Audi 5000 all over again

well maybe not, but.. close.

http://jalopnik.com/5493011/this-memo-proves-the-runaway-prius-was-a-hoax

I smell criminal charges and a civil suit.

That guy's an @sshat who's likely going to be spending some time in jail.

Speaking of Audi, Toyota, unintended acceleration, and pedal problems, here's an interesting piece about proposed "smart pedal" regulations by a guy who did a lot of consulting work during the Audi debacle:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html

at one time I had a sticking accelerator pedal on my '76 Civic... no unintended acceleration... just a sticking pedal. found where the bind was engineered a fix and no more problem... 'course there was no software to trouble shoot....

That's what I said the minute the report was out. That we'd see several of these where people would be trying to make some money. Knowing that Toyota would pay them off rather than go to court

carguy123 wrote: That's what I said the minute the report was out. That we'd see several of these where people would be trying to make some money. Knowing that Toyota would pay them off rather than go to court

There are a lot of crackpots out there who are out for easy money.

And again I say--shift into neutral before you call 911 in a panic.

two reports today of people who crashed into things now blaming it on a sticking pedal/unitended acceleration. 100% chance they are idiots who can't drive, wrecked their cars, and then though "hmm....I know how I can avoid any blame for my E36 M3ty driving.....(light bulb over head!)"

I can't remeber which model of Toyota / Lexus I saw recently that had a "trick" shift lever. That is, no "classic" P R N D L but instead, park and/or neutral required you move a button or something.

As soon as I saw this guy on tv and heard him say he was afraid his car would flip if he put it in neutral....I knew there was something not right going on. As I said in a previous post " you'd rather run into something at a high rate of speed than take a chance your car MIGHT flip.

As a side note, our city is considering doing away with vehicle inspections. In today's 'paper, some wingnut wrote in that in 57 years of driving he/she NEVER USED THEIR EMERGENCY BRAKE, AND COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY IT NEEDED TO BE TESTED AS PART OF A SAFETY INSPECTION.

Guess they don't drive a new car or a Toyota.

integraguy wrote: As soon as I saw this guy on tv and heard him say he was afraid his car would flip if he put it in neutral....I knew there was something not right going on.

There seems to be two stories, both unacceptable and contradictory. He said he didn't hear the instructions to shift to neutral because he put the phone down in order to pay attention to driving. Uh huh. The other story was that he was afraid to do so because the car might "flip." Uh huh.

But, he had time to look down from driving to dial 911. He had time to have a discussion. He had time to wait for the CHP, but he didn't have time to look down to move the shifter forward one position. Uh huh.

I know that section of freeway and there's little traffic. Even in regular traffic, people go 70-80 mph, so he was travelling "up to" only 14 mph faster than them. Also, there were few cars so it wasn't like he was in an autocross situation.

The whole story sounds suspicious. Unfortunately, Toyota's screwed either way. Call the guy an idiot and everyone will say they're hiding something. Admit the problem and confirm it. Toyota's facing a prove-you're-not-a-witch situation. I'm not defending them, as it appears something's going on, but much like the Audi case, I think a lot of the "occurances" are driver error, or outright fraud... who knows what the proportion of each might be.

I am confused on what David Justo wrote/said. "If an engine does not shut down then the gears are spinning past their maximum rpm and completely sieze the engine." Huh, no kabish.

kb58 wrote: But, he had time to look down from driving to dial 911. He had time to have a discussion. He had time to wait for the CHP, but he didn't have time to look down to move the shifter forward one position. Uh huh.

This also happened recently w/ a BMW and earlier w/ a Venza. It's a phenomenon that's driving me INSANE, because I can't believe the general public is this stupid.

People will sooner post to their facebook/twitter "ZOMGzzZ!!1! Car won't stop!!1!" than they would to stop for one second and shift into neutral.

There should honestly be a PSA campaign about this. That's how dumb the general public is.

And now a lot of people think if you shift into neutral your car will roll over because that guy said so and it was reported that way.

In reply to carguy123:

People are so car-stupid these days that they don't realize that "N" isn't the same as "P" even though they are two letters apart.

Same morons that have to call AAA to change their tires because they don't know how to work the lug nuts....

carguy123 wrote: And now a lot of people think if you shift into neutral your car will roll over because that guy said so and it was reported that way.

...and this thought has never crossed my mind in my LIFE. berkeleying groupthink.

I coast down big hills regularly (with a 5-speed).

irish44j wrote: Same morons that have to call AAA to change their tires because they don't know how to work the lug nuts....

Hey, I have AAA and I have them change tires. In the winter and snow. I've used it once, and It was nice to not have to lie down in the snow.

Yeah I really don't get it. I had unintended acceleration in my Spitfire once when the throttle return spring broke. I put it in neutral and turned off the car. Guess what. No more acceleration.

iceracer wrote: I am confused on what David Justo wrote/said. "If an engine does not shut down then the gears are spinning past their maximum rpm and completely sieze the engine." Huh, no kabish.

Agreed - this was supposedly what the "Toyota resident expert" said - if the brakes and gas go at the same time the engine will seize. WTF?! Does braking force the trans to the lowest possible gear so that the motor will overrev if the gas is still being applied? How does that work? Someone needs to adequately explain this one to me.

ignorant wrote:

irish44j wrote: Same morons that have to call AAA to change their tires because they don't know how to work the lug nuts....

Hey, I have AAA and I have them change tires. In the winter and snow. I've used it once, and It was nice to not have to lie down in the snow.

Most people could do it but it's convenient not to. I was never bothered by that when i did road service. Most people call and go about what they were doing, work shopping ect, and i'd come by and change the tire. I made a couple bucks, they got to keep doing what they were doing and everyone is happy. I've used it myself at times when i could just leave a key with the car and go about my day.

Anyone remember that story about the Grand Cherokee accelerating unintentionally at some car wash while being driven by an employee, then wrecked it? I don't doubt that these problems appear from time to time, but I think most of it is irresponsible people who can't be bothered to pay attention to their driving and/or don't know how to properly drive a car.

Lugnut wrote: Yeah I really don't get it. I had unintended acceleration in my Spitfire once when the throttle return spring broke. I put it in neutral and turned off the car. Guess what. No more acceleration.

More like "unexpected acceleration" in a Spitfire.

pigeon wrote:

iceracer wrote: I am confused on what David Justo wrote/said. "If an engine does not shut down then the gears are spinning past their maximum rpm and completely sieze the engine." Huh, no kabish.

Agreed - this was supposedly what the "Toyota resident expert" said - if the brakes and gas go at the same time the engine will seize. WTF?! Does braking force the trans to the lowest possible gear so that the motor will overrev if the gas is still being applied? How does that work? Someone needs to adequately explain this one to me.

If you read the article, you'll find that all the force goes through a planetary gear set. Page three has a diagram. Effectively one set of forces goes through one planet gear, another set goes through another gear, etc. If you did what the guy said, you'd get the planets all trying to move in different directions and therefore, t3h jamming of the gears..

http://jalopnik.com/5493033/gallery/3

Okay, now the media's saying:

both the front and rear brakes were worn and damaged by heat, consistent with Sikes saying that he stood on the brake pedal with both feet and was unable to stop the car. But if the fail-safe system worked properly, the brakes wouldn't have been damaged because power would have been cut to the wheels.

l don't know what to believe...

Had a customer come into work the other day with a claim that "I had one incident where I went to step on the brake pedal and the car accelerated very quickly, pressed all the way down on the brake and the car continued to accelerate." Before I even got into the car to try and duplicate the problem I asked to speak to said customer and asked him a few questions. 1) Do you know you drive a Honda? "Yes." 2) You know this is not Toyota? "Yes." 3) Could it have been possible that you had your foot on the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal, causing you to continually accelerate with more pressure being applied to the pedal? "OMG, I never thought about that!"

We had a little old lady buy a GTI DSG 2 weeks ago and want to return it because of "unintended acceleration". Apparently if she stepped on the gas all the way down "the tires would squeal and the car would go to 100 really fast"...

We asked if the she would lift her foot off the pedal and she said "what's the fun in that?"

Awesome.

I had the unintentional acceleration regularly for several days. I had blown the engine in a contour svt and needed to drive to work. I got my MB 190e 2.3 16v out of the garage after sitting all winter and did not check it very carefully. It had a gummed uo throttle cable that would result in sticking at WOT. I merely had to put my toe under the pedal and it would be normal until I put it all the way down again. The thief that stole the car several days later was not quite as lucky.

So Toyota says that if the gas pedal and brake are held down, the engine disengages. The driver in question claims he did just that and it kept going, and the burnt brakes back him up... or do they.

What if the driver kept the car floored and applied 2/3 brake effort - enough to get the brakes really hot, enough to light the brakes lights, but not enough to cause the disengagement? I wonder how much brake pedal effort it takes for the auto-disconnect to activate.

They say he was going up to 90mph or so, but what's the top-speed of that car? Probably more, so "if" he kept it floored and dragged the brakes enough to bring it down to 80-90mph or so... Just looking at all the possiblities.