Posted on 04/05/2014 8:44:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Good flower bed
Never thought of that. hee hee hee
Not sure it is worth hauling to the wrecking yard. It looks good, motor still intact and reliable. But with no transmission, is worthless.
Looked like the Toyota stopped to me, just took more distance.
And he was only using his left leg which is likely weaker.
BS to your BS.
Unless someone’s dumb enough (why?) to intentionally fade the brakes by repeatedly applying and disengaging them against full-throttle acceleration (yes, you can intentionally damage your brakes that way). What the fool in the video did. (Again, why?)
Simple question: What’s the 0-60 vs. 60-0 time of your car? There’s your answer to brakes vs. engine. Brakes win. Every time.
OTOH, there’s no protection against being stupid. A Darwin Prize awaits.
NASA did a cool DPA on the Toyota throttle assembly and control
As I recall, the fed gov undertook the operation of a Nevada whore house some time back with the resultant F.U.B.A.R. result. (pun?)
The difference between 140 feet and 500 feet can be the difference between life and death.
And once the brakes were pumped (depleting the vacuum in the power brake accumulator), the car wouldn't slow down at all (unless the engine was shut off altogether).
What the "fool" did in the video was to demonstrate a worst case possibility in a car he didn't own, so he wasn't worried about damage.
And he also demonstrated that the problem was fixed by Toyota through a relatively simple software change.
This wasn't a matter of fading the brakes, it was causing the power assist to stop working by bleeding off the vacuum that couldn't be replenished because the engine was at full throttle. It's the same thing that happened in olden times with vacuum-operated wipers. They worked fine at idle and low-throttle cruise, but when accelerating, they slowed down to practically nothing.
The point of the video, which you apparently missed, was that in a panic situation, a not-so-strong driver could have had a very difficult time stopping the car if the throttle was stuck open. Toyota did find that some of their cars did have pedal assemblies that had a tendency to stick, and they also had problems with floor mats getting out of place.
The bottom line is that Toyota recognized their problem, and took the necessary actions to fix them, unlike GM, which tried to avoid the problem while their customers were dying on the road.
There's no question that politics entered into this, both in the publicity over the problem and the fine that was levied on them.
But it's not valid to claim that there was no underlying problem with Toyotas, as many people seem to believe.
The only American vehicle that I would buy again is a Ford F-150. It is a great pickup truck.
But, no matter how much I'd like to have something like a new Corvette, there's no way I'd buy a new GM car or truck.
I went from the "Chevrolet's the only way" of my youth to "No way I'd buy a Chevrolet" today.
GM took a bite from the apple, liked it, then ate the whole thing and now the poison flows freely in their veins, killing the good while rewarding the bad.
None for me, thanks. Trying to quit.
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