I’m afraid I have to agree with The Woz. The ‘sticky pedals’ thing is nonsense.
I think the fix is replacing a faulty sensor, relay, or the 'puter itself, not the pedal assembly. It may take a Toyota mechanic to spill the beans.
When this happens on a Prius, does it speed up rapidly from 40 to 43mph?
I have said that from the beginning and Im a dumb chit
I think Wozniac ought to stick to marketing overpriced consumer electronics.
I never, not once, thought it was a mechanical issue. Still don’t.
Toyota is covering up something here, and it will come out, eventually, to their detriment. Ask Chevy (side saddle tanks) and Ford (exploding Pintos) and Audi (Calif. models gas pedal surge)
They should have been upfront from the get go, now it will live in infamy on the internet.
As an aside, Hyundai has moved into number 4 in Asian autos (52k sales in Jan.), with only 10k cars separating them and Nissan, and now has a Top Ten car, in the Santa Fe. Their Daily Sales Rate is up to 22.8% (Nissan up 16.1%), and in terms of overall increases, they are up 12.9% vs Toyota at -15.8%-2nd highest (%) in Asian sales, with Suburu besting them at 28%-which means Suburu sold a mere 2800 more this year.
We know Ford has finally woke up and is paying attention, and maybe GM as well, but Toyota had best read the writing on the wall, lest they be the GM of tomorrow.
How would Woz know which pedal his foot was on? He hasn’t seen his feet in years.
Do a search for the Therac radiation machine and you’ll see why swapping out hardware controls and safety mechanisms for software can lead to disaster.
Figures he’d own a Prion.
Luckily, I was on a straight road with no traffic. I let the van sit for a few minutes. I figured somehow the computer box got wet and caused a problem. Sitting there would let the heat of the engine melt whatever had frozen up.
That worked. Started it up, drove off. Never had a problem since. But it is scary and could be a very dangerous situation. Plan ahead, know what to do, if it happens to you. These type of emergency situations should be covered in driver's education and maybe through driving license renewals.
As soon as the press releases from Toyota said there was no electrical problem I was doubly sure it wasn’t just a minor pedal problem.
These cars use a “fly-by-wire” system where there is no direct mechanical link cable between the pedal and the throttle body.
Something is getting hosed between the actual pedal the throttle body and computer control.
They’re trying to cover it up like the Toyota vans that required the engine to be pulled to replace the spark plugs, so they made the service interval 60K miles for a tune up. Plugs didn’t last 60K back then.
Or the Nissan vans that caught on fire because the fuel delivery system to the engine kept breaking. Nissan refused to service the vans, made excuses like no parts, and offered sweetheart deals like $3000 over the value of the van to sell another Nissan.
How many old Toyota or Nissan vans are on the road? Zero, haven’t seen one in mucho many years.
Woz is probably correct. The Toyota accelerator pedal is a continuously pressable button that sends a signal to the automobile control unit (computer) that in turn controls a throttle actuator.
This is totally unlike the mechanical linkages that have been used since the automobile was invented. It’s highly probable there’s a software problem.
The MSM has failed to mention Toyota is including a software change with the recall that causes the control computer to ignore signals from the accelerator pedal whenever the brake pedal is depressed. This doesn’t really fix any underlying software cause of self-initiated acceleration, but does end it when the brake pedal is pressed.
BTW, Woz is one of the most underrated geniuses and inventors of the 20th century, having single-handedly invented both the single-board computer and its BIOS.
Figures that a hardware guy would blame software. ;^)