Toyota accelerator recall

[Andrew May]

Sounds to me as if what you are describing is wave power, not tidal power. The 'Salter Duck' springs to mind.

Andrew

[Jules]

Yes, maybe I'm confuzzling myself. I shall go google when I get a chance...

[Gib Bogle]

I've read about an installation (north of the UK, somewhere) that claims to be the only facility of commercial scale in existence. This uses a massive column anchored deep in the sea-bed. Ah, I've located it: SeaGen

[dennis]

That's wave power.

[Andy Champ]

The barrage on the Rance doesn't count of course as it is a different flavour of commercial tidal power... I was also a little surprised to see how much it's messing up the local ecosystem. That's been kept quiet.

Andy

[Tim Streater]

's the jobby! Yes, I'd like to see lots of these in operation.

[Gib Bogle]

The ability to jack the machinery out of the water for maintenance makes a lot of sense. It's going to be hard to stop boats from running into these columns, though (and possibly whales into the propellers). The other big issue is fouling. We'll need a few years of operation to see how much of a problem that is.

[Nightjar]

Matty F wrote: ...

...

I've had two throttles stick fully open on me - both used steel cables. In one, the cable had frayed and a broken bit jammed inside the sheath. That needed a new cable.

In the second, the cable, on a van, hung into the airstream below the front bumper. On a very cold day on a long motorway journey that froze moisture in the cable, causing the throttle to stick. It simply needed me to stop, get out and rub my hand along the cable to warm it, although I had to do it three times on the same journey. A permanent cure was to strip the cable down, dry it and re-assemble with lots of grease.

I don't recall either occasion being particularly traumatic.

Colin Bignell

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Nightjar saying something like:

Indeed. I had a few sticky throttles on ShiteOldCars and it's just something you accept as par for the course. I never had a shunt because of it, perhaps it's because I(and many others like me) had a clue.

I spotted in the news yesterday some Yankee f****it suing Toyota because she can't drive for shit. Obviously, she two-pedals her autos and in a panic braking scenario she planted both feet on the deck, but the throttle won in the end and the idiot flew off the road. A classic case of denial and jumping on a bandwagon, undoubtedly egged on by an ambulance-chasing scumsucker.

It's all Toyota's fault of course, in not making a car that can be 100% driven by fools and idiots.

[Andy Champ]

I heard one suggestion they were going to link the brake and accelerator pedal computers so if you brake the throttle shuts.

That'll make double-declutch interesting!

Andy

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Champ saying something like:

Lowest common denominator design. This is where the fuckwits and ambulance chasers have led us.

And hill starts, etc. In fact, a lot of occasions where a clueful driver would find no interlock an advantage. I can only hope the device/firmware is capable of being disabled.

[Andy Champ]

I use the handbrake for hill starts.

I had a nasty experience a couple of years ago with a Renault with an automatic handbrake. You pull this little toggle, and it goes on; drive off, and it turns off. I was doing a hill start, and tried to drive off. The handbrake didn't go off quite as quickly as I would have liked, and I stalled the engine. Dipped the clutch of course - and at that moment the handbrake _did_ go off.

I hit the footbrake quite quickly.

Andy

[Doctor Drivel]

You must eff off as you are a plantpot.

[Doctor Drivel]

You must eff off as you are a total Jocko plantpot.