Toyota - Unintended Acceleration Part 2

[blwnsmoke]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-weighs-toyota-unintended-acceleration-complaints-222148491.html

 

 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced on its website that it has opened a preliminary investigation after receiving a request for a probe supported by more than a hundred complaints about out-of-control acceleration.

The petition asked the NHTSA to look into slow-speed surging in model year 2006-2010 Toyota Corolla cars in which the brakes fail to stop the vehicle in time to prevent a crash.

In a letter to the agency dated September 11, petitioner Robert Ruginis alleged that he and his wife had a first-hand experience with "multiple low-speed surge events that occurred while driving our 2010 Corolla. The latest incident resulted in a crash on June 8, 2014."

At the time of the crash, he wrote, his wife was making a slow right-hand turn to ease into a parking space in Bristol, Rhode Island.

"Her foot was on the brake, when the vehicle surged forward and crashed into an unoccupied parked Jeep in front of it. Fortunately, no one was injured," Ruginis recounted.

The NHTSA said the petitioner's complaints relate to 141 vehicles within the scope of the request, but that it will evaluate all 163 complaints and other information provided by the petitioner to decide whether to grant the request to open a formal safety-defect investigation.

"The agency has received the petition, is reviewing its merits, and will take appropriate action as necessary," an NHTSA spokeswoman said in an email to AFP.

The inquiry involves about 1.69 million Corollas.

It comes eight months after Toyota, the world's largest automaker, agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle US accusations that it sought to cover up an accelerator problem in Toyota and Lexus vehicles tied to numerous accidents and deaths.

The US Justice Department said the company admitted to misleading regulators and the public about the safety problems in its cars in 2009 and 2010.

 

[old_fairmont_wagon]

I own a 2010 corolla LE auto and can attest that the electronic throttle control system is prone to having its own mind. At times, you can pull your foot completely off the gas and the car will continue to maintain its current speed for up to 20 seconds before slowly shedding speed at about 5mph per 10 seconds. There are times at low speeds in the neighborhood or in parking lots where the tip in changes drastically from its usual half second reaction delay to immediate and strong upon even the slightest contact. These events are not reliably reproducible.

 

All that being said, an alert driver can manage all of those behaviors. The engine throttle is aggressively trimmed if you apply the brake to any degree. With the brakes in good operating condition and firmly applied, the engine is completely unable to overcome them even with the throttle pressed to the floor (a test that I perform quarterly as a result of the large and noted problem that toyota has recently had due to UI.).

[RichardJensen]

I own a 2010 corolla LE auto and can attest that the electronic throttle control system is prone to having its own mind.

 

I remember the SIU professor that Toyota's lawyers tore to shreds, who pointed out how poorly engineered Toyota's drive-by-wire sensors were.

 

Essentially the system has two sensors, but they way they are wired is such that they effectively function as only a single sensor. And then, of course, there's the possibility that the ECU logic isn't very good either.

Edited October 1, 2014 by RichardJensen

[bdegrand]

Regarding the investigation into the Toyota unintended acceleration issue that was reviewed by NASA and Toyota engineers, it appeared the floor mats caused this problem. I took personal interest into their findings since I had rented a suspect Camry through Enterprise with low mileage and had experienced this sudden surge while my foot was off the pedal and was coasting through the small town of Remus, Michigan with speed limit 30 MPH. The car suddenly surged by itself and I immediately slammed the brakes. It did respond to the braking, but thankfully there were no vehicles in front of me, since for that instance I was out of control of the vehicle. I swear it's the scariest feeling to experience a car doing something like this. I reported the issue with Enterprise and told them I felt this car unsafe and to report it. I never heard from anyone

I started reading how the hired NASA team who concluded the problem to be simply floor mats were actually former employees who had retired and were not using the latest technologies available. However one technician did propose the possible cause being a TIN WHISKER shorted a pin on the integrated circuit. I discovered that 2 Congressman supported a further investigation, which somehow faded away and later considered rare by Toyota engineers. The solder used by Toyota and other manufacturers referred to as RoHs solder is NOT allowed in any mission critical equipment by our military.

Kind of makes you wonder...especially now that complaints still are reported (Toyota Corolla/ Sept) but never get much interest, other than FLOOR MATS NEED ADJUSTING.

Edited October 1, 2014 by bdegrand

[RichardJensen]

The problem that the SIU prof. identified was this:

 

The sensors were on the same circuit and they responded the same way to a change in throttle position. Voltage increased as the accelerator was depressed.

 

The problem, IIRC, is that if the circuit shorts, both TPSes will show an increase in voltage, which is what it expects to see during acceleration.

 

The prof suggested that, at the very least, one of the sensors should have been reversed, so that it showed a decrease in voltage as the accelerator was depressed, that way, in event of a short, the sensors would report contradictory results and the system could infer a fault.

[old_fairmont_wagon]

I would like to point out that I don't use the toyota floor mat in my corolla. I have an aplique on the center section of the carpet to cover where my heel rests on the floor.

I can say that I've never experienced a sudden "surge" of acceleration, just that it sometimes is over-eager on tip in at low speeds and that it is VERY reluctant to throttle down after traveling at interstate speeds.

[Kev-Mo]

This will not go away. The Toyota fanboys vehemently insist that it does not exist. Arrogance is often the demise of an empire.

As I always say: It is not what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it is what you think you know for sure!

[theoldwizard]

I was shocked after the last Toyota throttle fiasco that there were not a couple of new federal safety mandates.

• On a vehicle equipped with a system for starting/stopping the engine without mechanically twisting a "key", "multiple" presses of the "stop" switch/button in a "short" period of time, should shutdown the engine. Cheap and simple.
• On vehicle equipped with electronic throttle control, that controller should be "autonomous" and have a brake input. If the brake is depressed for a "few seconds" the throttle must be closed, despite what is requested by the engine controller/accelerator pedal.
  • An exception would be allow some mechanism to allow the driver to "override" this function (i.e. line-lock).

[akirby]

 

I was shocked after the last Toyota throttle fiasco that there were not a couple of new federal safety mandates.

• On a vehicle equipped with a system for starting/stopping the engine without mechanically twisting a "key", "multiple" presses of the "stop" switch/button in a "short" period of time, should shutdown the engine. Cheap and simple.
• On vehicle equipped with electronic throttle control, that controller should be "autonomous" and have a brake input. If the brake is depressed for a "few seconds" the throttle must be closed, despite what is requested by the engine controller/accelerator pedal.
  • An exception would be allow some mechanism to allow the driver to "override" this function (i.e. line-lock).

 

 

 

Agree 1000%. I would also add redundant sensors with opposite voltage/resistance as Richard outlined. This is not difficult to do.

[RichardJensen]

I expect that a brake override will be mandated at some point. That was Toyota's long-term solution to the UI issue, as it would be quite expensive to retro fit opposing sensors.