Ah Kemo.......he could still have put the car in neutral or/and slammed on the brakes.
The phone call changes nothing.

 

Neutral...yes. But since he was on the highway and we "assume" doing at least 60 mph when the peddle stuck and started to accelerate up to the 120 mph he was going when the accident happened, neutral wouldn't have done much if he was coming up on the intersection where this happened.

You mentioned brakes again?...........he had no brakes.

 

During the hearing today, the CEO of Toyota admitted that 2004 Camrys had issues with the torque converter lock-up in conjunction with bugs in the ECU & TCM programming. Since the gas pedal (throttle-by-wire) and the shifting of gears (automatics) are all controlled by the ECU & TCM via feedback from a various of sensors, you can see how things can go wrong. The gas pedal can be released and the transmission shifted to Neutral. But if the program doesn't recognize those inputs, you're in one heck of a joy ride.

It's like Windows refusing to execute a command... time to reboot.

 

Sadly, isn't that the truth

 

The brakes will still work, just with no vacuum assist thus a very hard pedal.

How long does it take to accelerate from 60-100mph.....? A lot longer than the call was.

There is still a mechanical connection between the gear lever and the auto transmission. No ecu involved with that or the brakes......so no matter what the ecu might think you still have control over those functions.

 

How is it the car's fault if he floored it to pass someone, and an extra (non-factory) floor mat got caught under the accelerator pedal?

 

Do you know this for a fact? I am sure that there are automatic transmissions that are "drive by wire", so to speak, ie. no mechanical connection. Not sure about the Toyotas in question though.

 

Not sure about every Toyota/Lexus vehicles in the recalls but "Shift-by-wire" has been in use in Priuses since 2001. Torque converter lock-up is controlled electronically.

According to the CHP recording of the 911 call in the Saylor (San Diego, Lexus ES350) incident, there was NO brake!

Caller: “We're going 120 (mph)! Mission Gorge! We're in trouble – we can't – there's no brakes, MissionGorge ... end freeway half mile.”

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/new...dia/car911.mp3

As for using the brake w/o vacuum boost, the only way to know how much force is required is to test out another vehicle of the same model/year.

Edit: Gonna test this on my Mini.

 

I doubt the brakes were disabled (electronically), I think there is still a mechanical connection there, though they may have been rendered virtually useless by a long application which heated them up, or were just overpowered by the engine at those high speeds.

 

OK, obviously you aren't going to listen to reason so no more talk of the accident......

If you had read any of the posts you would have seen that the MINI has a throttle cut-off if the brakes are applied hard with the accelerator pressed. So the test on a MINI can't be done.

 

The throttle on my MINI occassionally will stick in the wide open position. The problem usually resolves itself when the driver is removed from the vehicle.

 

 

Yep... reason killed the cop. That's the best!

Try reading the post again. I was referring to testing the brake w/o vacuum assist... engine off.

 

I didn't see it brought up, but did anybody see where an SIUC professor was able to incite a fault (short circuiting that is very possible because of corrosion etc.) that causes the car to accelerate as described by those in the crashes, and does not show a fault in the onboard diagnostics?



more information from abc.com:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota...d=ESPNheadline

Interesting conversation where I first saw it at GMInsidenews.com
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...toyotas-89313/

Pretty convincing in you ask me. I think that the floor mat issue is an easy scapegoat for Toyota and that is it.

-Chase

 

Toyota has been denying electronics and programming 'cause it opens up a bigger can of worms.

 

It would not be hard to create a fault that would not show up with OBD. Just emulate the same signal as the accelerator sensor you are replacing, and make it show the throttle is calling for WOT. I'm sure you could do it on most make/model of vehicles, that doesn't mean it is a likely fault to occur in the real world. In fact it is very unlikely that you will be driving down the road and accidentally build a circuit emulating the accelerator sensor and splice it in to the wiring harness...

 

Was an issue on the e36 bmws but haven't heard of anything on a mini

 

Great video and information chasebryant. Granted, this is a recreated lab experiment, but it proves that it can easily be more than floor mats and a mechanical part. Some auto analysts have been saying for months that there's something wrong with the computer.