Toyota recalls and related issues: BusinessWeek-Media owes Toyota an apology
03-13-10, 02:51 PM
#1159
I'm curious about buyer demographics and complaints too...although the rate of complaints for Toyota has been lower than other makes (VW, Volvo, etc.), the lowest overall seems to be GM. Does that mean GM buyers have no problems, or are less likely to complain (low expectations?). There is some research I recall reading about GM buyers have different levels of education and income vs. import buyers (Toyota buyers tend to have more college degrees--more likely to use internet to file NHTSA reports?)
In addition, I'm wondering when the current batch of recalled all-weather floor mats was introduced...they are of the type found on the RX 400h. Is there a Toyota brand equivalent? they definitely caused major problems in the ES 350/Camry cases, which is why they are increasing the pedal clearance now.
Finally, I'm wondering about increased buyer age demographics, along with the increased hp of the cars. The Camry went from 133 hp (I4) and 194 (V6) prior to 2001, and with the model changeover became 157 (I4) and 210 (V6); similarly the ES 300/330 went from ~200-225 hp to 272 hp, with the 0-60 time increased...the drive for added hp, coupled with floor mat problems, push-button tech, added transmission gears, and overall complexity may have been a factor.
In addition, I'm wondering when the current batch of recalled all-weather floor mats was introduced...they are of the type found on the RX 400h. Is there a Toyota brand equivalent? they definitely caused major problems in the ES 350/Camry cases, which is why they are increasing the pedal clearance now.
Finally, I'm wondering about increased buyer age demographics, along with the increased hp of the cars. The Camry went from 133 hp (I4) and 194 (V6) prior to 2001, and with the model changeover became 157 (I4) and 210 (V6); similarly the ES 300/330 went from ~200-225 hp to 272 hp, with the 0-60 time increased...the drive for added hp, coupled with floor mat problems, push-button tech, added transmission gears, and overall complexity may have been a factor.
03-13-10, 03:48 PM
#1160
Lexus Fanatic
saw that video today. My brother in law showed me. It hilarious . I am happy to see there are some out there who can see through some of the BS
I will admit that when I picked up a rental car yesterday in NJ my wife refused to take a camry rental car because the rental car guy wasnt sure if the car had the recall stuff done. We went with a Hyundai sonata and I am impressed. The gentleman at the counter said that people are concerned about renting the mid size camry's.
My sister in law says that the Nissan dealerships are eating up the recall issue with toyota and enjoying the sales for now
I will admit that when I picked up a rental car yesterday in NJ my wife refused to take a camry rental car because the rental car guy wasnt sure if the car had the recall stuff done. We went with a Hyundai sonata and I am impressed. The gentleman at the counter said that people are concerned about renting the mid size camry's.
My sister in law says that the Nissan dealerships are eating up the recall issue with toyota and enjoying the sales for now
03-13-10, 05:12 PM
#1161
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
ok, we can stop posting links to the masked guy's video on stopping the prius.
03-14-10, 06:30 AM
#1162
Lexus Test Driver
I found a way for them to fix this problem. Use a parachute system like they use in dragsters 
03-14-10, 07:17 AM
#1163
Lexus Champion
That won't work, as I believe the all weather floor mats may still prevent it from deploying. Also , I think you will find that a camry has way too much power and the chute would most likely be ripped to shreds.
03-14-10, 07:44 AM
#1164
Noticed something interesting at the bookstore yesterday
The current issue of Business Week has an article about runaway issue, and quotes the former head of Toyota's North American operations and the complaints he raised.
Somewhere earlier in this post it was posted that Honda, NA- in Ohio even told Toyota about the issue when they were testing their own Camry, to use it as references for the Accord...
The current issue of Business Week has an article about runaway issue, and quotes the former head of Toyota's North American operations and the complaints he raised.
Somewhere earlier in this post it was posted that Honda, NA- in Ohio even told Toyota about the issue when they were testing their own Camry, to use it as references for the Accord
...
Last edited by lexusscturbo; 03-14-10 at 07:49 AM.
03-14-10, 12:13 PM
#1169
Lead Lap
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Another VERY worthwhile read:
RUNAWAY TOYOTAS? WHAT ABOUT DRIVER ERROR?
by John McElroy - Autoline on Autoblog
No one wants to touch it. Not Toyota, not NHTSA, not any politician. But the issue has to be raised. Driver error is most likely at the root of these sudden unintended acceleration incidents.
Unintended acceleration is not a new issue for the auto industry. It's been around for decades and complaints have been filed against virtually every automaker. Even more telling, it was around long before electronic throttle controls (ETC) ever showed up in cars.
But we've managed to work ourselves into a hysteria where everyone automatically assumes that ETC is the culprit. That's a dangerous assumption that will likely lead us down a dead-end path, and could prevent us from implementing a fairly easy design change that could cure most of these incidents.
While it is possible that "ghosts" in the electronics could be causing a problem, no one has been able to find them. Toyota has done exhaustive investigations into this. So has every other major automaker. So have all the suppliers that make these systems. Independent laboratories, universities, and government agencies have investigated it. But none of them have ever found the problem. Never. And it is my contention that they probably never will.
Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University did come up with a contrived way of re-wiring Toyotas to induce unintended acceleration. But Toyota successfully (in my opinion) debunked his wiring scheme as something that could never happen in the real world.
We saw the same hysteria back in the late 1980s when Audi was in the headlines for unintended acceleration. None of the people involved in incidents back then believed they had their foot on the gas pedal. In fact, they'd swear on a Bible that they had their foot on the brake. And, they insisted, the harder they pushed on the brake the faster the car went.
Many non-automotive experts tried to cook up explanations as to how there was some sort of gremlin that was causing the problem. None of them made any sense. NHTSA then conducted an exhaustive investigation at the time that dragged on for a couple of years. It finally concluded that the problem was nothing more than "pedal misapplication." That's its term for driver error.
There was something good that came out of all that. Audi came up with the idea of the shift-lock mechanism, which requires a driver to put his foot on the brake pedal before moving the shift-lever out of Park. That took care of most unintended acceleration cases, but not all of them.
The dirty little secret of unintended acceleration is that the overhwelming majority of people who experience it are elderly drivers, typically in their 60s and 70s. This has been true since about the time that the automatic transmission became available to the masses (that's right, there are virtually no cases of unintended acceleration involving cars with manual transmissions). In the past, whenever you read about some car driving through a storefront, or barreling down a sidewalk, it almost invariably involved an elderly driver. And the same is true today.
Some people ask me, "OK, how do you explain Toyota's higher incidence of sudden acceleration?" My answer is that Audi also had a higher incidence back in its day, but it still was an extremely rare event. In fact, from 1999 to 2009 Toyota's reported incidences of unintended acceleration were 0.009 incidents for every million cars it sold. Now that is an extraordinary low number.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have all done statistical analyses of unintended acceleration, but their data are all over the map. It all depends on how you slice the numbers. Interestingly, they show that Ford has a higher number of reported incidents than Toyota does. But Toyota has a higher number of crashes.
And that brings us back to the drivers. Years ago Consumer Reports did a hatchet job on the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon, saying they were more prone to spin out if you accelerated up to highway speeds, yanked the steering wheel 90 degrees, then let go of the wheel. It was a bogus test, but it did get me to research the issue. As I dug into the data I was astonished to find that Omnis were more prone to get into accidents (of any kind) than Horizons even though there were absolutely identical cars. When I asked Chrysler's safety expert what was going on he said, "That's easy to explain. Who drives a Dodge? A young male who drives more aggressively. They simply get in more accidents than the kind of people who buy Plymouths."
Could it be that the elderly people who buy Toyotas are simply more likely to get in crashes due to unintended acceleration? I don't know, but it's something that should be looked into. I think that investigating the demographics and psychographics of the people who encounter this problem would be very illuminating. Last week I got a call from an elderly gentleman who said he has Type II diabetes, which has left him with virtually no feeling in his feet and he often can't tell which pedal he's pushing on. That makes me wonder if any of these Toyota drivers have Type II diabetes.
If the powers that be would entertain the idea that driver error may be at the heart of this problem, we could start to do something about it. If people are unknowingly stepping on the wrong pedal, maybe all we need to do is add a bigger gap between the gas and the brake pedals. Maybe it should be a foot-long gap.
Unless or until we admit that the drivers could be at fault, history suggests we're never going to find the answer.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/12/r...ror/#continued
RUNAWAY TOYOTAS? WHAT ABOUT DRIVER ERROR?
by John McElroy - Autoline on Autoblog
No one wants to touch it. Not Toyota, not NHTSA, not any politician. But the issue has to be raised. Driver error is most likely at the root of these sudden unintended acceleration incidents.
Unintended acceleration is not a new issue for the auto industry. It's been around for decades and complaints have been filed against virtually every automaker. Even more telling, it was around long before electronic throttle controls (ETC) ever showed up in cars.
But we've managed to work ourselves into a hysteria where everyone automatically assumes that ETC is the culprit. That's a dangerous assumption that will likely lead us down a dead-end path, and could prevent us from implementing a fairly easy design change that could cure most of these incidents.
While it is possible that "ghosts" in the electronics could be causing a problem, no one has been able to find them. Toyota has done exhaustive investigations into this. So has every other major automaker. So have all the suppliers that make these systems. Independent laboratories, universities, and government agencies have investigated it. But none of them have ever found the problem. Never. And it is my contention that they probably never will.
Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University did come up with a contrived way of re-wiring Toyotas to induce unintended acceleration. But Toyota successfully (in my opinion) debunked his wiring scheme as something that could never happen in the real world.
We saw the same hysteria back in the late 1980s when Audi was in the headlines for unintended acceleration. None of the people involved in incidents back then believed they had their foot on the gas pedal. In fact, they'd swear on a Bible that they had their foot on the brake. And, they insisted, the harder they pushed on the brake the faster the car went.
Many non-automotive experts tried to cook up explanations as to how there was some sort of gremlin that was causing the problem. None of them made any sense. NHTSA then conducted an exhaustive investigation at the time that dragged on for a couple of years. It finally concluded that the problem was nothing more than "pedal misapplication." That's its term for driver error.
There was something good that came out of all that. Audi came up with the idea of the shift-lock mechanism, which requires a driver to put his foot on the brake pedal before moving the shift-lever out of Park. That took care of most unintended acceleration cases, but not all of them.
The dirty little secret of unintended acceleration is that the overhwelming majority of people who experience it are elderly drivers, typically in their 60s and 70s. This has been true since about the time that the automatic transmission became available to the masses (that's right, there are virtually no cases of unintended acceleration involving cars with manual transmissions). In the past, whenever you read about some car driving through a storefront, or barreling down a sidewalk, it almost invariably involved an elderly driver. And the same is true today.
Some people ask me, "OK, how do you explain Toyota's higher incidence of sudden acceleration?" My answer is that Audi also had a higher incidence back in its day, but it still was an extremely rare event. In fact, from 1999 to 2009 Toyota's reported incidences of unintended acceleration were 0.009 incidents for every million cars it sold. Now that is an extraordinary low number.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have all done statistical analyses of unintended acceleration, but their data are all over the map. It all depends on how you slice the numbers. Interestingly, they show that Ford has a higher number of reported incidents than Toyota does. But Toyota has a higher number of crashes.
And that brings us back to the drivers. Years ago Consumer Reports did a hatchet job on the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon, saying they were more prone to spin out if you accelerated up to highway speeds, yanked the steering wheel 90 degrees, then let go of the wheel. It was a bogus test, but it did get me to research the issue. As I dug into the data I was astonished to find that Omnis were more prone to get into accidents (of any kind) than Horizons even though there were absolutely identical cars. When I asked Chrysler's safety expert what was going on he said, "That's easy to explain. Who drives a Dodge? A young male who drives more aggressively. They simply get in more accidents than the kind of people who buy Plymouths."
Could it be that the elderly people who buy Toyotas are simply more likely to get in crashes due to unintended acceleration? I don't know, but it's something that should be looked into. I think that investigating the demographics and psychographics of the people who encounter this problem would be very illuminating. Last week I got a call from an elderly gentleman who said he has Type II diabetes, which has left him with virtually no feeling in his feet and he often can't tell which pedal he's pushing on. That makes me wonder if any of these Toyota drivers have Type II diabetes.
If the powers that be would entertain the idea that driver error may be at the heart of this problem, we could start to do something about it. If people are unknowingly stepping on the wrong pedal, maybe all we need to do is add a bigger gap between the gas and the brake pedals. Maybe it should be a foot-long gap.
Unless or until we admit that the drivers could be at fault, history suggests we're never going to find the answer.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/12/r...ror/#continued