Click pic to take a ride
Make sure your speakers are turned up!
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
No wonder why the guy is looking for work.
I’ve been watching for over an hour. When does it end?
That’s wrong. But it is true.
Sooo…
Excellent grip and you don’t even have to steer it to begin with? Sweet! 😀
Problems with Auto advancement.
1. computer controlled Breaks and steering, NOT MECHANICAL CONTROLLED.
2. a Key switch that WONT TURN OFF, if you arent in PARK/traveling <30mpg/…
3. NO BYPASS to computer controlled systems..
4. TRAINING cars, so they can be run by IDIOTS using cellphones.. Now you dont need to be attentive, alert, or anything(almost). the CAR decides if you are driving to close, they BREAK BY THEMSELVES if needed, your headlights come on AUTOMATICALLY..
5. ALL interior components, windows, steering, locks,… are Electrical. If your battery has a problem or loose connection, Car wont start and nothing works, you cant even open a window.
6. A dongle in your pocket. That stops your car from working UNLESS you are in it WITH THE DONGLE. Interesting idea to keep people from stealing your car, EXCEPT NOW, the thieves wait for you(and the dongle) to STEAL your car(if they really want that $100,000 CAR).
On another note, they are advancing with the CHIP in your car to shut it down, REMOTELY. for those times you are speeding and NOT stopping. Like a TEASER for your car.
Toyota accelerator-related deaths since 2000: 34
Fatal lightning strikes in 2006: 48
I agree with the NA conclusion that this is anti-Japan propaganda. Still, it’s funny
I bought a Toyota late last year. They promised to give me the floor mats later, and I have yet to see them. If I had known about this problem, I would have insisted they be dropped from the deal. Now it sounds like the floor mats had nothing to do with it – it was the computer.
Funny, but unfair…..no car sold can overpower its brakes, not even a supercar…one of the car mags recently did a test that showed the car stopping even with the throttle wide open. Also shifting into Neutral will solve the problem if it exists. Most of these people had their foot on the wrong pedal and are too embarrassed/eager for a big payout to admit it.
Point one: The US govt owns GM and has every incentive to slam Toyota and crash their sales.
Point two: The Toyota plants are non-union, and guess who Obama owes? You don’t mess with the unions. Our thug-in-chief knows that they play even harder than Chicago’s higly-connected political machine.
@iseeitdoyou….
Point 3 – the government, owner of GM, just issued a recall of 3M of its own cars.
… and screw you and that “thug in chief” bullshit.
All Car Companies should have came forward with a full disclosures of what cars were dangerous. Instead of waiting for a huge media blitz and tons of public pressure. I never seen so many car companies GM – NISSAN – TOYOTA – HYUNDAI having recalls all at the same time. I had no idea my car was affected until I looked on carpedalrecall.com and found I had a bad Anti Lock control unit on my 2008 Pontiac G8, my co workers Ford Truck had a recall also. So be careful
So why is the speedometer at 0 mph?
#9 You’re way over the top! I agree with pedro entirely here.
What media should be featuring, as #8 accurately pointed out, is that putting the car into neutral will stop ANY engine induced acceleration.
Saying it is “the computer” is less accurate than it needs to be. It is probably the sensor that picks up the signal sent from the pedal. A small percentage of all sensors fail. I’m sure the vast majority(99.9%+) are fine, but this is a more involved operation of yanking the sensor-cable from cable bunches and zip ties. A bunch of techs would mistakenly snip other wires accidentally while doing this causing more repairs.
Tell any Toyota owner you know who is not technically adept to shift into neutral if the engine over-revs. Fear is bad, you might save a life.
Pretty funny. I Have no doubt Toyota will fix it. GM had it’s problems in the past (remember the gaskets). #10 thanks for that site.
#8 was right on the mark… Lets not forget that the “Thug in Chief” staff has also openly admitted to controlling the media.
#13 Chris…
The sensor in the pedal likely has little to do with it, since there are actually two separate accelerator position sensors and circuits. The computer compares the output of both pedal position sensors and if they are not within 5% of each other the car should go into ‘limp’ mode, limited to 35MPH and reduced acceleration.
So the problem is either the pedal itself (as claimed by Toyota), or the computer interpretation of the pedal position.
EVERYTHING is electronic these days in cars, EVERYTHING going through the computer. An automatic transmission is shifted by the computer, and may not go into neutral unless the computer allows it to do so. Same thing with the brakes, they are controlled by the computer that takes priority over the mechanical linkage. Even Toyota itself has announced that in future cars the computer will make the car stop if the brakes and accelerator are depressed simultaneously.
The main problem is finding the underlying fault, since it might relate to several computers in-line, with the brake computer talking to the transmission computer talking to the emissions computer talking to the accelerator computer, back and forth, in one ridiculous software loop… for all we know it could be the iPod connector volume regulator (plays louder when going fast and windows are >25% open) telling the car to accelerate… everything is so deeply interconnected.
Folks,
Let’s go back to the CHIP officer in the Lexus Camry (oops ES!)
If anyone would have had the sense to shift to “N” he would have. He’s dead so we don’t know what he tried, but if it was me and N didn’t work I would go for L or even R. A blown engine or transimssion is a pretty small price to pay to stay alive, and I’m guessing Toyota would have covered it. Grudgingly, because that’s the kind thing they do.
I think that he tried everything. The CAN bus or the ECU locked up solid and killed those people.
First law of robotics anyone?
I’ve mentioned before the original Camry brakes eating tires and I remember from the 70’s the SR5’s fifth gear failing at 70 or so thousand miles on almost every one of them. Toyota is NOT perfect, Never was. They don’t build cars, they manufacture transportation appliances.
#17 I heard one person that this happened to did put the car into neutral and the engine just bumped off of the rev-limiter. When they turned off the car the problem went away.
If you have an automatic putting the car into park to turn off the key would hurt the transmission, but that’s the price of buying an automatic.
Stop being so hysterical. Bad things happen, but when people freak out it tends to get worse.
Anyone who makes cars as dull, depressingly muted, soulless, under achieving and of dubious reliability as Toyota, deserves to go out of business. What is remarkable, is they don’t.
#12: “So why is the speedometer at 0 mph?”
Because it’s going so fast the speedometer has wrapped around to 0 again, duh! ;D
Look at the Toyota apologists squirm. Almost feel sorry for them but when the lie like Toyota did to them, well have to call them out. There is no three million GM car recall. Somebody made that up. Is this a government plot? Well it’s just like spider eggs in Bubble Yum or free computers from Bill Gates. A dream for the fools that fall for that nonsense. There is no denying it. Some people have been killed because their Toyota went out of control. There are some that believe Toyota should be spending their time figuring out what they screwed up. Instead they spend their time buying off NHTSA officials and their “fans” spend time trying to tear down everybody else. It sucks to be the brunt of jokes. Could be worse, could be dead by Camry.
It has been a while since I bought a new car.
Are all emergency/parking breaks still 100
percent mechanical cable linkage? That plus
both feet on brakes plus shifting to anything
other then D should work.
#18 (Chris)
I’m betting when this system goes FUBAR it goes all the way. The transmission on most cars in the last 20 years don’t connect the shifter to the tranny. It goes to the computer. Ever hear about the Chrysler A604? Early ones went in to reverse at speed. Those systems had several computers (engine, trans, body) that could operate somewhat independently. My new car is 12 this year and I don’t keep up with the nitty gritty anymore. Anyone know how the Toyota is equipped? I think they are all using CAN bus networking.