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Automotive News & Views Toyota in decline in 2009?
3846 messages, Last post on Dec 08, 2009 at 4:08 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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| by putting the mats where they were. That's preposterous. But I think you're right, kdhspyder, it's the All Weather mat placement that caused that accident. | |
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Nov 05, 2009 8:21 pm) Of if the car had a key switch instead of an on/off button. Lots of ifs. |
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I think it was the All Weather mat placement wholly to blame. It stuck to the accelerator(the exact science of it may some day be illustrated for us in newspapers and on the net)in a manner that rendered the accelerator stuck in the "fully on" position and it could not be pried loose. Going 100+ is a tough time to unstick an accelerator, huh? I mean, I've bent down while driving to pick up things like candy bars, donuts, french fries, hamburgers, etc. But that was done very quickly and to tell you the truth, I don't think one could bend down, reach up forward and unstick a floor mat/accelerator combo while driving. Present 100+ mph speeds and you're really up a creek without a decent aluminum paddle.
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 05, 2009 9:05 pm) So you had a driver in a loaner vehicle that he was unfamiliar with, with the wrong, oversized mat, an unfamiliar on/off switch, unfamiliar gear selector lever, maybe some other stuff. The mat may be the cause, but all that stuff together added up to the tragedy.
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what Toyota will do to remedy this situation. I was reading today something about the shape of Toyota floorboards and the accelerators both coming under close strutiny. Imagine a recall in which a carmaker had to refit a floorboard piece under the driver and replace an accelerator! Good golly Miss Molly! The time and expense and embarrassment!
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 05, 2009 9:10 pm) Toyota has known the accelerator peddle was problematic since late 2003. No sooner had the 2004 Prius come out and people were reporting runaway acceleration. Not only did Toyota ignore the obvious, they continued to use the same crappy design with fatal accidents across the country. I blame it on the arrogance that Toyota engineering has portrayed since the 1990s. They feel superior to the rest of the World when it comes to automotive design. Now they get to pay for that arrogance. Germany went through the same thing and Lexus kicked Mercedes butt. Sadly the D3 has had little to be proud or arrogant about for several decades when it comes to automobiles.
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the last time the D3 have had any reason for feeling good about themselves was the glorious 60's. What a crop of Mopar's, Ford's and Chevy's! This Toyota mat and pedal charade is going to be an interesting one to follow to it's conclusion. Will they run and hide or will they honestly remedy the problem? I've been interested in actually buying only three Toyota cars in my life. They are a 2007 Toyota Yaris 4-dr. sedan, a 2006 Scion xA and a 2005 Scion tC RS 1.0. Looking back the one I would've been most happy with would've been the Polar White 2006 Scion xA. 5-speed tranny, foglights and i-Pod connection all for about $14,190. Loved the test-drive, however, my son was with me on the test drive but Mrs.iluv was not. She was slaving away in Pocatello, ID, at her job while we were playing up in Idaho Falls, ID. I tried briefly to talk her in to trading our '01 Kia Sportage 4X4 but she'd have nothing of the deal. Kept the Sportsman about another year when we eventually traded it for the '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS. So I came kind of close to buying a Toyota product in 2006. I have no particular axe to grind with Toyota but in general am not a huge fan. The Scion xA was a quirky design that was not really popular with everybody but I liked it. My interest in this case is strictly one of watching the industry and market and watching how a huge worldwide automaker reacts to and remedies a situation. If they gloss this one over they will pay dearly for it.
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 05, 2009 9:47 pm) It is going to be interesting to see what happens because, despite the compelling arguments by Gagrice and others, I believe that Toyota does not have an engineering problem to remedy. What they do have is a problem with users not following clear instructions and not having sufficient common sense. I'm including the Lexus dealership personnel with users. I have no idea how you go about fixing that sort of problem.
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this morning on the way in to work, I found out what happens when you throw a 2000 Intrepid into neutral with the gas pedal jammed down. Now granted, I didn't get up to 90 mph or anything like that. It was a back road, and I stomped it. Once it got up to about 50 mph and 4000 rpm, I threw it into neutral, with the pedal still to the floor. The tach dropped slightly, to about 3800 rpm, but the engine seemed to get a lot quieter. Maybe because it wasn't under load at that point? I wonder how far back they started making cars that were "smart" enough to cut back like that? My uncle's '97 Silverado doesn't have that feature. Throw it into neutral with the pedal jammed down, and it just keeps revving. It has a 6,000 rpm tach but no redline, so I dunno if it's possible to over-rev it or not. I got nowhere near that, though...as soon as I noticed that the revs weren't cutting back, I let up on the pedal.
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sounds like your Intrepid would've released you from real danger if the same scenario happened to you as it did to this poor SD family. What I wonder about is how come these gated shifters are confusing people-especially when they ought not to be corn-fusing anyone, in a real emergency? I have not taken my '08 Mitsu Lancer GTS out and tried the same scenario but you're getting me interested in doing just that. When I'm in CVT tranny mode going in to neutral would be a matter of ignoring my steering wheel paddle shifters and reaching over to the gearknob and putting it two notches in the "up" direction to neutral. The paddle shifters go "up" one at a time 1-6. Then they go back "down" the scale one at a time. Come to think of it I could in that kind of an emergency paddle shift my way back down and slow the car back down, conceivably, then reach over and throw it into neutral. Even with a stuck accelerator? Huh? I can't even imagine my Lancer's accelerator actually getting stuck...my mats are securely tied down and go no where at all. If I was feeling too much mat under my foot and near the accelerator, I would think about stopping the rig, getting out and adjusting the situation, if that meant taking a mat out and throwing it in the trunk, then so be it. Not trying to be condescending, just trying to think logically in a situation like this. As I understand it, Toyota has instructed all Toyota vehicle owners to take out their mats for now, right? Evalutate what you've got and fix what might me wrong in your mat situation. |
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