Toyota Recalls - Observations?

[Steve K]

Some of the hysteria is just the media looking for a way to fill air time. The 24 hr cable news channels have to keep busy somehow. The BP oil leak has been a blessing for them, and my idiot ex-governor, Blagojavich, is certainly doing his part too.

I don't get my news from the cable news folks, so I didn't really get the impression of any hysteria. Toyota certainly got a lot of heat, and they did admit that there was a problem with worn pedal sensors and interference from the floor mats. There's been a lack of numbers, statistics, etc. about the nature of all of the incidents, as far as I can tell. These would get my attention, but it would probably make for lousy TV ratings. :-)

Steve K.

 

[Brigadier]

That and the fact that the media and the feds are in bed together, and now that the fed is majority owner in GM, and needs to smash competition, they have a willing accomplice in the 'free press'.

 

[Steve K]

wait... are you saying that Fox News is in bed with the Obama administration?

or are you saying that Fox News isn't part of the free press?

strange bedfellows indeed!

regards,
Steve K.

 

[DM51]

Steve K (and others, as applicable) ... please keep political comments out of this. You may take such comments to the Underground, but you may not post them here.

 

[Steve K]

sorry, wasn't trying to make it political. More of a response to those who do. I've been an advocate of presenting actual data when discussing the issue to date, as opposed to throwing out conspiracy theories.

regards,

Steve K.

 

[Monocrom]

It's not all hysteria.

As mentioned above, someone close to me experienced the rapid acceleration issue with her Camry. The conclusion might be only one verified incident. But how realistic is that? Hysteria is one thing, but based on one actual experience; and at that level? Sorry, not buying it.

 

[LukeA]

It's not all hysteria.

As mentioned above, someone close to me experienced the rapid acceleration issue with her Camry. The conclusion might be only one verified incident. But how realistic is that? Hysteria is one thing, but based on one actual experience; and at that level? Sorry, not buying it.

Lots of people believe that aliens visit earth on a regular basis. Doesn't mean it's ever happened.

And I don't believe your friend's wife's friend's sister-in-law's acquaintance's story, either. It's like a gun, it doesn't just "go off." I was a passenger in a car once when the driver hit the cruise in a parking lot. To the casual observer and the driver, it certainly appeared that the car had a mind of its own, but really, no. When I hear hoofbeats, I don't think it's a zebra.

 

[Monocrom]

Lots of people believe that aliens visit earth on a regular basis. Doesn't mean it's ever happened.

And I don't believe your friend's wife's friend's sister-in-law's acquaintance's story, either.

Unlike aliens, we can all agree that Toyota actually exists.

She's my best friend's wife. And if she was mentally unstable, I wouldn't have bothered posting about what she went through. But you're entitled to your opinion. Even though it is clearly based on complete blind-faith loyalty to your favorite car brand.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Unlike aliens, we can all agree that Toyota actually exists.

She's my best friend's wife. And if she was mentally unstable, I wouldn't have bothered posting about what she went through. But you're entitled to your opinion. Even though it is clearly based on complete blind-faith loyalty to your favorite car brand.

I don't know your best friend's wife, but I'll tell you right now if my own awesome beautiful wife of 11 years and mother of my child told me this happened to her, my first inclination would be user error. Just sayin.

 

[Steve K]

Lots of people believe that aliens visit earth on a regular basis. Doesn't mean it's ever happened.

And I don't believe your friend's wife's friend's sister-in-law's acquaintance's story, either. It's like a gun, it doesn't just "go off." I was a passenger in a car once when the driver hit the cruise in a parking lot. To the casual observer and the driver, it certainly appeared that the car had a mind of its own, but really, no. When I hear hoofbeats, I don't think it's a zebra.

This isn't a gun, this is a complex electronic system.

Speaking from direct experience, I've seen a lot of weird stuff "just happen". It can be a hardware issue, or it can be a software issue. It can happen once in 10,000 hours of operation. It can be incredibly difficult to duplicate in the lab.... but it most definitely can happen.

regards,
Steve K.

 

[Steve K]

just a quick update: The latest news from Toyota is that they have decided that their "black boxes", i.e. data recording feature, is reliable.

"Now, facing continued claims that its vehicles are defective, Toyota appears to have done an about-face.

The Japanese automaker has been citing data from black boxes in Toyota and Lexus vehicles to suggest that driver error, rather than mechanical or electronic defects, is causing sudden acceleration."

this is from the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-0729-toyota-blackbox-20100729,0,3298674.story

I assume that the same info is in a lot of other papers too.

This doesn't seem to be new information as much as Toyota's attempt to lend credibility to limited data. My understanding is that this data is recorded within the ECU (I know that my employer records quite a bit of info in the ECU's that we design). If the problem is in the ECU itself, then why should the recorded data be considered reliable? Or for that matter, if the data shows that the pedal sensor was commanding full fuel delivery, would that be considered to be due to the driver pushing on the gas pedal, or due to a malfunctioning pedal sensor?

Anyway... it looks like any answers are still far away. I'll be looking for further news, but not really expecting much.

regards,
Steve K.

 

[tino_ale]

Your observation about if the ECU is faulty, why should we thrust the recorded data it has recorded is interesting but most probably an EXTREMELY shallow and trivial observation compared to the investigations that have been done.

I don't mean to criticize your idea, it may or may not be valid, but we are here discussing "technical" points that are simply beyond the public knowledge. Any expert on the system leading the technical investigation on what has happened is thousands miles above that kind of trivial point.

I guess my point is just : do you really think the people who designed this kind of system are dumb enough not to think about this ? Or do you think the truth is known by these engineers but hidden to the public by their management ? I really don't think either is likely.

 

[Steve K]

Your observation about if the ECU is faulty, why should we thrust the recorded data it has recorded is interesting but most probably an EXTREMELY shallow and trivial observation compared to the investigations that have been done.

I don't mean to criticize your idea, it may or may not be valid, but we are here discussing "technical" points that are simply beyond the public knowledge. Any expert on the system leading the technical investigation on what has happened is thousands miles above that kind of trivial point.

I guess my point is just : do you really think the people who designed this kind of system are dumb enough not to think about this ? Or do you think the truth is known by these engineers but hidden to the public by their management ? I really don't think either is likely.

Well, I guess I have a few responses...

I raise the issue of whether the data recorder feature can be trusted because of the sudden change in how credible Toyota is regarding it. They used to say it couldn't be trusted (which I tend to agree with), and now they say it can.

I haven't heard any discussion of the data recorder feature in the general media or in the electronics trade publications that I subscribe to. I'd be interested in hearing what others on CPF have heard about this.

I would be interested in knowing the technical skills of whoever is running the investigations. The Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, i responsible for the investigations, and has already said that they don't have the technical skills to investigate this. As such, they have procured a number of NASA scientists to help. I've worked with people at NASA before, and while they are smart folks, they don't work in the same sort of engineering and production environment as Toyota or myself (I currently work for a large construction equipment manufacturer, and have spent many years designing electronics and doing embedded software for ECU's and sensors).

Toyota has said that they expanded their business too fast and let their quality slip. This is the sort of situation where newer engineers make mistakes that more experienced engineers would catch. They aren't obvious mistakes, but little things that are very subtle but can cause problems like software pointers ending up in the wrong section of code and writing over memory locations that should not be touched. I've seen this sort of problem, and others, a number of times, and I have no doubt that it can happen at Toyota. As such, I don't know if Toyota's engineers have found the problem or not. I'm not saying that Toyota engineers are dumb, I'm saying what Toyota has said; that their quality has deteriorated.

Would Toyota managers cover up something like this? Well, we know that they covered up the problem with the pedal sensor wear, so why wouldn't they cover up an ECU problem? Especially when it'll cost 5 or 10 times as much to fix an ECU hardware problem? (they already flashed new code into ECU's, so maybe they are already fixing any software problems they knew of).

And I agree that my discussion goes beyond any public knowledge that I'm aware of. I'm hoping that someone can share some info they found from an obscure source, or maybe offer their own experiences with these sort of systems. Surely I'm not the only person here with a couple of decades of design experience in these sorts of systems?

regards,
Steve K.