onsknht

No apology needed, there's no minimizing going on, it is what it is... Toyota should be concerned and in contact with the NHTSA not only to accurately portray this incident, but to protect the shield they've created to hide the issue.

onsknht

The Solara uses the 3.3 engine not the 3.5 so it has the prior generation transmission.

Threxx

So ES transmissions go from bad (previous gen), to worse... great.

Looking at how defensive and offended you are here about something said toward a car company just screeeeeams fanboy.

mmarshall

Without getting into the details of this specific case, I think part of the automatic transmission problem, in general, today is that engineers, in a frantic attempt to get vehicle weights down, are using not only lightweight aluminum cases but also too many lightweight parts inside the case as well.

A transmission, particularly with heavily loaded vehicles, stop-and-go driving, hill-climing / descent, quick acceleration, and spirited driving, is a device that, by nature, has to take extreme stresses, over and over again, every day. Compromise too much on the design and weight of both the external and internal parts and you may have problems.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Did Toyota's CEO challenge the engineers to reduce parts count by 50 percent as well? While any engine designer understands all too well the fewer the parts the smaller the likelihood of failure (guns are the perfect crucible for this - they're single cycle engines), transmissions, especially automatic transmissions are necessarily loaded with moving parts and are inescapably complex from a mechanical perspective.

It only takes one valve to malfunction to get flaring. I know for a fact the IS350's six speed auto has eight electronically controlled valves. Not sure about Camry/ES350, but it can't be far off. I'm still betting on stacked tolerances since some seem to perform admirably, while others are dismal.

mmarshall

Yes..it is often in the valves.....and in the small pins that operate those values. I had a 1984 Mazda that had a small but persistant flare problem on the 2-3 shift. Various solutions were tried to no avail. Finally, a great technician, coupled with factory instructions to machine ONE pin to one EXACT length, did the trick.

ES350Bob

One thing I hope will be considered is for us all to agree to stop referring to what is occurring with the ES transmission, Camry, as a flare when it is slipping. The RPM flare, RPM spike, tach rise, is language describing what is seen on tach not what is happening specific to the performance of the transmission itself. If it is not in or not totally in gear sequence which permits the racing of the engine not realized in actual forward momentum equal to energy applied, the darn thing is SLIPPING.

rosskoss

This is absolutely terrible! And I'm not referring to the "death/injury" but the fact that Toyota's transmission is such a terrible one. Had this been GM or Ford, that would have been the end of the company. Luckily Toyota has their reputation to fall back on. Transmission failure of any kind is serious business so Toyota better sort these problems out for once and for all.

mmarshall

What you describe, in an automatic transmission, and however you want to define it and what terms you use, is usually caused by a momentary lack of hydraulic pressure. What happens is that, in an unlocked torque-converter mode ( and the torque converter obviously has to unlock momentarily so the tranny can shift gears ), a conventional torque-converter automatic has to rely on hydraulic pressure from the transmission fluid to transmit engine power back to the driveshafts. When the pressure fails or gets too low for whatever reason ( low fluid level, defective valve action, plugged-up fluid passageways, etc......) the flow of engine torque through the transmission will be interrupted...the engine will spin but the transmission wil not respond. In addition, there are other factors as well, such as transmission fluid temperature and density, emission-control programming of the transmission shift characteristics, " shift-shock" control found on some luxury cars that retards engine torque during the shift so that the shift is as smooth as possible, " sport-shift " programming that does essentially the same thing in reverse for firmer and quicker shifts, etc....


If the transmission does not respond at all, to the point where it is dangerous in traffic, then clearly there is a problem that needs to be addresed by the factory.

ES350Bob

The above sums up exactly what happens.

It can be unnerving to say the least when it first happens but oddly one gets used to it doing it when offered no solution whether getting used to it doing it is a good thing or not.

mrshyvley

Good post.
One additional thing. Would it be fair to assume that this repeated slipping is over time causing added wear to the transmission? Which is evidenced by people saying the slipping is getting worse and more frequent over time.

Faraaz23

I hope Toyota is taking this seriously and its engineers are hard at work trying to resolve the problem. Gone are the early 90's when Lexus was trying to prove itself and recalled all the LS400's for a report from ONE elderly man who CLAIMED his throttle stuck. As much as certain members here try to argue that its not as widespread of a problem as some on the ES subforum make it out to be, I DO NOT think that matters. If there is even 1% of all camry's and ES's experiencing these problems, the company should suck in its pride, take a hit in revenues and actively fix it!!

Jonathann

This description is exactly what has occured when I was merging into traffic on the Southern State Pkwy on at least 3 differen't occasions. (ES350 09/06 build) Almost caused an accident the first time. Has occured one time since the valve body replacement. Dealer and Lexus weren't too concerned when I reported it. I can report this because I did not die.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

No, it would not be fair to say that without fully understanding the underlying cause. If it is a lack of hydraulic pressure on a clutch or band in the transmission, and that clutch or band is slipping because the line pressure is low, then yes, it could be causing premature wear.

If the clutch or band is not actuating at all because of a fault in the valving (or the logic controlling the valving) preventing the clutch or band from being actuated in the first place, then no, there isn't a wear problem.

It is impossible to troubleshoot this over the Internet, and far better mechanics are working to find the root cause of this issue for Toyota. It has obviously got enough press and attention at this point to force Toyota to find a root cause and solve the problem.

ES350Bob

lobux,

Does this input help?

The car does catch gear when this happens BUT it does it at like 5,000 RPM or more where otherwise it might be 2,400 RPM to 3,000 RPM when the shift change happens.

Also there is a sound to transmission when this happens that it otherwise does not make.

And described to me as one of several ball bearings impeding flow of fluid. The TSIB thread on ES forum has a few diagrams of the parts involved.