Snow Cover On Roof Provides Wind Protection?

My question too!!!!!! Is it on you tube? I saw the one where a professor basically shorted two wires and the car went into runaway mode. The brakes could not stop the car but putting it into neutral then using the brakes worked. I question the odds of that same short circuit happening, but I saw that on the code reader it showed no errors after its runaway test.

Reply to
Tony
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re: " The runaway audi's were all people stoping on the wrong pedal."

Just so I'm clear on this...

Are you saying that there is no problem with the Toyotas? It's all user error?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

"AZ Nomad" wrote

That has been my understanding in the past, but I'm not so sure about some of the newer cars from all that I've read. I'll have to try it on my wife's car since it won't work on mine. When I push both the gas and brake at the same time, the engine goes to idle no matter the speed. When stopped, it it like being in neutral if I hold the brake down.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I had an experience with a stuck throttle one time. It was on my 55 chevy Bel Air (2door hardtop) :-) . I had it floored in 4th gear and the flat back road was getting to the bumpy section and I let off the throttle. It stayed at full throttle. First instinct was to pound on the throttle a couple times to see if it would release. No good. Second was to stand on the brakes, well the car was sitting to long and just when I needed brakes the most, the pedal went to the floor! No brakes! Next I turned off the ignition and it started slowing down but still to fast for the upcoming road. I pumped the brakes and the master cylinder came to life and the car stopped. My buddy following me finally catches up and runs up to start beating at the open headers to put out the fire underneath me that I didn't know about. He said that when I turned off the ignition it looked like the Batmobile with flames coming out the back. I suppose the gas from the wide open 4 barrel was ignighting in the hot headers? I unstuck the throttle linkage at the carb and drove the rest of the way without going past half throttle.

Reply to
Tony

While there may be some sort of unsolved interface problem that causes an unexpected acceleration one does wonder how many genuine instances there are? And maybe how many litigiuos one!

There may be also be something to the allegation 'Here's chance to take a bite out a none North American auto producer'.

But how many 'incidents' are due to driver error or insufficient competency in dealing with something unusual.

Every driver SHOULD, although one doubts whether many do, know what to do if/when their vehicle acts in an unexpected manner.

For example when we started towing a trailer with a 1976 Chev. Impala we reviewed what could happen if, for example we lost the car's power assisted hydraulic brakes (no dual braking then!) and/or the engine stopped and we had no power assisted brakes or steering. With engine off we then practiced bringing the whole rig to a stop by using the foot operated parking brake. Never had to do it for real but knew we could and with the family and all gear on board.

In another instance we had a V.W diesel 'take off' (running on it's own crankcase fumes on a warm day). Having read about the probable cause we depressed the clutch, disconnecting the engine which started to race uncontrollably; pulled into side of the road, stopped, and then stalled the engine, hoping not break anything! It stopped and when the engine had cooled bit we drove to the dealer.

Many years before, in 1953/4 we had a wheel break off the rear axle of a 1926 Daimler! But again somehow we knew which way to turn the wheels and brake (manual rod brakes no power assist at all) to bring the vehicle to a halt without turning over.

Included in the above axiom of "Think about what COULD happen and rehearse what to do about it", is that all members of this family (except one) prefer manual vehicles and state a preference for a proper hand brake lever located centre console. Which also means that in certain emergency situations the front seat passenger could also operate the handbrake!

Reply to
terry

Good one. It was easy to fix linkage at the carb in those days. On other rare occasions there might be a damaged rubber grommet at the gas pedal for other cars models?

We *needed* fire one day to light cigarettes. Stuck 20 miles in a swamp in a Model A Ford. Okay, dip a rag in gas, pull muffler, run the engine and turn off the key. Turn it on again and the backfire flame from the exhaust lit the rag.

We could have blown the piston top (S) off :-/

Those were the days..

Reply to
Oren

Absolutely. My previous car had a fast leak in the power steering, and I drove it maybe 10,000 miles with no fluid or power assist, and it was fine over 15 mph. Below that it took some effort, increasing as I got close to zero. I'm 5'8" and no more than average strength (although maybe driving without power steering was good for my upper body strenght. :) )

Yes. And some of them won't turn off either, some of the ones with no keyhole.

Reply to
mm

At the time, I thought it was the driver's fault, but I don't think so anymore.

Reply to
mm

That was his big point. Gilbert is his name. that it didn't set a code, when Toyota insisted it would.

His other point was that shorting two wires made it accelerate. That might have been a lesser point, because I don't know if in practice those two particular wires could short. But he wasn't claiming to have found the actual problem, just showing that he could have runaway acc. with no code.

Reply to
mm

"mm" wrote

You have to hold the button for something like three seconds. That sounds like a very long time if you are accelerating in traffic.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Apply brakes, shift into neutral.

No more acceleration.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

If the computer is malfunctioning, then I think you can allow for the possiblity that it may not do what you expect on many fronts. We don't know the nature of what is causing the fault. Is it an unreliable oscillator? A bad ground? Leaky capacitor? Power fluctuations? Electrical noise? Any of those things could have widepread repercussions in the computer.

I don't know the specifics. He has equipment connected to points in the computer that allow him to manipulate it.

I guess by applying hi or low logic signals to various circuits.

Reply to
salty

So the defect in these cars is the fault of the stupid drivers?

Reply to
salty

HOO BOY!

Reply to
salty

Under hard acceleration, you may lack the vacuum assist as well. Anyone who has driven a car with vacuum wipers knows what happens when you are flooring the gas pedal. The wipers slow dramatically or stop.

Reply to
salty

How do you explain the fact that over the last 5 years or so Toyota has a rate of these incidents happening that is 2X or 3X the rate of other car manufacturers? If it was just people doing something wrong, the rates should be about the same. They are not. I saw a chart comparing them and GM was low, at like 1/3 the number of Totyota. And Toyota was similar to other manufacturers before they moved to the new fly by wire system. Which is not to say that proves it's an electronic problem, it could be something mechanical in the design too, but it does tend to support that it's an electronic problem.

Reply to
trader4

He's pretty goofy about the Audi situation as well. It was determined to be a design flaw in the Audi's that had to be corrected. The pedals in the Audi were positioned offset far to the left in relation to the steering wheel, and were all at the same height. The gas pedal was about where you would find the brake pedal on most cars. This was further complicated by the design of the underside of the dashboard, which made it so that you could never see the pedals while sitting up in the seat, to learn where they were visually.

In other words, a design defect.

Reply to
salty

Not sure what your point is but if it's to suggest that the parking brake could be used to stop a car while it's under near max power, that won't work. They are intended for parking only, the brake pads are smaller than the main pads, not hydraulically driven and only on 2 wheels. They could bring a car that is not under power to a stop, but even then only in a much longer distance than the regular brakes. Under full power, they would not have a chance. They would probably be useful in getting some additional stopping power, but whether they could make a significant difference is doubtful.

Reply to
trader4

-snip-

I'd love to see a physics class [or Mythbusters] take out the words like "a car" and "x number" and "generally in the neighborhood" and "roughly". throw in a few things like inertia and the difference in a drive train and brake pads. . . and find out why none of the reports that I've heard have said "The engine was at full throttle, I was going 50 miles an hour and was able to get the car stopped with my brakes."

Even the guy who drove to the dealership with a full throttle engine who had the presence of mind to go to neutral, brake, go back in gear, accelerate. . . then back to neutral for control said his brakes would not slow the car while it was in full throttle position.

Looking for more proof for *my* thoughts- I found some middle ground in actual research by Car & Driver-

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In a nutshell- "Certainly the most natural reaction to a stuck-throttle emergency is to stomp on the brake pedal, possibly with both feet. . . . brakes by and large can still overpower and rein in an engine roaring under full throttle. With the Camry?s throttle pinned while going 70 mph, the brakes easily overcame all 268 horsepower straining against them and stopped the car in 190 feet?that?s . . . just 16 feet longer than with the Camry?s throttle closed. From 100 mph, the stopping-distance differential was 88 feet? . . . We also tried one go-for-broke run at 120 mph, and, even then, the car quickly decelerated to about 10 mph before the brakes got excessively hot and the car refused to decelerate any further."

Maybe by the time you got to 10MPH you'd have the presence of mind to put it in neutral-

Don't know why they didn't try a Lexus. Would have loved to see what happened if you first tried the brakes-- then applied full power. Seems like that would have been human nature.

If you are going slow enough, and your brakes are good enough, I agree, you have a chance by mash 'em and hold 'em. Problem is- it isn't a perfect world. In the Calif crash, the car was a loaner whose brakes were already compromised. [still- it looks like shifting into neutral should have saved the day. but we don't *know* that they didn't try that.]

Audi & a couple other manufacturers have a shut off on their drive-by-wire vehicles, so hitting the brakes kills the throttle. I hate the idea of software on throttles, brakes, or steering-- but that one seems like common sense. OTOH- if this is a computer problem, what's to say that would work anyway.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

The thing that really stood out to me was the statement by Toyota's president that they're going to look into programming a brake override for the throttle.

I have only one question: WHY IN GOD'S NAME WAS THAT NOT THERE FROM THE BEGINNING?

Reply to
Doug Miller

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