Sudden acceleration on Toyotas

Personally, I'd still rather buy a Toyota over a GM. The gist is the pedal gets stuck on the floor mat. A hack saw should fix it. It also doesn't affect cars built in Japan. I find it interesting that Toyota went to such lengths for this problem. Somehow I doubt US car makers would have halted sales of half their cars because of this.
 
Upon further reading, it seems it has nothing to do with a floor mat. The first article I read about it blamed the pedal getting stuck on the floor mat, but since then I'd found others talking about more detailed stuff so it may be more serious then I thought. I wonder if these accelerators are fly-by-wire or are they still connected to a cable that leads to the throttle body? From what I could gather, it might be a fly-by-wire system, which is something I've always thought was a bad idea.
 
Toyota's accelerate? Who knew. :roflmao:
 
Toyota's accelerate? Who knew.
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That was my first thought. If they made a model that actually DID accelerate, the pedal getting stuck would be more of an issue.

By the way, the recalls for this issue have been out in smaller numbers for more than a year while Toyota denied the scope of the issue.... Sounds like Toyota has been more Americanized than most would think.
 
I finally got my finger out and sat a driving test last month but have yet to find a compelling reason to buy a car given I'm ten minutes walk from town (hence the distinct lack of urgency). Despite that, I do find myself taking a bit more interest in the world of cars now that I have a licence.
 
Robert said:
I finally got my finger out and sat a driving test last month but have yet to find a compelling reason to buy a car given I'm ten minutes walk from town (hence the distinct lack of urgency). Despite that, I do find myself taking a bit more interest in the world of cars now that I have a licence.
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Cars are a great way to flush large amounts of cash down the toilet. the worst investment you could ever make. But they're lots of fun. :mrgreen:
 
Robert said:
I finally got my finger out and sat a driving test last month but have yet to find a compelling reason to buy a car given I'm ten minutes walk from town (hence the distinct lack of urgency). Despite that, I do find myself taking a bit more interest in the world of cars now that I have a licence.
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strangely enough I have had a license since I was 19 and have YET to buy a car.

I've rented a bunch when I work (only in LA), but I've saved lots of money by never owning one.
 
I agree that cars really can be a great way to flush money down the toilet... I've spent a lot on cars and parts over the years, no doubt. I'm probably a weird case, because I enjoy the hobby of working on cars a bit, and really enjoy a spirited drive. But outside all that, the utility of a car is so completely worth the money.

I got my license at 16, got a car the same day, and haven't been without one, since. I really can't quite wrap my brain around not having a car. As a kid, I *LOVED* my bike. It was my personal mobility. If I wanted to go to a friend's house, no problem. Go to the store? No problem. The personal freedom was great. Of course, a pushbike is pretty range limited, weather limited, and load limited. A car greatly extends all of these. So when I was presented with the possibility of purchasing the single greatest tool for independent and large-scale mobility... I couldn't really fathom anyone saying "No, I don't want one of those."
 
ilwrath said:
I got my license at 16, got a car the same day, and haven't been without one, since. I really can't quite wrap my brain around not having a car. As a kid, I *LOVED* my bike. It was my personal mobility. If I wanted to go to a friend's house, no problem. Go to the store? No problem. The personal freedom was great. Of course, a pushbike is pretty range limited, weather limited, and load limited. A car greatly extends all of these. So when I was presented with the possibility of purchasing the single greatest tool for independent and large-scale mobility... I couldn't really fathom anyone saying "No, I don't want one of those."
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I totally understand how you feel. However, you and I live in North America. Robert lives in Scotland. There are many factors at play that may make owning a car for him less desirable.
 
The BBC has a nice video explanation of the pedal problem: Toyota's defective accelerator pedal explained

As I kinda suspected, it's a fly-by-wire system. Old school pedals just yank a cable that's connected to the throttle body that opens up the intake, allowing more O2 into the engine, which causes the EFI system to add fuel to the mixture (so the gas pedal is really the O2 pedal). With these fly-by-wire systems, it's not connected to the engine at all, instead it sends a signal to the ECU (or some sub-system) and that then determines how much O2 to allow in the engine along with the fuel (how exactly it electronically opens up the intake I'm not sure, but probably a simple flap attach to some kind of actuator). Interestingly, Toyota's problem is not an electrical one, it seems an internal mechanical part corrodes and exerts friction on the pedal mechanism.

For me my concern with fly-by-wire was with the breaks. I'm sure this will be a valuable lesson for future cars which are bound to use fly-by-wire breaks.
 
Glaucus said:
I'm sure this will be a valuable lesson for future cars which are bound to use fly-by-wire breaks.
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What? You means problems like Prius brakes on 2010 model?

Brakes have been close to fly by wire for ages. ABS is basically a computer doing the braking for you (or rather, releasing the brakes) so braking has been effectively fly by wire for a long time.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
What? You means problems like Prius brakes on 2010 model?
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Well maybe, but is that a fly-by-wire system?

Brakes have been close to fly by wire for ages. ABS is basically a computer doing the braking for you (or rather, releasing the brakes) so braking has been effectively fly by wire for a long time.
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Um, yes and no. ABS is really just an add-on to the hydrolic break lines. If you were to disable your ABS (either via switch or pulling it's fuse) your car would work like any car without ABS. The ABS system could completely fail and you'd be fine driving around so long as you understood your ABS will not engage. You can still hit the breaks even with the battery removed from the engine bay. That would not be possible with a fly-by-wire system unless there was some kind of emergency reserve power stored somewhere. It's true that the break booster needs a running engine to give you full breaking boost, but again, you can still use the breaks without it. My concern with fly-by-wire breaks is that a fault anywhere in the system, including battery power loss, is enough to lose complete use of breaks. Sounds like a bad idea to me. I'd imagine some kind of manual backup like a better then average hand break, but I'm not sure that would be enough as in an emergency most people would just keep pounding the break pedal and wonder why they're not stopping.
 
Turns out the Prius IS a "Brake by Wire" system:

Not your grandfather's braking system

Although Toyota further complicated things by having two different types of breaking systems on the car as well. This makes sense for the type of car the Prius is: a gas-electric hybrid. Although electronically controlled, it has conventional disc brakes, which are used for heavy breaking. But for lighter braking it uses the electric motors to place a drag on the wheels, which actually transforms the motors into generators. I'm still not quite sure what the problem is, but it seems to be related to how the Prius transitions between disc and electric brakes. I think this is the same problem Ford has.

I'd be curious to see what kind of safety features these cars have. I'm guessing they must have a bunch of redundancy built into the system, but I'd like to know details before I bought such a car.
 
Glaucus said:
Toyota gas-pedal troubles spread to Ford
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Turned out Ford uses the same manufacture in China. Ford was wise and suggested a halt until they verified the functionality of these. It appears there were no cases of sudden acceleration with the Chinese Fords. After testing and passing sales went forward.

As manufactures dip in the same parts bin it makes sense to take a careful approach and each audit themselves to ensure proper functioning.
 
From what I heard the japan built Toyotas did not have the accelerator problem. The fauly accelerator was a Canadian built part.
 
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