Unintended-acceleration investigation continues

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Article says its a FOIA case against the government to get the test results and investigative findings brought by an automobile safety group. Seems reasonable enough to me that the record be made public.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

I'd second that: any federal investigation should be open to the public view unless there are specific compelling reasons to keep it secret.

We paid for it, we should be able to see the output.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Easy answer: lawyers smelling blood.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

There wouldn't BE a lawsuit if they'd just turn over the results (and it is legal for the government to charge a fee to cover the costs of the clerks digging that stuff up).

Instead they are tussling over keeping THESE results secret for reasons unknown.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Interesting story. Too bad he never posted here. We probably would have told him to (1) clean the throttle body due to a sticky throttle plate and (2) failing 1, replace the TB.

But that's quite a deal, selling your 280,000 mile Gen 1 for $27,000.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

it is the same guy as before, nothing new... "safety group" my nice person, its Kane that made money on testifying how toyota vehicles go out of control.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Clerk and paperwork costs are paid by the party requesting the FOIA documents.

Tom

 

Yeah, so this article doesn't fill me full of joy at the prospect of running to a dealership and plunking down money for a new Prius:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/b...celeration.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=prius&st=Search

McClelland is an engineer and a federal official, clearly no dope, and he duplicated the unintended acceleration with the NHTSA agents in the car, and they videotaped it. And now they're writing it off? What does the agency have to hide?

By extension, this doesn't make Toyota look good, either.

 

can't wait to get my new pip! i guess you'll have to go with a volt. sorry.

 

Hmm. A Gen1 car with 280,000 miles suffers a malfunction that causes an engine surge, but it is easily controlled by the brakes, and the electronic displays began blinking wildly. Apparently it threw diagnostic codes, which the NHTSA investigators recorded but are not further mentioned in the story.

I'm sorry, but this does not fall into the same category as the alleged uncontrollable accelerations that allegedly preceded numerous crashes. This car did suffer a malfunction, but also self-diagnosed that is was malfunctioning, flashed the "I'M BROKEN, PLEASE GET ME REPAIRED" lights, and still remained controllable.

Did the owner take this car in for repair? No, the story makes no mention of it.

My memory of the final reports were that they were looking for uncontrollable events, which this case clearly is not, and for electronic malfunctions that the machine's diagnostics did not detect, which this case clearly is not. An electronic problem that they did discover and describe wasn't described as serious because the car (a different Toyota model, not a Prius) remained in easy control and registered error codes, and the owner did get it repaired. She kept the bad module, and investigators found the problem in that out-of-service unit, not in anything still in the car.

Because this vehicle gave ample warning, the driver's first obligation, after controlling the incident, is to take this vehicle in for repair, or at least diagnosis. This story makes no mention of this step happening yet. But the vehicle is now owned by someone who assists production litigation attorneys, and who is connected to a questionable bit of past publicity on this issue.

This has the smell of a better organized 'Sikes' (or $ike$) attempt. The original owner has already profited handsomely, getting $27,000 for an old car with 280,000 miles.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Easy response too. All legal claims are branded phony, until it's you, or your family. Then when people scoff OUR claims, the indignance flies. Whether any claim is valid or not . . . I don't know. But I do know how defense claims work.

Sadly, no one blames the insurance industry for our legal woes. That's good marketing. The insurance defense lobby is the 2nd largest in the nation, and for a good reason. Best thing that ever happened to the industry was the McDonalds hot coffee case. A woman is scalded badly ... and although several others had it happen too, McD's ignored it ... blew them all off. They wouldn't even pay the woman's emergency visit. McD's put their spin on it, and every ignorant sap bought into it. Poor poor insurance industry ... having to pay out those nasty claims to all those fakers. Yep ... that's great marketing ... ain't no denying it.

 

What's a Sikes attempt?

You're right that the story makes no mention of whether McClelland ever took it in for repair. That does seem to be a glaring omission.

But why would the NHTSA judge the incident to be a nonissue after having experienced it and videotaped it and indicated that it would help solve the other cases of unintended acceleration?

Does having read the story make you any more nervous about your vehicle possibly doing the same thing?

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree for the circumstances described here. The story says N.H.T.S.A. ... noted that the vehicle “could easily be controlled by the brakes” and “displayed ample warning lights” indicating engine trouble. This is like other safety-related malfunctions: if warning lights come on, and the car is clearly malfunctioning and appears to be unsafe to drive, the driver should be responsible to get the car fixed, and not continue to drive it.

By your logic, McDonald's was warned and took no action, so they are responsible. Here, the driver was warned, and took no action, so he is responsible. It seems to me, if his check engine light is on after 280,000 miles, he should be calling a mechanic, not a lawyer. Or think about buying a new car.

But it appears complaining has worked out well for the owner already, he's got this "safety" firm, which I suspect is really just a law firm, to buy his 280,000 mile used car from him for $27,000.

 

That is a reference to a runaway Prius incident in California on March 8, 2010, that receive extremely intense national publicity. Many of us here believe it was an attempted money grab. This thread should lead you to plenty more.

Answered above: "My memory of the final reports were that they were looking for uncontrollable events, which this case clearly is not, and for electronic malfunctions that the machine's diagnostics did not detect, which this case clearly is not."

No:

(1) I have first-hand experience with sudden unintended acceleration (of the 'pilot error' variety) in a previous car, and my first priority is having the tools to immediately control it. This old Prius failure was readily controllable. It did not disable the brakes, as allegedly happened in virtually all the publicized Toyota SUA stories two years ago, and the similarly publicized Audi 5000 stories a generation earlier.

(2) This failure was not a 'ghost in the machine', because it was detected and announced by the machine's fault detection capability. This serves notice to the driver that the machine needs repair. The widely publicized alleged SUA incidents produced no such notice to the driver, nor readily understood evidence that would lead ordinary repair shops to a failed component that needs repair.

(3) This car had 280,000 miles. I've not yet had any car last that long, though this Prius replaces a Honda that was approaching that distance.

(4) (selfish reason here) This was a Gen 1. Mine has two generations of improvements.

(5) The various safety-critical electronic systems in cars are supposed to have a large degree of fault tolerance, and independence from each other, so that the common and foreseeable failure mechanisms don't cause uncontrollable SUAs and other serious hazards. This doesn't mean that they don't break, but rather that they break in a fail-safe fashion to not endanger the occupants.

While the government investigation two years ago did find some design and process issues that should be improved, Toyota's throttle controls did pass a deeper investigation into their fail-safe hardware and software structure and performance than had been previously applied to any manufacture's vehicles. These electronic throttle controls are not perfect, but they are better and safer than the mechanical controls in all my previous cars.

 

OK, then.

Thanks; I will take a look at that thread.

 

"..controllable event.."

Once you EXPECT it, sure.

And what about the speed you happen to be driving when it "hits", low speed, sure the brakes can overcome momentum, high(er) speed, not so sure.

I don't remember any instance as being quoted that the brakes where not working, just that the (front) brakes were not able to overcome the engine drive torque, WOT, and the forward momentum.