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Automotive News & Views Toyota in decline in 2009?
3618 messages, Last post on Nov 28, 2009 at 7:57 PM
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 08, 2009 6:50 pm) The rev limiter will protect the engine. I tried it today in two different vehicles, an 08 Highlander 4WD at 65 mph in traffic and an 07 Prius at 55 mph in traffic. Shifting to N is immediate and immediately disconnects the wheels from the throttle input. |
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Can you pose any reason why a driver with experience could not have shifted the lever into neutral during the length of time involved? The floor mat wouldn't have physically kept the lever from shifting... would it?
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Nov 10, 2009 4:01 am) The vehicle is on the highway doing highway speeds of 65-80 mph. The driver suddenly realizes that he's going too fast and lets off the pedal. The pedal is caught in the mat so the car doesn't slow down, but he doesn't realize why the car is not slowing down. As any of us would do he applies the brakes. The car still doesn't slow down.???? As any of us would do he applies more brake pressure. ??? Still no let up and the car is up to 90+ mph. Now he really stands on the brakes while watching out for traffic all over the place zoom by as the car is up to 100 mph. This glazes over the rotors and makes the brakes useless and he realizes that he's got to get off the highway to get out of traffic so as not to endanger anyone. ^^^ All speculation though. What I did notice in my two personal trials is that while shifting into Neutral disconnects the wheels from the throttle there is no huge immediate slowdown. It's the same as taking a manual tranny out of gear and letting it coast freely. It is not at all like downshifting where there is a noticable hump as the engine brakes. The wheels and the vehicle are just free-spinning. From 65 mph I could see that it would take me a lonnnngggg time to come to a dead stop without the benefit of brakes. If the driver was upto 100+ mph in the ES350 and approaching a long downhile exit with glazed over rotors he has little or no stopping power. From my own short test If I discovered that I couldn't get the throttle to turn off I'd make sure based on this tragedy that I didn't use the brakes too hard too early thus rendering them ineffective. I'd get the car out of gear first to get the vehicle starting to slow down as much as possible...then apply the brakes.
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in their first year have totalled 45K so far, and I do see a few of these around. So it looks like Toyota had a good idea there, although I wonder if we were to pull up Highlander sales, would we see a 45K dip? http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1160/15-cars-fueling- -the-auto-recovery/
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Nov 10, 2009 6:35 am)  Another serious question is if the shift lever doesn't allow shifting to neutral due to some failure or anomaly, what happens by shifting into 1? It would have slowed the car, if things are working correctly. The motor would still be revving as high as the limiters would allow and the power would greatly resist braking after the car slow into the range for that gear. I assume the trans would go into a lower gear as appropriate with the mapping for the transmission -- assuming the computer control is working correctly or working at all. Many questions. I still believe there's more to it than a floor mat causing full throttle. I want to hear the black box information. I've seen one post of what contents of the data would show. I can't believe it takes this long. On CSI it only takes a few minutes to analyze things!!! 
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 10, 2009 6:58 am) |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Nov 10, 2009 7:28 am) As to why the SD Sheriff's Office is sitting on the black box, I don't know (waiting for litigation which is inevitable)? |
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 10, 2009 6:58 am) Highlander sales are bound to be down this year. They are all produced in Japan and Toyota has cut back all vehicles made in Japan except the Prius due to currency considerations. The Highlander should move to Princeton, IN in the future along with the Sienna. |
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Replying to: surrfurtom (Nov 07, 2009 4:36 pm) 1) I can vouch that you could bounce a Honda/Toyota/Audi motor off the rev limiter in neutral all day and night and the engine won't self destruct. In fact, Honda motors are their happiest at the rev limiter. My friend took his Geo Prism with a Toyota motor to the rev limit every other shift for 100,000 miles, no problems. At an Audi Performance Driving School Fun Day I did recently, they said because Americans can't shift sticks and work clutches anymore, they'd rather we just all kept it in 3rd gear around the track and just bounce off the limiter over and over. Audi decided the engines would be fine obviously, and that the wear and tear would cost less in the long run then having Americans shift gears more than twice to 3rd and ruin even robust clutches. I didn't see any Audi Engines fail at the track, and they had several groups of 10 or so vehicles going all day long. 2) If you'd rather risk your safety over revving your engine a bit by putting it in neutral, then that is a personal decision, and I would call that a bad decision and operator/driver error, so we are back to square one. It all comes down to operator/driver error. |
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Replying to: lemko (Nov 08, 2009 11:05 am) Not really... depending on the time of day it happened, that stretch of the 125 in San Diego/Santee is lesser congested than most any freeway in San Diego County. He just ran out of road, but if he was a good driver, he of taken the 52 west exit and tried to make the WIDE turn on the wide 2 lane ramp. In a Lexus, it might be impossible at 120 mph though, but I think I could make the turn at 120 in my A3, granted, with no other traffic in the way though. |
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