Toyota Recalls - Observations?

[foxtrot824]

Simply, bring back manual trannies.

+1

having come from a history of vehicles with clutches I found it very annoying to drive the company Prius. While it gets great mileage even with me behind the wheel (I drive like the throttle is wide open anyway) I do find the lack mechanical disconnect from the transmission to be a little unsettling. I've also had the gas pedal stick in a non Toyota car (moment of panic) but then moved the shifter into neutral and resolved the situation with my foot. I can not imagine what that would be like in a Prius when you move that stupid little lever into the "N" position and nothing happens.
On the bright side it's a great time to buy Toyota

PS- RPM is an acronym for "revolutions per minute" so there is no need to put an "s" after "RPM" as one would not say "revolutions per minutes".

 

[leeholaaho]

What about the rest of us that drive a manual and use heel-toe?

What I don't understand is why that woman didn't put her car into neutral if the brakes weren't working, or even turn off the engine.

(Yes, you'll lose power steering and brake assist, but it's not that uncontrollable)

She did try to turn it off and kick it of gear and she checked the floormat

Toyota could care less about this - 34 deaths - it has been going on for years

 

[paulr]

The floor mats on my Mazda6 are held down by a couple of flat plastic hooks that are very thick. They fit into corresponding holes that are chrome reinforced. In case you spill something on your floor mat, or need to take it out to shake out the dirt; gluing or sewing them in place would be a headache. Also, it seems mainly to be the dealers who are saying Toyota owners are to blame; and coming up with this floor mat excuse.

Well, there have been many car recalls (not just Toyota) because of floor mats. I guess that plastic hook system sounds reasonable--why doesn't everyone use it? My car just has loose mats and I'm thinking of bolting them down or something. I was also imagining something like fastex straps on the mats that would loop through fixed eyelets mounted on the floorboard.

 

[oronocova]

I found this an interesting read a few weeks ago from C&D. Even from 120mph and with the throttle wide open the Camry's brakes were able to reel in the vehicle. Only the 540hp Roush Mustang, which they tested, IMO failed (903 feet from 100mph.)

What I gather is that if your braking system is in good working order you could probably actually stop the car even if you didn't shift to N. You would need to stand on the brakes completely though, engaging the ABS and not letting up until the car stopped. Shifting to N would be the obvious best choice I think. In the heat of the moment however, I think most people could fail to do either.

 

[paulr]

Toyota has released a firmware patch to make the brake pedal override the gas. There is a Slashdot thread about it with an interesting comment section:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1447213/Should-I-Take-Toyotas-Software-Update

 

[copperfox]

paulr, yes you do have power assisted brakes.

 

[gadget_lover]

T

As a computer guy my suspicion is still a bit fixated on the software. The amount of computer code in cars is just inhuman. According to this IEEE Spectrum article, the F-22 Raptor fighter has about 1.7 million lines of code, the F-35 will have about 5.7 million, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner will have about 6.5 million, but a modern car of today has around 100 million and the amount will probably double or triple in the near future.

These are impressive amounts of software, yet if you bought a premium-class automobile recently, "it probably contains close to 100 million lines of software code," says Manfred Broy, a professor of informatics at Technical University, Munich, and a leading expert on software in cars. All that software executes on 70 to 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs) networked throughout the body of your car.

I would not call that a reliable source. I'd call it an off-hand remark. When an expert starts a sentence with the disclaimer "probably" they are shooting from the him.

I have a VERY technically advanced car, and can count the networked devices by looking through the shop manual. It's no where near 100.

You can really inflate the "lines of code" if you include the things like clocks, radios, GPS, DVD players etc, but they are not part of the command and control infrastructure of the car.

I'd be surprised if the number of instructions in the engine control unit exceed 500K.

Daniel

 

[KD5XB]

No car is too powerful for its brakes. Watch an NHRA top fuel eliminator smoke its tires while not moving. It's front brakes are holding it in place. Even 5000 HP can't overpower their brakes.

Top Fuel racers don't have front brakes.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

No car is too powerful for its brakes. Watch an NHRA top fuel eliminator smoke its tires while not moving. It's front brakes are holding it in place. Even 5000 HP can't overpower their brakes.

I must be pretty befuddled then cos from what I've seen, a top fuel car's brakes can't even stop the vehicle at the end of the track without the massive assistance of a parachute. And that's with the engine cut off............

 

[paulr]

I would not call that a reliable source. I'd call it an off-hand remark. When an expert starts a sentence with the disclaimer "probably" they are shooting from the him. Daniel

Broy seems to know what he's talking about. I got hold of his IEEE Proceedings paper cited in the article and he also wrote a book on automotive software that I might try to get from the library. He also cited a slide show by the chair of the SAE embedded software standards committee, stating in 2005 that there was about 100MB of code in a car already back then: www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/pretscha/events/seas05/bruce_emaus_keynote_050521.pdf But, neither is terribly specific about what all those controllers are doing.

 

[Vikas Sontakke]

100MB of code
500K of instructions
100 Million Lines of code

I am having really hard time believing that an average car has more software in it than F23 fighter jet.

But what do I know? I only write software

- Vikas

 

[jtr1962]

100MB of code
500K of instructions
100 Million Lines of code

I am having really hard time believing that an average car has more software in it than F23 fighter jet.

But what do I know? I only write software

I can't say for sure whether or not that's the case, but I think if you count all the code for every gadget in a modern car then perhaps. However, probably 99% of this code has nothing to do with actually running the car. GPSes for example are very sophisticated pieces of equipment requiring tons of code. And some cars have voice recognition which is also tons of code.

As for the code which actually controls the engine, brakes, and transmission I'll hazard a guess that you're dealing with at most a few MB of code. After all, you have a fairly limited set of inputs and outputs, and also a fairly limited set of conditions. That being said, sometimes an unforeseen set of conditions will fail to be anticipated, with results like we've seen.

 

[Monocrom]

GM recalls about 1.3 million compact cars.

Just heard it reported on CBS new.

If you have a Chevy Cobalt (2005 - 2010) or a Pontiac G5 (2007 - 2010), your vehicle could have a serious power-steering issue. Get that checked out.

Can't say I'm surprised. Despite being GM's top seller across all brands, the Chevy Cavalier is a terrible model; especially in terms of safety. But the low price-tag is what made it so popular. The Cobalt is nothing more than a re-design of the Cavalier, with a new name.

Let's see if this recall generates as much buzz or Government investigation as Toyota's.

(Actually, both brands folked up. Let's see if one gets treated better than the other. Damn I'm glad I bought a Mazda.)

 

[tygger]

The ignition could not be turned off because of a lock feature, and the Lexus shifter will not disengage drive unless a minimum speed is reached.

Could you please provide a link for this information. Because IIRC, in direct reference to this crash, they were advising people to shift the car into neutral.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Toyota just lost any support they previously had gotten from me:

Article titled Toyota is Secretive on 'black box' data

 

[Brigadier]

Toyota just lost any support they previously had gotten from me:

Article titled Toyota is Secretive on 'black box' data

Yeah. That was definitely a stupid move on Toyota's part. If you have nothing to hide........

 

[Jay T]

Re: GM recalls about 1.3 million compact cars.

--------- snip ------------

Let's see if this recall generates as much buzz or Government investigation as Toyota's.

(Actually, both brands folked up. Let's see if one gets treated better than the other. Damn I'm glad I bought a Mazda.)

Why should it?

The GM recall involved 14 crashes resulting in one (1) injury.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/02/autos/GM_recall/index.htm?hpt=T2

The Toyota recall involved 34 deaths.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/business/la-fi-toyota-deaths16-2010feb16

 

[dano]

The Govt has/is holding hearings about the Toyota witch hunt. However, the Govt essentially owns a car company: GM. Is there a conflict of interest created when the Govt holds these hearings, as it is a direct competitor to Toyota?

 

[paulr]

Toyota just lost any support they previously had gotten from me:

Article titled Toyota is Secretive on 'black box' data

There was a slashdot thread about this. US cars allow more or less open access to the EDR data (e.g. if you take your car for an oil change, or if the cops tow your car for improper parking, the mechanic can download data saying how fast you've been driving) while Toyota's official position is access is restricted without a court order. From a privacy perspective the Toyota approach is superior: the EDR is a recording device installed in the car without regard to the owner's wishes, so if it's going to be there at all, its contents should not be accessible to third parties without a compelling reason like an accident investigation. If Toyota has been obstructing investigations on purpose, that's bad, but some people are making it sound like they should instead just make the data available to every schmoe with a USB cable, which is also bad. The linked SLT article gives the impression that the Toyota EDR simply hasn't been used very much, and as such, there hasn't been much deployment of the equipment that reads it. It sounds like they're fixing that.

 

[Monocrom]

Re: GM recalls about 1.3 million compact cars.

Why should it?

The GM recall involved 14 crashes resulting in one (1) injury.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/02/autos/GM_recall/index.htm?hpt=T2

The Toyota recall involved 34 deaths.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/business/la-fi-toyota-deaths16-2010feb16

It's a deeper issue than just the Cobalt and its G5 twin.

GM did little more than use a different name when the Cavalier went through its last re-design. Despite being GM's top-seller across all of their various brands, it is far from the safest vehicle on the road; to put it mildly.