Damn...Steve Wozniak (Apple inventor)was RIGHT 6 weeks ago! She said it had to be a software bug and that pedal fixes would mean nothing. GO WOZ!
Correction...Woz is a HE, not a She (sorry Woz)
This has been an ongoing problem, documented as far back as 1999, and investigated by the Feds in 2004.
I posted to a thread all the links to those stories, but I was summarily beaten about the head and body by the “my Toyota has 6 million miles on it...” crowd.
Toyota does make a good car, I like Toyotas. They should have acknowledged this and been up front about a long time ago. It would be an non issue right now.
Didn’t take a Wozniak to figure this one out. Anyone who has an education in hardware could tell you the plate fix was a band aid on the real problem.
Without knowing the details, I’m guessing the plate is to keep the pedal from going to a range that confuses the software.
I would have bet on the software bug being the issue a long time ago.
The usual programmer practice after discovering a "bug" is to document it. Once documented it becomes a "feature". E.g. Place elbow on alt/space bar to gain access to "close" command.
Therefore, a bug is nothing more than an undocumented feature.