Letterman, I can understand......he doesn't know any better than to make often-unfair jokes. But Leno, that's another story. Leno is a true car buff, knows his stuff, and has one of the world's most famous individually-owned car collections.

 

While technically true, it was more than just general lack of maintenance. Ford and Firestone couldn't agree on proper PSIs, because of customer ride-quality complaints (never mind the fact that the Explorer was based on a full-frame truck, and you couldn't reasonably expect a Camry ride). And most (not all) of the reported failures happened on sun-heated roads in the South and Southwest, and in desert areas, which added a lot of heat to the tires and hastened their failure.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...le+Feedfetcher

 

(per our rules - please don't post links without some idea of what the link is to - thank you)

all - the article (truncated? ) is about toyota planning to fight back at its critics.

'bout time!

 

http://www.toyotasimulator.com/

 

The way that guy screamed was hilarious.

 

yeah,I agree.

 

you dont seem to get it - they will have >100 black box readers in the USA within a MONTH. You will be able to get the data, or court will...

and Court has always been able to get the data... At congress hearings, they were able to get all the data they have requested.

Toyota can NOT deny any proper legal claims for the data. They just never made it "public", and now they are shipping >100 of them within a month so they can.

Once data is being made commercially, expect insurance companies to use them against you at court. Hey you damaged your car? Well black box says you were driving ABOVE speed limit... claim denied.... Hey you did not wear seat belt and you got into accident? No insurance for you.

What will happen when everyone reads the data? Nothing, because it will not be useful to the media. You think Toyota would be shipping >100 units ASAP to the USA if thats not true? I doubt it.

And lastly, only american companies have open black box data.. it is not an law. Toyota didnt because it contains some proprietary software... They now said they will move to open black boxes by the end of 2011, before law mandates, and sooner than many other manufacturers.

But once again, articles make it sound as if Toyota did not allow black box data to anyone... thats just not possible. Any court could subpoena them for the documents, and Toyota said it themselves they already did (of course, this is USA). Toyota does not have any power to deny those claims.

 

p.s. i would think the reason Toyota was not outspoken about many things until this week, when they went out with info ASAP was that (among other things), they probably did complete engineering investigation of everything to make sure they can legally claim what they want to claim now.

 

there is the true source of the issue... imagine this...

you don't ever check the air in your tires, and on average, a tire loses 1 psi per month... maybe it's been since your last tire rotation that the tire pressure was checked, assuming you even rotate your tires to start... so, 6 months go by since the tire rotation, and no one has checked the air pressure since then.. say you start with 25 psi, as recommended per the manufacturer... if you look at the specs on the tires, you will see that 25 psi is enough air pressure to support the full GVWR of the vehicle, which includes any trailer tongue loads and people/luggage... so, 6 months has now gone by, and the tires are now sitting at 19 psi, or maybe even lower in one or two... so, what happens? you stress the tire time and time again putting so much heat into it that it starts to come apart... it doesn't get the typical runflat bead or tear mid-sidewall, because it has enough air to not really put the tire on the ground, but just enough to get it to look ok, yet absorb some serious heat... heat is what kills tires... it also makes tires... the layers in a tire are not glued together, they are vulcanized, meaning, heat activates the layers to stick together... heat also takes them apart, unfortunately...

so, back to where we were... underinflated tires, extra heat from the underinflation, most had extra heat from hot roads and weather conditions, vehicle completely loaded with the family, 2 dogs, trailer and whatever else you can jam in there, which means its probably overloaded or close to it... then, the inevitable happens... a tire comes apart... this happens with every tire on the market, to a small percentage at least... now, you have a top heavy, overloaded vehicle without 1 of its 4 surfaces on the road, then add to that that most people don't know how to handle a blowout, and you have your Ford Explorer flipping down the interstate at 70 mph... Oh, one more thing... The original Explorer was built on the original Bronco II chassis, but seating area and floorboards were higher, which means a higher center of gravity. Ford knew this, but, instead of lowering the engine 2" as was proposed by one engineer, they decided to leave it as is to prevent having to retool some equipment, and that people would be fine...

It was a few small problems exacerbated by stupid people, the exact same thing as is happening to Toyota right now...

 

As a tech for 20 years, 7 years with Toyota from 1990 -1997 and with Lexus from 1997-now. I can say that Toyota takes thing seriously when it comes to safety.
In the mid 2003 I did a pre delivery inspection on the RX330 and I noticed a strange brake noise during the test drive of a new RX330, just a weird thumbing noise,but the brake system function normally. I reported this to the manager and he called Lexus. A week later they send out 6 engineers( 4 Japanese and 2 Americans) from Torrance, CA to GA and test drive the vehicle. I'd spend 6 hours with them from test drive, inspected brake system, removed brake actuator and so on. A few months later they did the recall on the brake booster. I don't know it's me or not...lol.

I test drive about 5-10 cars a day, between 1-5 miles per car for both customer cars and new cars, or roughly about 7 cars per day x 240 working days per years = 1680 cars each years. You can time that by 20 years I've been work for Toyota and Lexus and I've never feel any of the SUA on those cars. Believe me if the SUA happened I won't be here right now.

I have to drive those cars with minimum adjustment to suit my driving because it's customer car and I'm not allowed to adjust anything but the seat position.some customer never set the seat memory. Sometimes I have to drive with pillow on the seat, plastic wood grain steering cover, looking at photo album on the combination meter, factory floor mat wrapped with plastic wrap+ on top of clear floor mat+ on top of beach towel, yes sir people put about 3-4 protections on top of the factory floor mat. It's unbelievable how much people get so hyped up with their cars. I have to test drive those cars for wind noise,rattle or any complaint with scan tool hooked up to the car while I'm driving. It's not a fun job,but zero, yes zero accident in the past 20 years...knock on wood. I've never feel any dangerous when test drive those cars and never lost any sleep when I'm return the cars to the customers.

My mom drive Toyota Camary, my brother drive Scion tC, my wife drive IS350 and I drive 4Runner.Yes, after test drive over 30,000 Toyota and Lexus cars in the past 20 years. I can say I love my Toyota and Lexus. I told my mom and my wife just watch out for another driver.

 

Thanks for the laugh. That was hilarious.

 

We have a guy who works as an engineer at Ford that ships parts at my store at all the time. He routinely ships parts to Detroit after he tests them, he gets the parts that were from a crash or from a dealer (when they are replaced), he has them shipped for Saturday delivery as the engineers at Ford in Detroit work 7 days a week testing parts. Every car companies take safety seriously. its not just Toyota.

 

Most manufactures show 15-20 seconds before, Toyota does not.

 

That would be against the law. Your insurance would pay the claim because that's what you pay them for. It doesn't matter how you wreck your car or how stupid you are.