Unintended-acceleration investigation continues

Wwest40, what did you mean by "WOT"?

I keep thinking of that incident in California (911 Call Released In Fatal Santee Crash - San Diego News Story - KGTV San Diego) in which a CHP trooper couldn't slow down his Lexus. You would think a trooper would have known that putting the engine in Neutral and shutting it off would have been the solution to his problem, but of course he was probably too terrified to think straight.

 

WOT = wide open throttle

 

Thanks much.

 

There is NO indication that the trooper didn't try everything he could think of to bring the car to a stop, he was most certainly riding the brakes to the MAX.

I'm guessing a dead-lock within the cruise control firmware routines.

There is also an indication that this was the second time within minutes. Makes it look like he recovered from the first instance somehow.

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Toyota is being singled out because so far they're the only marque that has currently experienced the "problem". If the problem turns out to be a firmware "dead-lock" then in the future more attention will be paid throughout the industry to certifying the firmware.

On the other hand if the ECU itself (previously undiscovered errata) proves to be the source of the problem then all models using that particular (Nippon Denso) microprocessor will be suspect.

 

Well, we'll never know if he tried to put the engine in Neutral. Riding the brakes obviously didn't help. Shutting the engine off would have stopped the car.

Sorry, I don't know enough about engines to know what you mean by "firmware routines." Could you explain? And how would they have prevented the engine from being shifted into Neutral and the ignition turned off?

 

Re: Toyota harassment continues

Toyota was singled out because they had by far the most reports of unintended acceleration. They also had the very disturbing 911 call from a now dead family. The investigations seemed to indicate floor mat entrapment and sticky gas pedals, both of which toyota has now addressed and were never problems in the gen III prius.

NHTSA seemed slow in acting and toyota had hired a former NHTSA official to deal with them. A little congressional oversight should have been brought into the matter, but the congress and media put on a show to greatly exaggerate the situation. Hence the harassment in the title. We should be in favor of FOIA requests, but they are what they are. The situation is closed unless new problems start to arise. Nothing really to see here.

 

The driving experience is filled with innumerable unexpected events -- large objects (cars, people, debris) suddenly appearing in the path ahead, loss of traction in foul weather, mechanical failure of the vehicle (tire blowout, broken timing belt, etc.) Those who cannot retain control in the most basic events are quickly weeded out, unfortunately often taking out some innocent victims in the process.

This incident was easily handled by the most basic reflex -- hit the brakes.

With cold brakes on any car whose brakes meet federal requirements -- yes, I'm sure.

With brakes heated from repeated applications, depleting the vacuum booster, on a car with 250+ horsepower with the engine stuck at WOT and not providing any more vacuum boost to the power brake unit, in a car without brake-throttle override, that remained controversial.

A Prius doesn't have this power, doesn't use engine vacuum to power the brake booster, and does (at least on newer models, don't know about the 2003) have the brake-throttle override.

I do remember most instances claiming that the brakes didn't work at all. This is the hallmark of the most common cause (and the cause of my long-ago event) -- pedal misapplication.

There were other instances where that, as you described, the brakes were no longer strong enough. The San Diego CHP tragedy, below, is the best known example.

This was well covered before your PC join date. This event was caused by an improper floor mat jamming the gas pedal, which had been reported to the dealership by the previous user of this loaner car, a Lexus ES350 with a far more powerful engine than any Prius. We don't know everything that the trooper did or did not do, but it appears that he (and others) were not familiar with the three second delay when pushing the power button to shut down the car while moving. Various other victims have reporting pushing that button many times to no effect, but it won't work without the three second press-and-hold action.

Your guess of cruise control deadlock was not supported by last year's federal investigations.

 

Not true, all major brands have SUA reports. But a plot of reports vs time displays an extremely strong publicity effect. Some of us call it 'media hysteria'.

Previous studies found that SUA reports were more strongly linked to driver age, newness of car to the driver, and transmission type, than to model of car.

That Lexus was a loaner, not his daily driver, and had push button on/off, not the traditional turn key too which most people are still accustomed. It seems likely he didn't know about Toyota's 3 second delay for an emergency shutdown, but we'll never know for sure. Some other victims did not know about this delay.

Firmware refers to the lower level software programs inside the many computerized systems, in cars and in nearly everything else with electronics these days. It does not refer to the higher level software in things that we actually call 'computers'.

 

well unfortunately, indications were that he panicked and did not do what he was supposed to do, instead they all screamed and yelled and rode out the brakes until they were completely spent.

he could have put car into neutral, easily (it is one flick up) but the panic took over.

in any case, it is old story, told many times, investigated by NASA that has not found any issues.

"Safety" group that sued NTHSA now is the same one that made most financial gains from whole Toyota deal, as the one-man CEO Kane was the one on the TV telling stories of wild Toyota's.

Now he is at it again.

 

Thanks, fuzzy1. I didn't know about the push-and-hold three-second delay on the Off button, either. But there is no such delay on shifting a Prius into Neutral, is there? As spwolf said, it's just a flick up, right?

 

There is a delay in shifting the prius into neutral, which you need to hold. If you do shift to what is labeled reverse by pushing the shifter up, it will shift into neutral. Stepping on the brakes in a Gen III prius will also over ride the accelerator. Providing this brake override was one of the issues in the nhtsa investigation to the lexus incident, and toyota is now adding this feature to their non-hybrid cars.

 

Spwolf was referring the Lexus that the CHP officer was driving. It was not a hybrid, it had a traditional automatic transmission.

Hybrids got dragged into that controversy because the offending floormat was intended for a Lexus Hybrid SUV. And when the public hears 'hybrid', most of them think 'Prius'. (Prius also uses the same push button power switch as the crashed Lexus.)

In a Prius, shifting Neutral still has a delay, but at about one second, it is much shorter than the On/Off pushbutton. For a faster response, shift to Reverse or push the Park button. The car is smart enough to disobey the driver when the car is moving too fast, and it instantly goes into Neutral instead.

I have pushed the shifter to Reverse many times at highway speed, to train my emergency reflexes, and it gives a double-beep warning as it goes to Neutral. I have not shifted to Park while moving, but numerous writers here claim to have done so, apparently with the same results. But be warned that if the car thinks it is moving slow enough to do so safely, it really will go into Park with a severe (but apparently non-damaging) jolt.

 

Thanks much, austingreen.

 

Very interesting, fuzzy1. Thanks. Good to know you have tried the shift-into-Reverse maneuver at highway speeds and that it worked.

I tried shifting into Neutral on my CR-V (automatic transmission) at highway speeds, and to my great surprise, it worked. (I made sure no one was near me in the front or back at the time.) I half expected pistons to come through the hood.

 

The problem isn't the prevalence of automatics and CVT's in the US, the problem is that in the US you can get your drivers license from a box of Cracker Jacks.

 

Cool! Thanks for the tip. Hope I never have to use it!