OT Toyota

OT Toyota

If it's not the carpet that's causing Toyatas to speed up, then how can replacing the gas pedal help?

How many of you are still driving your Toyota?

Would you have thought to put the car in neutral if it's speeding up?

Reply to
mm
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How would I know? My foot is always in the carburetor, so to speak, anyway.

I've got a 2009 Matrix. The first week I had the thing I replaced the floor mats with some big rubber ones that can handle a lot of melting snow from my shoes. Then later on I heard they were having problems but thought I had that solved already. Now I guess that must not have been the problem.

I Haven't had a problem yet but if I do I figure I would try to get it out of gear and turn the engine off as soon as possible. If I'm already going at a good clip I am not sure how it would handle if I just turn off the ignition. Are newer cars set up to handle like older cars that had no power steering if the engine is dead and you lose your power steering?

Until I get more information, I'm saying take it out of gear and don't turn the engine off until you have slowed down quite a bit.

David

Reply to
hibb

I think it is more then that. I think a more likely scenario would be the sensor that translates pedal movement to a position signal that the computer can understand. The first thought that came to mind if that ever happened to me is to slam the breaks on in the hopes of stalling the engine.

Reply to
Jack Hammer

What's the matter with the Toyota thread already going ???

Reply to
benick

Some cars, Toyota probably, can't be shifted at speed.

Can you imagine what would happen if, while you're driving along Route 101 enjoying the scenery, your girlfriend squirmed around with an urgent need to put her face in your lap and in so doing hit the shift lever?

Reply to
HeyBub

I couldn't find the article I saw this in again. The problem is moisture getting into the accelerator somehow. Symptoms of a possible problem include the accelerator being harder to depress, not operating smoothly, and or not returning to the upper position.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

There are two separate and not at all related recalls, the mat and a problem with the gas pedal mechinism.

Reply to
Cliff Hartle

There was a clip on CNN today that had a driver who said that he got a toe under the gas pedal and pulled it up with no effect. Could this be related to something like cruise control that pulls the pedal down as it rengages? The worry is that new or revised gas pedals will not turn out to be the right answer.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

Well none of that is the pedal. They were still talking about the actual pedal on Friday, the thing your foot rests on, right?

Then today Saturday they announced something but it's still about the pedal, right?

Reply to
mm

It would have to work with no engine because there are still power steering belts that break, and because there are engines that stall.

I drove my 88 LeBaron without power steering for what must have been 4 to 8 thousand miles. It was only a problem parallel parking or getting out of a tight spot.

But the power brakes are only required to have 3 or maybe 4 full pushes in them if the engine is not running, and I doubt any car has more than that.

Sounds right.

Reply to
mm

The pedal is not just the pedal any more. It is an electronic device with a footpad that tells the computer how fast you want to go and some other servo motor opens and closes the throttle as needed.

In the past, metal rods or cables worked the throttle and a spring pulled it closed. It is now a drive by wire system that should failsafe to a closed mode, but evidently is not.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

True story. A big lawsuit was being reported on a regular basis in the Hartford Courant. A couple left a bar, probably inebriated, in his Mercedes SL. Hit a tree, both were ejected, he was killed. She says he was driving, pay my medical bills. His family says she was driving, pay for our loss.

Her defense? Your honor, I could not have been driving. I was giving him a BJ at the time. At "the moment" he hit the gas.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Dang, new-fangled English. If God wanted us to have new words, he wouldn't have given us a big supply of old words.

But, despite my complaint above, apprarently this accounts for it.

Now, of the millions of people in the US who have Toyatas, and the 100 million+ other car owners in the US, and many millions elsewhere who have heard about this, how many do you think know what you just said, and how many think they are still talking about the actual pedal? Both because of the word and because they were talking about that before, since it actually might have caught on a floor mat (but didn't).

Their PR depeartment is sleeping.

I'm still amazed and outraged. :) On my '95 Chrysler, the pedal is still the pedal. There is a throttle position sensor near the end of the accelerator cable, and a few other sensors unrelated to the pedal, but I think everything else is in the computer, so there is no greater meaning to pedal. So people with old cars -- I don't know how old -- are even more likely not to know what you said.

Reply to
mm

Ed Pawlowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

if they were ejected,then they were not wearing their seatbelts. Probably against the law. Sorry,no payment;operating the vehicle in an illegal manner.

IOW,if you don't want to wear your belts,then you take responsibility for the consequences.

Reply to
Jim Yanik

I don't remember- CAN you take it out of gear, at speed, in a fly-by-wire car? Sure, you can move the lever, but will it actually do anything?

Nobody knows for sure how they will react till they are in a situation like that. Sitting here right now, I can say I would calmly run through all the steps (including pumping the brakes), and if none of them worked, look for a guardrail to ease into to scrub off speed. Yeah, I'll trash the car to avoid a head-on, or t-boning somebody at an intersection. But the only time I had a runaway, it turned out to be just a sticking aftermarket cruise control, and turning it off solved the problem. (noticed the sound was funny when I passed a car, looked down, and saw I was doing 85...) But if it happens again, in a strange car, and not on a mostly-empty interstate late at night like the time before, who knows? My brain might blue-screen too.

-- aem, who doesn't drive much or very far any more, sends....

Reply to
aemeijers

ON one news show they said that Toyota said to apply the brake first. Maybe that's related.

In a newspaper article, regarding, one would think their source was toyota, but they said nothing about applying the brake first.

I know my question won't yeild accurate answers, but I wanted to aks anyway.

I've had one time where I panicked and once when I was really cool, but I forget both of them now. No one got hurt either time.

I've never had a runaway engine but I've had my brakes fail 7 times iirc, all of those before there were separate front and rear brakes.

The first time was the worst. I was 17, in my mothers car on my way to a date in the evening on the wide but quiet Meridian St. around 30th St. in Indianapolis. The car 200 feet in front of me stopped to wait for a car to pass, to turn right. I applied the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. I pumped and got a bit more braking. I hit the car at about 15 or 20 miles an hour, maybe more. I think the 58 Ford had aftermarket seatbelts my mother had had put in. After I had tried to apply the brakes and knew I had a problem, I had had maybe 2 seconds or 4 and during that time I hadn't thought to use the handbrake that was under the dash to the far left. But after I hit I wanted to back up, and the car was at an angle so I was going into the lane to the right of me. And then I quickly reached for the handbrake but opened the hood instead!

But I had barely applied any gas and it only went about 15 feet back before stopping.

So I didnt' mess up entirely, but I didn't do very well either. (The brake line just in front of the left rear wheel had sprung a leak. I wasn't hurt but both cars were hurt somewhat, not that much..

Twice the power brake vaccume valve stuck into the front of the booster failed (the spring and plastic piece popped out. STrangely, that was the first day after my brother went to Viet Name and lent me his 65 Pontiac, and the first day after I bought my own 67 pontiac years later. Quite a coincidence. No damage in either case.

Two other times the flexible brakeline to a front wheel failed. No damage in one cse and in another I knocked a fence part way down that was already part way down but not as much. It was leaning on bushes next to a business.

Master cylinder failed once, but no damage. One other time I forget.

Reply to
mm

That's between each of them and the government. But between a driver and a passenger, the question is who is negligent in a manner that caused the accident.

Failing to wear a seatbelt is negligence but it doesn't cause the accident.

And between a driver and passengers, it doesn't matter who is violating the law if that violation is not a cuase of the accident or its severity. That is, if the driver were going over the speed limit, the judgment against him would likely be more, but because going faster causes greater injuries, not because it's illegal.

In some states, comparative negligence may be calculated, if the passenger did something to help cause the accident.

In a few states contributory neglignece can prevent someone who was only slightly at fault from recovering from the other party, but that refers to negligence that caused the accident, not failing to wear a seatbelt that results only in greater injury.

A good maxim but in this case, only partly the law.

If the driver or another car were at fault, failure to wear seatbelts could cause your judgment against the other driver to be reduced to the injury you would have had had you been wearing your seat belt.

But as between the driver and passenger, the owner or driver could have insisted that the other party wear hir seatbelt. When I pick up a hitchhiker, I insist that he wear his seatbelt. With my friends I don't (although they all do it anyhow.O)

If he was driving, I doubt that any act they were jointly involved in would be a defense against a claim by her of negligence by him.

Reply to
mm

You mean the shift lever she isn't supposed to... engage?

Reply to
hibb

If that's the case and it's a mechanical problem then the design of the pedal mechanism must be such that there is not a fixed connection between the pedal and the "sensor" gizmo inside the pedal assembly, i.e. the pedal an push it down ok against a coil spring that makes the "sensor"gizmo push back and make the pedal return. But if the gizmo itself is sticking down then it won't return the pedal AND the pedal will not be able to pull it back. I can easily envision such a design, it would make it easier to have one "box" that could be used with many different pedals in different cars. Only problem would be that the designers failed to anticipate that anyone would ever have a desire to hook a toe under the pedal to make the darn thing return to "zero", figuring instead that the spring would always be able to return it.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Must of got a cramp in his leg, before he died.

Reply to
Oren

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