Sticky gas pedals are not the only problem plaguing the latest Toyotas. Electronic components may also come under scrutiny.
I had this happen on an old oldmobile I had one time...
I am betting it is cruise control related... Either the driver is hitting resume on the cruise control or it is somehow shorting out and resuming on it’s own...
If it is Toyota... I want my diag fee!
I have relatives who buy and sell cars for a living and have been doing so for several decades, wholesalers, and mainly Hondas and Toyotas. None of them have ever seen, heard of, or spoken to anybody else who has ever seen or heard of one of these incidents.
I had it happen with a ‘99 Mazda with a standard transmission. Oddest thing. It would hit 3,000 rpms even when shifted into neutral. Had to take it in a couple times, they charged me the first visit to clean the injectors (got that money back. At 5,000 miles cleaning them was idiotic). They found a fix but I never was told what it was.
the complainers want a new car
Is it too late to spill some coffee in my lap? I even own a Toyota.
‘Drivers’ or paid union thugs ?
15 people scheduled for upcoming traffic court dates for speeding assure the safety board that the car did it all on it’s own!!
Toyota needs to buy these 15 cars from the owners for a full , new car price, then ask for volunteer drivers to use them in their normal daily routine, see if it happens. I’ll take one.
Unfortunately, I believe the on board computer only stores the last five or so minutes of data. That could tell what was really happening if the data were retrieved in time. I suspect inadvertent activation of, or the driver forgetting they turned on, the cruise control in most of these cases. This problem is software related, either caused by a bug or operator error.
My first impressions were cruise control software or sensors and Obama and the UAW pulling strings behind the scenes. I see both are well covered here.
The real "fix" is to trash Toyota, that is, character assassination of Toyota. The reliability statistics for Toyota remain the best in the world. I am suspicious that the government and unions are behind this feeding frenzy to tarnish a great company.
If the problem is electronic, it will be a glitch in either the program or hardware. If it is, all of the diagnostic tests performed are of no use unless the glitch occurs randomly at the exact time that the device is under tests. Otherwise, the problem will never be found and corrected and a total redesign of either the software or hardware will have to occur.
The problem is that the glitch is not repeatable and occurs randomly which means that they can only guess at the cure since they cant actually reproduce the problem.
Ive been troubleshooting electronics since 1966 and I can tell you from experience that these types of random errors are the result of poor design and lack of collaboration among the designers.
I would never put my safety and life on the line by trusting any electronic device that I could not immediately override manually. And to that point, with these cars you cant.
So funny how it seems to be such a patriotic duty on here to support foreign cars. The irony.
Ok, there were, what, dozens, or maybe a few hundred, complaints about acceleration before the news started talking about it?
And now we are supposed to believe that Toyota, having JUST SERVICED THE CARS, let 15 cars that were accelerating out of their repair shop?
This is where government used to step in and stop the mass hysteria, but our current administration is all about mass hysteria.
The Union Workers at Toyota are going to suddenly wake up and realize that Obama is behind all of this, screwing them to elevate Government Motors. It’s so obvious, why isn’t it discussed? Toyota will have problems even if they don’t have problems ... the Administration will “find” people to say they have problems, and they’ll show up, just like the “white coats” when he discusses health care. This whole thing is turing into a bad joke ... and it is on ALL of us, even Union Workers!
Why is it that Toyota cars in other countries seem to be not affected by this “problem”?
Stop speeding, dummy.
Toyota’s problems:
1) They have been unable to duplicate the problem....so there has been no ‘root cause’ found.
2) The software does not appear to allow the brake to over-ride the accelerator.
3) The “black box” that is on all new vehicles does not appear to be showing anything wrong or is not designed to capture the correct information.
4) Toyota dismissed this problem numerous times, then provided very poor ‘fixes’ like the floor mats and accelerator pedals when they have clearly not found the ‘root cause’.
Finding ‘root cause’ is a core element of the Toyota Production System (Lean manufacturing). It is hard to believe that they have strayed so far away from their principles/culture that they have not worked this out yet.