Toyota: If Your Car Speeds Up, Keep Driving

[deadrats]

by now i'm sure everyone has heard about toyota recall concerning sticking gas pedals and the temporary suspension of sales as it tries to correct the problem, well they also released a FAQ:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/toyota-recall-gas-pedal-acceleration,news-5665.html

one has to wonder wtf happened to toyota, all cars have problems and all cars at times have recalls but 2.3 million cars with sticking gas pedals, 4.2 million cars for out of place floor mats that interfere with the pedals, 1.35 million cars for exhaust and seat belts and a projected 5.9 million cars world wide for the previously mentioned gas pedals, there was a time toyotas were consistently ranked as the most reliable cars on the road, now they're starting to look like GM.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Ford are pulling their vehicles made in China for the same problem - why? They have the very same parts.

[lordsmurf]

Sticking gas pedal?
Stripping tranmission into 1st gear, turning off car engine, using a curb for the brake.

I've done something similar on ice. Transmission was fine that time.

[stiltman]

I wonder where Toyota actually said, "If Your Car Speeds Up, Keep Driving"?

[budz]

Not to stir up a hornet's nest but all those recalled Toyota models were built in the good ole USA. I currently own a Scion which is manufactured by Toyota but it was built in Japan. Needless to say other manufacturers like Honda & Nissan have had their own recalls as well with the same common factor those cars were built in USA. IMHO the quality control in USA is not up to par as the Japan factories. Okay, let the flaming begin! LoL! Again that's my take on this thread.

[stiltman]

I think you mean assembled in the USA.
Heck, not even the majority of US cars car parts are actually made in the US any more.

[deadrats]

Ford are pulling their vehicles made in China for the same problem - why? They have the very same parts.

actually ford and mazda used to have some kind of arrangement where either ford or mazda re-branded the other's cars and sold them as their own, for instance the ford ranger and the mazda small pickup truck where the exact same thing (in fact i remember opening up the hood of one of them and seeing the other makers name on the intake) and the ford probe turbo was the exact same engine and tranny as the mazda 626 turbo, and now that i think about it i thing mazda and toyota also did the same with a few of the smaller cars like the corolla.

i guess it makes sense, after all how many gas pedal manufacturers can their possibly be?

[deadrats]

Not to stir up a hornet's nest but all those recalled Toyota models were built in the good ole USA. I currently own a Scion which is manufactured by Toyota but it was built in Japan. Needless to say other manufacturers like Honda & Nissan have had their own recalls as well with the same common factor those cars were built in USA. IMHO the quality control in USA is not up to par as the Japan factories. Okay, let the flaming begin! LoL! Again that's my take on this thread.

i have to agree with you, many people don't realize that many of the cars that they consider "foreign", like the honda accord and toyota camry, are in fact built in the u.s. and in fact the u.s. government consider them "domestic" cars, similarly there are ford's and chevy's made in canada that are technically considered "imported".

the japanese workers have a very different mentality than the american worker, i have a good friend of mine that is half japanese and half english and he lived and worked in japan for about 4 years and i remember him calling me and telling me how unhappy he was in japan, specifically working there.

he told me that in japan you don't criticize the company you work for, blind obedience is expected from the worker and the worker is expected to put the company first before everything else, he being used to the american way of doing things just couldn't stand it over there.

since i have been accused of being overly "wordy" in my responses i will refrain from really analyzing the why's behind the difference between u.s. and japanese workers but i will leave you with this thought: inferior quality products are a direct consequence of not allowing yourself to be taken advantage of and i will stop there.

[MJA]

I still rather drive a Toyota with no brakes than a Ford

does any remember the Ford Tempo?

[rallynavvie]

A coworker was telling me of a story about a family that died in one of the recalled models. I couldn't find the story but apparently one of the people in the car called the dealership when the problem occurred to try to troubleshoot it with them instead of getting the car under control and shut down first. I mean really? Do people lack that much common sense these days? Call the dealership to find out what to do? Put it in neutral and use the brakes if the engine won't shut off! It may bounce off the rev limiter and destroy your engine but at least you won't be dead! I think the driver was too worried about his car and not enough about his own ass (as well as the rest of the people in the car whose lives he was in control of at that point).

[handyguy]

Toyota's were made in a plant in California, called NUMMI, it's supposed to have closed though, might have stayed open for this thing.

[SeánB]

I've already had experience of what it's like when the gas peddle gets stuck, but in my case, it was caused by the mat starting to curl at the top, which caught the peddle as I accelerated. I had no problem stopping (Toyota Yaris, manual transmission). I turned off the engine, got rid of the mat (which I then noticed was the culprit), started up and continued my journey.

I'm sure a lot more people driving the affected vehicles will have this issued caused by a mat than the peddle fault. However, some manufacturers will still do a recall even if a life threatening risk is less than the chance of winning the lottery with a single ticket.

This problem will most likely be worse for those with automatic transmissions, as a fully depressed accelerator will cause them to gear down as the driver tries stopping, whereas a manual transmission will stall the engine if the car slows down too much in a high gear.

[SingSing]

This is great Toyota factoid:

Thelma and Louise were actually Toyota test drivers.

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cng/Desktop/go_toyota.bmp

[SingSing]

This is great Toyota factoid:

Thelma and Louise were actually Toyota test drivers.

[lordsmurf]

Put it in neutral and use the brakes if the engine won't shut off! It may bounce off the rev limiter and destroy your engine but at least you won't be dead!

I know, right!? Common sense.

It may sound mean, but the driver (some cop somewhere) who died was just proving Darwin's theory -- a victim of his own stupidity. Sadly, he took his whole family with him.

I've heard all kinds of excuses (most all of them guesses on what happened) surrounding that story. "Oh, he couldn't put it in neutral", "Oh, the ignition won't turn off.", etc etc

I once put a car directly into park from drive. It sounded like hell, but I'm still here. The engine was fine, too -- go figure!

A car doesn't move easily when powered down or when the gears are ripping themselves apart.

[hech54]

Between March 2008 and April 2009.....General motors recalled over 3.5 MILLION vehicles. The most recent
Toyota recall is....what....2.7 million?

Toyota better start messing up a whole lot more to catch up to General Motors...

[lordsmurf]

My car was messed up when GM "fixed it" for a mandatory recall some years ago. I still don't know what they did. The car was perfectly fine. It was fine again after some garage work a year or two later.

I can't say I trust recalls.

Any time somebody touches it -- even for an oil change -- I tend to wonder what they broke while under the hood.

[Silvas]

Any time somebody touches it -- even for an oil change -- I tend to wonder what they broke while under the hood.

Then why don't you do all your own work on your vehicle?

[deadrats]

Put it in neutral and use the brakes if the engine won't shut off! It may bounce off the rev limiter and destroy your engine but at least you won't be dead!

I know, right!? Common sense.

It may sound mean, but the driver (some cop somewhere) who died was just proving Darwin's theory -- a victim of his own stupidity. Sadly, he took his whole family with him.

I've heard all kinds of excuses (most all of them guesses on what happened) surrounding that story. "Oh, he couldn't put it in neutral", "Oh, the ignition won't turn off.", etc etc

I once put a car directly into park from drive. It sounded like hell, but I'm still here. The engine was fine, too -- go figure!

A car doesn't move easily when powered down or when the gears are ripping themselves apart.

a) just because a driver is caught unawares and may panic for a split second and said panic leads to an accident doesn't mean that the driver was stupid, just human. it's not something you are expecting to happen, a wide open throttle, and inexperience/traffic conditions/weather conditions may cause you to lose control, blaming the driver in that situation is like blaming the mugging victim for walking down the street.

b) as far as not being able to put a car in neutral, there is something called the "neutral safety switch" which is meant to prevent the driver from putting a car from a forward gear to reverse (or park, i.e. moving the level past the neutral position) without first depressing the brake, under an unintended acceleration scenario it's not outside the realm of possibility for the neutral safety switch to fail and prevent the lever from being moved to the neutral position, likewise, if the car is experiencing a high rate of acceleration, the linkage that actually changes gears (that's attached to the lever) may get stuck and not move from the drive position despite the fact that the lever itself moved and there is always the possibility that with "gated" shifters, a driver surprised by a stuck throttle may be startled enough to momentarily not be able to maneuver the lever.

c) putting a car in park from drive would not damage the engine, it would damage the transmission, primarily the parking gear (that sound you heard was the parking gear's teeth being ground away by the driving gear). basically the parking gear is just like any of the other gear only it doesn't move, it's locked in place. when you try to mesh a rotating gear with a stationary gear what happens is you damage the teeth of both gears, not to mention the bands inside the transmission that move the gears (and the shafts the gears are attached to).

[rallynavvie]

a) just because a driver is caught unawares and may panic for a split second and said panic leads to an accident doesn't mean that the driver was stupid, just human. it's not something you are expecting to happen, a wide open throttle, and inexperience/traffic conditions/weather conditions may cause you to lose control, blaming the driver in that situation is like blaming the mugging victim for walking down the street.

b) as far as not being able to put a car in neutral, there is something called the "neutral safety switch" which is meant to prevent the driver from putting a car from a forward gear to reverse (or park, i.e. moving the level past the neutral position) without first depressing the brake, under an unintended acceleration scenario it's not outside the realm of possibility for the neutral safety switch to fail and prevent the lever from being moved to the neutral position, likewise, if the car is experiencing a high rate of acceleration, the linkage that actually changes gears (that's attached to the lever) may get stuck and not move from the drive position despite the fact that the lever itself moved and there is always the possibility that with "gated" shifters, a driver surprised by a stuck throttle may be startled enough to momentarily not be able to maneuver the lever.

c) putting a car in park from drive would not damage the engine, it would damage the transmission, primarily the parking gear (that sound you heard was the parking gear's teeth being ground away by the driving gear). basically the parking gear is just like any of the other gear only it doesn't move, it's locked in place. when you try to mesh a rotating gear with a stationary gear what happens is you damage the teeth of both gears, not to mention the bands inside the transmission that move the gears (and the shafts the gears are attached to).

a) The driver in this case had the time to look up the dealership's phone number and call them thinking they'd somehow be able to tell him what to do. The driver had enough time and their wits about them enough to do that then they should have had the wits to manage their vehicle.

b) All automatic transmissions that I've ever worked with or driven allow the transmission to slip into neutral from drive, often without requiring you to press a button that might be used to shift from Park to Drive. This is often your best option if the throttle is stuck open. However a new car's brakes should also be sufficient to overcome the torque transfer on most slushboxes. The "neutral safety switch" is only used on starting the car to ensure that the vehicle is either in Park or Neutral, not while driving. Even manual transmission vehicles have one.

c) I recall a Mythbusters episode where they tried to destroy an automatic transmission by throwing it into Park while driving. Apparently all new automatic transmissions are able to protect themselves from major damage in this situation. Probably not something you want to do every day but it's better then letting your car accelerate out of control.

[deadrats]

a) The driver in this case had the time to look up the dealership's phone number and call them thinking they'd somehow be able to tell him what to do. The driver had enough time and their wits about them enough to do that then they should have had the wits to manage their vehicle.

b) All automatic transmissions that I've ever worked with or driven allow the transmission to slip into neutral from drive, often without requiring you to press a button that might be used to shift from Park to Drive. This is often your best option if the throttle is stuck open. However a new car's brakes should also be sufficient to overcome the torque transfer on most slushboxes. The "neutral safety switch" is only used on starting the car to ensure that the vehicle is either in Park or Neutral, not while driving. Even manual transmission vehicles have one.

c) I recall a Mythbusters episode where they tried to destroy an automatic transmission by throwing it into Park while driving. Apparently all new automatic transmissions are able to protect themselves from major damage in this situation. Probably not something you want to do every day but it's better then letting your car accelerate out of control.

re: a) - i was talking about smurf's comment regarding the cop that killed himself and his family.

re: b) - i misspoke, i was thinking of the pin that prevents your from shifting past neutral without depressing the brake, can't remember what it's called. as far as manual transmissions having a neutral safety switch, i don't believe that's true, if it was you wouldn't be able to push start a manual transmission car. in fact, on a manual tranny car, if the car is in gear and you try to start it it "jumps", if it had a neutral safety switch no current would go to the starter solenoid and thus no "jump", also no push starting.

re: c) - i suppose it depends quite a bit on how fast you are traveling when you throw it into park, perhaps at 25 mph the tranny would survive but i don't think it would last too long if you did it as highway speeds, not too mention that putting it into park would lock the wheels and depending on whether it is a front or rear drive car and what the weather conditions are you may lose control of the car.

i think your best bet is to downshift to the lowest gear possible and stand on the brakes until you slow down enough to put it into neutral and shut off the ignition.

[rallynavvie]

re: b) - i misspoke, i was thinking of the pin that prevents your from shifting past neutral without depressing the brake, can't remember what it's called. as far as manual transmissions having a neutral safety switch, i don't believe that's true, if it was you wouldn't be able to push start a manual transmission car. in fact, on a manual tranny car, if the car is in gear and you try to start it it "jumps", if it had a neutral safety switch no current would go to the starter solenoid and thus no "jump", also no push starting.

All it does on a manual transmission is make sure the clutch is engaged before letting you start the car. When you install remote engine starters on manual transmission vehicles you need to bypass this switch. Pretty sure all it does is prevent the starter motor from engaging so you'd still be able to "pop the clutch" and start the vehicle, but I've not tried this in a loooong time.

[lordsmurf]

1. Anything under the hood is the engine to most people.

2. It gets harder and harder to work on modern cars, I gave up. Just because you can (or think you can) do something yourself doesn't mean you should. Take it to the experts. Buying a car doesn't make you a mechanic.

[fritzi93]

Yeah, I used to do a lot of work on my vehicles.

In '93 I got a new F-150, my first vehicle with a computer. Got a code reader for it to read the computer codes, it wasn't too terribly expensive. All our cars after that, well, the computers aren't so simple, and the diagnostic devices are damn expensive. And there's less room in the engine compartments, generally. So I've given up on everything but routine maintenance. Except for that truck, which I still own.

But really, a guy called the dealer? Couldn't turn off the ignition? Almost inconceivable. Too dumb to live, sorry, but there it is.