious ways involves getting trapped over the gas pedal but under the brake pedal. As the driver presses the brake, the accelerator is pressed to the floor. It may seem unlikely, but it is a reported problem.

Tom

 

Wrong. It's bad reporting, bad media. Public Relations is something you have control over, Toyota has no control over how The Media wants to report something.

The media is spinning the whole "negotiated resolution" to make it sound like it was some act of willful cover-up, when in fact it I do not think it was.

It's bad publicity...but by definition not bad PR.