billyk24

Look at this: Nonetheless, an internal NHTSA memo says: “It appears that when you hit a bump, the regenerative braking (front wheels only) cuts out, and there is a short delay until the friction braking kicks in. This results in loss of braking, which is experienced as acceleration (due to sudden end of deceleration from braking). Net impact is still a loss of braking/ increase in stopping distance. This could be fatal for pedestrians — it happens when approaching stop lights if you hit a pothole.” link: http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2009/12/nhtsa-tracking-braking-loss-on-prius-hybrids/

the 2010 Toyota Prius is also experiencing sudden acceleration issues as found in this link: http://www.allaboutprius.com/blog/1020362_prius-sudden-acceleration-much-ado-about-nothing Examples: - I have also experienced this suden acceleration in my 2010 Prius while braking. It has happened 6-8 times over the past 6 months. The service department has said "We've never heard of that before". -I've had the same experience with our 2010 Prius. My Prius hit a bump during wet conditions, and it accelerated on it's own. The break does stop the car, but it's very scary and you feel like you're not in control for a second. This has happened twice to me and we've only owned it for 1 1/2 months so far. -I have owned my Prius 2010 since Aug. '09 and have now experienced the acceleration while breaking on two different occasions The beat goes on. Another day. Another story of Sudden Acceleration in a Toyota vehicle. Toyota has an different way of moving one forward.

Here are some more Toyota owner reports from CR website: I took my 2006 Avalon in to the Toyota dealership for an oil line recall. I asked them if they could also look into the floor mat recall for me. They told me no decision had yet been made on the floor mat issue but went ahead with the oil line recall. I picked my car up that afternoon, drove 15 minutes to my mother's apartment. While slowly guiding my way into a parking place, my car accelerated violently propelling itself up over a curb and through a wooden fence, land with my back tires on the front curb of the parking place. My braking had no effect and upon landing on the downside of the slope, my engine died. I called Toyota immediately asking what they could have done to cause this to happen since my car had never had this happen before in the 4 years I had had it, and yet happened 15 minutes after they had worked on it. They said nothing was done that could have caused this. We complained to the area Toyota rep and an inspector came and look at the car at the Toyota repair shop we had it towed to. Toyota says my car checks out fine and any problem was caused by the floor mats /driver. The serviceman did not advise me to remove the floor mats that were in place when they were working on the car. They released it to me with the floor mats in place. Furthermore, I contend that the first thing I check after the sudden acceleration was the location of the floor mat,which was flat against the floor. Posted by: jazzygirl | Jan 22, 2010 4:28:29 PM 2007 Avalon XLS, SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION Problem: SEVERE SAFETY DEFECT Description: At very slow speeds, when gently applying the brakes, the engine goes to “full throttle”. Before I start, I would like you to read the whole text of this entry. And, if you are even remotely related to Toyota Company or are bent on trying to rationalize the problems and facts stated as “probably a driver error or mat problem, please do not impugn my integrity as you have several others before. Guesses and innuendo are not facts. We are customers of Toyota Motors and have grave concerns for the safety of ALL owners involved. The first incident occurred after I had driven the Avalon for 2 ½ months myself. Incident 1) We had driven to my sister's home, about a 5 hour drive. This was our first ‘road trip’ out of town. The next morning, I was repositioning the car on the double wide driveway of my sister’s condo. I backed the car straight back into the street, about 20 feet, and with my brother-in-law standing just inside the garage to help me reposition the car to the right slightly, about 1 ½ feet. I slowly drove the car back into his driveway to within 2 or 3 feet of the garage. The garage door was open and he was directly in front of my car. The temperature at the time of the safety problem was about 35 degrees. When I applied the brakes, the engine immediately went to full throttle and I had to apply the brakes very hard while turning off the engine. I do not remember whether or not I turned off the ignition first or took the transmission out of drive. This all happened TOO FAST. For a split second, I wondered whether I had my foot on the brake or gas pedal. Very luckily, I had my foot on the brake and CONTINUED BRAKING VERY HARD, otherwise I believe that I would have run over my brother-in-law and severely damaged both his garage and my car. I contacted their local Toyota Dealer after they opened the next morning to have them check for this problem. Their technical specialist checked for existing Service Bulletins and the Service Manager called me back to say "they could not find anything of this type reported". He also suggested that I start the car and observe whether or not the ‘Check Engine’ light was on. It was not. There were no other extraordinary lights either. Since I had used ‘cruise control’ many times on the way to my sister’s house, I wondered if for some reason it was involved. When the problem occurred, I did not have time to look. Besides, I had used the brakes several times after entering town which should have disengaged cruise control. Also, I did not touch the cruise control lever when re-parking. I had no trouble pulling up into the driveway, just when I applied the brakes. I did not drive my car again until we left to return to our home. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Incidents 2 & 3) On Saturday, December 23, 2006, we went downtown to meet family at a restaurant, arriving at about 11:45 AM. While in the downtown area where the speed limit is 20 MPH and traffic was congested (moving even more slowly), this same safety defect occurred TWICE within TWO blocks. The first was when stopping slowly behind a stopped car, and the second was when I stopped to wait for another car to pull out of its parking place. BOTH TIMES, when I began to gently apply the brakes to stop, the engine went to “FULL THROTTLE” with HEAVY SMOKE or exhaust observed behind our vehicle. I had to “apply the brakes as hard as I could” while I first tried to shift out of gear, and then turned off the ignition to shut down the engine. Very luckily, at this very slow speed I was able to stop the car before hitting anything. My foot was on the brake pedal the whole time this happened, NOT the accelerator and nothing was obstructing the accelerator pedal. Also, I did not have the heavy all weather floor mats mentioned by Toyota, I had the factory carpeted mats which were properly installed and secured on their floor clips. Even if I had, I can’t see where driving at less than 20 mph would cause the accelerator to become "depressed" and “trapped” – it would not have been depressed enough to touch anything. I believe that many other cases where drivers were traveling at 50-60 mph would have not be depressed enough to cause the contact with anything. I called my local Toyota dealer, to report the problem, was informed that their Service Department was closed, I told them that I was going to “Have my car towed to their lot as I didn't trust this car anymore at all”. I CONSIDER THIS TO BE A SAFETY PROBLEM OF THE MOST SEVERE TYPE, since I don’t know when it might happen again, who might be driving the car nor under what driving conditions. THIS PROBLEM COULD GET SOMEONE KILLED, ASIDE FROM DAMAGE TO THE VEHICLE AND ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WAY. At this juncture, I could not trust this vehicle’s safety, nor do I know what damage might have occurred to my vehicle due to the engine going to “full throttle” while I was breaking hard to avoid an accident. The dealer's service department said they didn't find any "codes" in the cars diagnostic, and that it was possibly "driver error". We parked the car for three months as we were afraid after reading MANY reports of this same problem across many Toyota and Lexus models. NOTE: I firmly believe that these problems are in sync with the reported in many cases where the driver was trying to pull into their garage or trying to park in a parking lot. Their conditions were similar to mine, and they too have been labeled as “driver error”. During these three months we were forced to go though Toyota's arbitration (a real joke) and $900.00 in lawyer’s fees. We entered the arbitration very well prepared with printouts of the MANY NHTSA entries and information from a book dealing with this problem. The District Toyota Reps were there and would not even accept a copy of any of the information we had found – I personally think they did not want to touch anything they couldn’t leave as driver error. This meeting left us with NO ACTION that we could take – we couldn’t sell or trade this vehicle without fear of a lawsuit since we knew there was a severe problem with it. We eventually traded our 6 month old car (parked for three months) back to our local dealer for a duplicate car, paying several thousand difference to get rid of the first car. The technical person from the regional office explained in great details about all of the “error codes” they could post and our car didn’t have any. I asked them TWO simple questions at this point that they could not or would not answer: “WHY DON’T YOUR DIAGNOSTICS IN YOUR COMPUTER POST AN ERROR CODE TO HANDLE THE SITUATION WHERE THE BRAKING SYSTEM AND ACCELERATION SYSTEM WERE BOTH “SENSED TO BE DEPRESSED”, AND “HAVE THE BRAKING FUNCTION OVERRIDE THE ACCELERATION and produce braking INSTEAD OF ACCELERATION”??? My guess is that then there would be PROOF of the problem which they don’t have the slightest idea how to solve. TOYOTA - WHY DON”T YOU IMPLEMENT THE TWO POSSIBLE SUGGESTIONS ABOVE? My service call I believe was closed as no error and case closed. Let me guess – this problem did NOT get reported up to Toyota HQ thus keeping them technically having no record of these types of problems nor report them to the NHTSA. The current “fixes” of shortening the accelerator, thinning padding of the carpeting directly under the accelerator, and finally implementing a throttle override when the brake is also depressed, are not going to solve some of the “problems” that Toyota customers have experienced. Toyota needs to change the computer programs to set a "code(s)" for proper diagnosis. Posted by: Christian | Dec 11, 2009 1:11:40 PM Last week, my son floored the gas pedal on his 2004 Infiniti G35 Coupe (automatic transmission) to avoid getting hit by a wayward vehicle that sped through a red light. While the would-be accident was successfully averted, his car didn't shift gears, revved up to red line, and wouldn't slow down even when he took off his foot from the pedal. To try to stop, he stepped as hard as he could on the brake but the car although slowing down a bit still wouldn't stop. He shifted to neutral, applied the brakes, and turn off the car ignition for the high rev engine to die down. I drove my son's car last Saturday (12/05/2009) to test if the same situation will happen again, and found that flooring the gas pedal while even on "Drive" mode from a running start of 15 miles/hour would cause the car to accelerate uncontrollably even if you release the gas pedal. We brought the car to the Service Center of Miller Infiniti, Van Nuys, CA on 12/07/2009 (yesterday) for them to fix the problem which the service consultant opined could possibly be traced to "electronic sensors". We have not heard back from them. Posted by: Osman K. | Dec 8, 2009 4:35:18 PM

Toyota said in certain rare cases, the gas pedal mechanism wears down, causing the accelerator to become harder to press, slower to return or, in some cases, stuck. Is this a phony statement from Toyota? In the last five years has this situation occurred with any other automaker? I bet the Yugo never had this issue.

I don't think Government Motors has a chance as long as Big Brother is going to call the shots.

The Subaru Outback version tested in this review (2.5 Limited) has a base price of $27,995 via this link: http://www.subaru.com/vehicles/outback/25i...ited/index.html. The version tested has a stated MSRP of $28,990 via this link: http://www.examiner.com/x-1017-DC-Car-Exam...1-introduction# There is no $10,000 difference in price. If the Outback is obtaining 29mpg in this review what to speculate what the Escape Hybrid would obtain in the same environment?

How many miles have you driven this vehicle to obtain the 30mpg figure? Is this 30 mpg hand calculated or from the vehicle's dash reading? The Outback's CVT drive belt has a recommended replacement of 60,000 miles or 5 years while the camshaft belt needs replacement at 100,000 miles. These are not cheap mainetance costs that the Escape Hybrid does not have.

I believe the Ford Escape Hybrid is a better alternative to the Subaru Outback or even the Forester models. Subaru fans almost never make a comparison to the AWD Escape Hybrid because the Ford model has less emissions and better mileage and holds is resale value very well. It is well known Subaru has had a head gasket issue with many of their vehicles and owners have had issues with the transmission not downshifting correctly. The CVT may now make the transmission issue moot. Both the Outback and Forester models have grown in size and weight. This is likely to have an effect on real world mileage especially in "city" driving conditions.

Your figures "assume" the C4C trade in veicles were driven the same mileage as the new taxpayer supported vehicles. That assumption is an estimate and this link: http://green.autoblog.com/2009/09/23/unint...wont-save-fuel/ indicates "research done by CNW indicates that C4C participants intend to drive almost twice as many annual miles, which will more than make up for any efficiency-based fuel savings".

If figures don't lie, how can one state "saving $667 million/year in gasoline" when a quarter year has not even passed since the C4C event?

The largest Oil producing field in the MidEast uses millions of gallons of seawater to pump out millions of gallons of oil. More water is used than oil is pumped out. Water is used to increase pressure to help get the oil out. Once the water is shot down the hole, it is not used again and is waste. The Canadian Tar Fields use two gallons+ of water to produce one gallon of oil! Worse is the pollution caused by this process that no one tells you about. I am in Western Pa. and there is no Ethanol plant currently producing for the retail market. The nearly three month old Coskata pilot plant ships their ethanol to GM for use in Michigan. An ethanol plant under construction in Clearfield County--near Cooks Forest State Park will begin operation like January 3, 2010. There is also a cellulose ethanol pilot plant at this location.

The rubber mat will have no effect on the hybrid battery temperature. Many of us have cargo liners in our vehicles.

Ford's hybrid boss Nancy Giola stated the hybrids started making a profit in the later portions of the 4th quarter of 2008. As stated before, how is Ford measuring "profit".

The area in front of the rear wheels for the 2005-07 models usually displays "cosmetic" wear and tear and this is especially true for the vehicles with body cladding. This does not induce any safety issues. This issue has been reported by owners in the past. One can remove the body cladding or have it repainted. One can also remove the body cladding and have "anti-chipping" finish/painting applied. I doubt Ford would spring for a repainting of this vehicle as owners of all vehicles could then demand the front bumpers repainted after all the bugs smashed into it and ruined the finish.

:shades:

Post it here for your bragging rights.

"Those yahoos on GH have no clue" Bragging rights?

I'm living in a small town of less than 15,000 and the local Ford dealer had 10 vehicles turned in for the cash for clunkers program. Not all of them were "total junk" and it appearred all were in running condition. The vehicles were pickups, conversion vans, SUVs and only one car.

Johnson Controls plant is in Holland, Michigan. Last week the "big names in electric-hybrid vehicles and lithium-ion battery production" were present for an major event.

This plant has just been awarded 62.7 million dollars via the Department of Energy for "electric drive transaxle with integrated power electronics" via this link: http://www.sterling-heights.net/bins/site/...se&NC=6784X Can anyone provide more detail on this?

CR has a long history of producing lower than expected mileage reports with the hybrid vehicles. CR also refuses to state how much of each category--performance, comfort, economy, etc.-plays into the overall score of the test vehicles. The owner reports often reveal more than what CR states.

When the engine is running, MG1-one of the generators in the e-CVT can recharge the hybrid battery on the way up the hill and quickly provide electric assist to the operation of the vehicle. This process repeats itself during the operation of the vehicle.

The Escape Hybrid has a superior suspension system-stiffer than the non-hybrid version due to hybrid battery weight-that contributes to its ability to tow. However, there is no reverse gear in the e-CVT so limits on backing up during towing exists. The hybrid battery does not "drain" during operation. Ford designed the system to "hang-around" 53% state of charge and this is what one sees during highway driving. Ford's system will constantly recharge/discharge to remain hovering around 53% when ICE is running.

The parallel/series combination that the Escape Hybrid uses provides more "flexibility" useage of the vehicle as shown in the phots. Yes, that is an Escape Hybrid towing a heavy load from Iowa to Colorado.