Anyone else caught in this Toyota recall/shutdown?

[Night Raider]

Just wondering if anyone else out there caught in this recall,  also if anyone has had it happen to them or works for Toyota and now gets to deal with it.

Here's what I got caught in,
Yesterday I was supposed to pick up my new Tundra but after hearing they're suspending sales Wednesday evening I emailed my dealer asking if they had more info, I was told my truck is not effected but Toyota wants to fix it anyway and it would be less then two weeks.  Even though the 2010 Tundra is clearly on the list they still felt they had to lie about it.  I'm happy to have the truck sit at the dealer for another 2 weeks because right now it's at the top of the list to get fixed, once it leaves the dealership it would slip to the bottom of the list.

Anyone else having to deal with this?

[beenthere]

Not caught up in it.

What is interesting is try to find out "what exactly is sticking" ? 
To go this long (years) and put whatever is sticking on so many cars/trucks that the entire production is shut down - has to be something being shoved under the radar (or is that "under the carpet"  ).
Some elusion to an electronic part. Some put blame on the carpeting (even a recall to change the floor carpeting out).
They've been putting good accelerators on gazillions of cars for years...and now a problem. 

Puts a krinkle in a product that had a good following.

[thecfarm]

Yep.We supply interior trunk parts to Toyota cars.I heard about all this on the way to work.I talked about it to a couple guys at work,not good,I said.At 8 o,clock boss walks up to me and says he's sending me home.Which did not surprise me.As I was leaving I heard 2 more got it too.Probaly more on the other department that molds the parts get sent home too.Wed was the start of my 7 days off.Suppose to go back to work on Thursday.It has not been a good year and a half.Will not not start making material until Toyota orders it.

[Magicman]

Is it true that they don't have accelerator linkages anymore?  That there is a "sending" unit, and a "receiving" unit ??

[Paul_H]

I watched the news a while back when that family sped to their death because of a stuck throttle and the 911 call they made was played.It was sickening to hear them all pleading for help right until the crash.
I wondered though,why the driver didn't kick the transmission into neutral? Do modern cars have a lockout that would prevent shifting to neutral?

I've had quite a few stuck throttles over the years and it catches a person by surprise but on the older vehicles,you could kill the engine and still steer and brake although it is harder without the engine.( most recently was the woodgas truck)
Shifting into neutral but leaving the engine running would give you power to steer and brake long enough to pull over.The worst case scenario would be a blown engine but so what,as long as everybody is safe.
After watching the news and hearing that,I've talked to all the young drivers in our family and gave them a emergency plan.

[Tom]

I also saw that on the news and wondered why turning the key off wouldn't be an option.  Even without power for the power options, the brake and steering should still work.  It just takes more effort.   Locking the steering wheel wouldn't be a good thing, but that only happens when the key is put in the lock position, doesn't it?

Most equipment has a big red button that shuts everything down in an emergency.  I wonder why Automobiles don't have a panic button too.  They used to have one.  It was called an ignition switch.

[easymoney]

 i had also wondered why they could have not shifted into neutral if they could get on the cellphone kicking and screaming. also why take something as simple as a throttle cable and think you have to replace it with a electronic control? that has to be more expencive than a simple cable. some people think that everything needs to be computer controlled.

[beenthere]

Turning off the ignition switch certainly is a good "stop" button, but there are a lot of people driving cars that have no awareness of what they have in there hands.

Recall years back of a lady driving a buick that the accelerator stuck down. She rode the brakes until they were hot and could not get the car under 45 miles an hour. So she explained she instructed her three kids to bail out as they traveled along the highway going North out of Ames, IA. After the three were out, she bailed out. The car dragged her a ways but she got loose before the car crashed. Never dawned on her to turn off the ignition. Neutral would be another solution but with maybe more damage (better than injuries).

Panic is prolly the key. Toyota should have another warning sticker plastered inside...turn off key if accelerator sticks. 

[Reddog]

The safest way too stop with a stuck throttle in a modern fuel injected vehicle is too place it in neutral and steer to the side of the rode and then shut it off.
The risk with turning the key off is going too far and locking out the steering. Also a lot of new cars do not have keys now, just a button on the dash.
All modern fuel injected cars have a rev limiter built into the computer program. For the half a minute it will be at max rpm there would be no damage to the engine.

[Ron Wenrich]

I had a recall for my 2005 Tacoma.  That one was due to floor mats, or so they say.  But, these only effect certain newer Toyotas with a certain type of accelerator linkage.  The ones with the defective linkages are caused by a composite washer that gets funky during high humidity and a certain amount of wear.  At least, that's what the news said this morning.

Toyota released a statement months ago that you should put the car in neutral and cost to the side of the road, then turn it off.  But, most people don't pay attention to what the car manufacturers say.

I'm running a stick, so I can kick it into neutral pretty quickly.  I put it in neutral quite a bit just to save on gas. 

If you are talking to someone at 911 and they can't come up with an answer to kick it into neutral, I question the brain trust on either end of the phone.  Some folks don't deserve to drive or have phones. 

[567paloggger]

should of bought a ford pick up

[SPIKER]

should of bought a ford pick up

ehheeh,
yep[. but I've got a well built up 74 Mercury Cougar with BBF in there that I've built up.  I did some work on it one day and was heading to town.   I stopped at the base gas station (Edwards AFB CA.) and put in about half tank with intentions of heading out to do some stop light performance testing against new Fire Birds.   There was a green light (station at the light) and cars going past so I waited for it to turn red.  It did and I was getting ready to go and a car did a CA Stop/Right hand turn basically coming at me from around/other side of the station.  I goosed it a bit, the air cleaner rotated catching the throttle linkage as it rotated catching the carb linkage forcing it to full throttle as I was heading at the red light / intersection...   I have to say there was also a Base Cop setting acrosst the street in the intersection watching for people speeding through the yellow, (friday long weekend and was common for them to set there)   Needless to say the brakes were ON the Rear tires were smoking and the car was about 2/3rds sideways! as I went through the red light    I managed to not hit anything or anyone hit ME I did end up letting off the brakes and hitting the KEY & popped the hood the engine was still on full throttle as I steered to side of road.   Needless to say the Cop stopped over to have a chat with me...  No ticket but he was interested in what was under the hood    

I though there was no damage to the car I think  I might have needed to change my shorts    Something similar happened with my GFs thunder bird, broken cable, & was in passenger seat, she was panicked and I noticed we were picking up speed FAST, I looked  over to see her standing on brake fear holding the steering wheel, (I just shifted it into neutral & turned the steering wheel over to edge and then shut down the key/engine as it was still coasting some the engine was free revving WOT the tach stuck at MAX too...   I had to fix the linkage with a flower wire to get to the parts store..     she wouldnt drive it though hahaha

Worse was the clutch linkage dropped out when power shifting in my 64 ford truck 390 engine 3 on the tree...   needless to say that was fun stopping with no clutch!!!   I ended up key off and coast to a chugging stop stuck in 3rd gear.  though I had throttle control the engine gas filled up the exhaust & intake.   I had one stop sign between me & home that I had to stop to see if cross traffic was coming.   I shut it down and shifted into 1st )granny gear) hit the key on and BOOM I swear the front wheels came off the ground!  (again the engine was built up) and the exhaust was BLOWN off  mufflers & both pipes from the headers back was GONE ...   (I drove it that way for a good 4  months untill I went into basic training & sold it...   now THAT was loud!
mark

[tughill]

I have never owned a foriegn car, certainly not a japanese car.  Motorcycles are a different story.

I have put hundreds of thousands of reliable miles on GM vehicles.

My friend, who swears by toyota, because of their legendary quality, only had to put about 3 head gaskets, 2 water pumps, and a crate engine in his last toyota truck in the 150,000 miles that he had it for.  Legendary quality my butt.  

Toyotas are terrible vehicles, that like Budweiser beer, have taken a marginal quality product and through the magic of marketing, made it a best seller.

[Jasperfield]

I'll never buy another American made vehicle unless it's a large truck. I switched my fleet of light trucks to Toyota. I wish I'd done that back in 2002. If I buy a car it'll probably be a German car or a Toyota.

[Texas Ranger]

Bought my wife's Camry a week before the news came out, hadn't made the first payment.  But, 290 or so mishaps in 10 years in over 3 million cars, statistically insignificant, unless it is your car. 

Think her Camry was built in Georgia or Alabama, tundra's are made in San Antonio, Texas.  So much for foreign cars.

[Night Raider]

I got a call from CTV television, they want to interview me about my Tundra.  My brother is a reporter for CBC in Labrador and probably told someone locally about me.  I don't think I'll be as outraged as they want me to be, but I don't think it's as big a problem as the media is making it out to be.  I think most people on this forum if not all have the mechanical knowledge and common sense to overcome problems like stuck throttles without much drama.  But that said if it happens at the wrong time, it could be a serious problem for anyone.
It's really too bad for the guys working at the factories making parts for toyotas

[tstex]

Quote from nightrider:

"I think most people on this forum if not all have the mechanical knowledge and common sense to overcome problems like stuck throttles without much drama.  But that said if it happens at the wrong time, it could be a serious problem for anyone."[/b]

IMHO, these two statements are absolutely critical.  Most of us deal with mechanical things on a daily basis and are more apt to make a better decision in the heat of the moment.

Now think of this, when that accelerators sticks, your car leaps forward and takes off...the last thing you are inclined to do, is take your eyes off the road because the adrenaline has just kicked-in...in order to shift into neutral, you have to take your eyes off the road and concentrate on some letters [P, R, N, D], which may even be on a console to your right.  If you are in traffic or any type of congested areas, you are purely focused on maneuvering your car through traffic, turns in the road...etc.  If you have kids in the back or someone else screaming, just add this to the formula.  This is why people panic and focus on applying the brakes, because they can do so w/out looking and it is instinctive.

I saw a quick video on how to handle sticking accelerators.  It was on a long stretch of hwy., no turns, no traffic, no nothing, and he KNEW it was going to happen, plus he probably practiced 10 or more times prior to the film.  This is WAY different than being in traffic or variable type driving and not having a clue when this was going to happen...how about it happening in the dark of night?

Anyway, I believe it would be a good idea in Drivers Ed, and/or at home now, to set-up multiple scenarios where people can practice this in real-life-situations so they can be prepared if/when it happens.

Just my .02 worth.

Be careful guys,
tstex

[SwampDonkey]

I can tell you right now, if your cutting brush and you swat a nest of white faced hornets, you darn well forget about the quick release on your harness and arms start swatting as you run like a deer and screech like a girl over the brush piles.

I'm a Toyota customer and will remain so. There is a lot of staged video (as well as real I suppsoe) out there coming from people with superiority complexes. GM, Ford and Dodge would never shut down production to work this out like Toyota has. They intend to get this solved.

[Sprucegum]

 kicked-in...in order to shift into neutral, you have to take your eyes off the road and concentrate on some letters [P, R, N, D], which may even be on a console to your right.

If you have to take your eyes off the road to shift gears - you haven't earned the right to have a license yet.

That being said - some people seem to be born with no survival instinct    The human gene pool is getting so large there are bound to be a few poor swimmers 

[Ron Wenrich]

I'm a Toyota customer and will remain so. There is a lot of staged video (as well as real I suppsoe) out there coming from people with superiority complexes. GM, Ford and Dodge would never shut down production to work this out like Toyota has. They intend to get this solved.

Kind of brings to mind the Pinto and the Corvair.     The consumer took them off the market, not the company. 

[tstex]

kicked-in...in order to shift into neutral, you have to take your eyes off the road and concentrate on some letters [P, R, N, D], which may even be on a console to your right.

If you have to take your eyes off the road to shift gears - you haven't earned the right to have a license yet.

That being said - some people seem to be born with no survival instinct    The human gene pool is getting so large there are bound to be a few poor swimmers 

I agree about the human gene pool getting smaller, regardless of what the situation is, or what country you live.

Swamp-Donkey makes my point exactly, it is not what you can do under normal circumstances, but what you do during an elevated time of stress...i am not talking about shifting a manual into neutral.  Many of the cars today have "ziz-zag" console positions - my point stands.

Here is a direct quote from the SanDiego paper that precipitated "a legal" investigation of this matter.  If you are someone that can positively react to any given situation regardless of the circumstances, join the N-Seals.  You read this and see if this guy should have been able to react correctly:

"...Mark Saylor, 45, a 19-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol, his wife Cleofe, daughter Mahala, 13 and brother-in-law Chris Lastrella, were all killed in a fiery San Diego car accident the evening of August 28, 2009, the San Diego Union Tribune reports. The fatal car crash was apparently caused by a stuck accelerator in the loaned Lexus..."

[BcWoodWorks]

I just thought I would add my opinion, because you older "mechanically inclined" guys sometimes forget that there are those of us who aren't experienced with driving, emergency situations, and proper management of said emergencies. I'm 20 years old, I've had a permit, and drove around a little here and there. Never went back to get my license for one reason or another; and here I am.

That being said; no one has ever taught me how to deal with a stuck accelerator, and I know danG well I wouldn't react right either. Nobody taught me how to counter-act a skid, nor that if you kill your engine you can still steer with a good amount of force. To be honest, I'd flip my lid.

That doesn't make us rookies stupid, nor deserving to die because of a faulty linkage. The fact of the matter is, it's like training Commercial pilots to deal with every possible and impossible scenario imaginable. There's just too much!

I hate driving.......and I hate stupid ideas that aren't properly tested before being implemented and sold to an unready, untrained public.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong, by any means. I'm just saying there are two sides to the "weak gene pool" story.

[Ed_K]

 1984 i bought a new ford ranger pickup. soon after the computer started shutting the engine off. I got used to turning the key wait 10 sec, turn back and enigine would start back up. One day i had rita and my youngest boy with me and it happened, same order but i went to far an locked the wheel. turning off left side of road with a cement truck coming at us. When the adrinalin kicks in u lose control quick. I had been fighting with ford for a fix, after this mishap i parked in front of thr door at dealer an said fix it or u get it thru the doors. They replaced the puter and i drove it for 10yrs. so all vehicals have problems imo

[SwampDonkey]

Kind of brings to mind the Pinto and the Corvair.     The consumer took them off the market, not the company. 

I remember the same, when our provincial Premier was going into the car business and some dude named Bricklin conned him into building cars. What a flop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1

You fella's don't know what goes on up here in backwoods New Brunswick.

[beenthere]

I'll never buy another American made vehicle unless it's a large truck. I switched my fleet of light trucks to Toyota. I wish I'd done that back in 2002. If I buy a car it'll probably be a German car or a Toyota.

I guess this part was made by a US-based company with parts made in CA.

The suspect parts are made by a U.S. supplier, but they are also found in its European-made vehicles, an official with the automaker said Wednesday. Toyota said it hasn’t decided what to do there.

The supplier is CTS Corp., based in Elkhart, Ind., and the problem part was manufactured at its plant in Ontario, Canada, according to a report Toyota handed to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week.

[Night Raider]

I got an update from my dealer, they said the CTS pedal is going to be replaced with a Denso pedal, which is another supplier toyota uses.  This makes me wonder if they're both drop in replacements for each other why Toyota goes to the expense of having two separate parts?  I looked up pictures of both and they do look different, my guess is we won't have seen the last of this.

BCwoodworks
I can assure you that you are right and that as a commercial pilot we certainly don't get trained for every situation but the more knowledge we have about the workings of the planes the better chance we have in an emergency, I was talking to someone who thought on an automatic transmission when you hit the brake a 'clutch' also 'was pushed in'.  I've seen very book smart people freeze, but the best pilot I've had the pleasure of flying with and being trained by is also a mechanic (now that's not a very broad sample).

One good thing that may come of this is more drivers will become aware of how to deal with a stuck accelerator in any type of vehicle and hopefully save a few more lives in the future.

[Sprucegum]

BCWoodworks; Since you are smart enough to read and join in the Forestry Forum I have every confidence you will survive   

[DouginUtah]

I wouldn't want to be considered one of those conspiracy theorist nuts but I've heard it said that GM is owned by the Federal government and it was the Federal government which required that Toyota shut down. Do you think this will help GM sales? 

Remember the problem Jeep had a few years ago? Turns out that a lot of the problems were caused by drivers who believed they were stepping on the brake when they had missed the brake and were in fact stepping on the gas. Sometimes the truth is elusive.

[Faron]

I wonder how many "stuck accelerators" were really stuck?  I will bet after possible accelerator problems due to floor mats or whatever were made public, some people used that as a ready made excuse after rear ending another vehicle. Not saying there is no problem, but that would complicate figuring out just what was happening.

[pineywoods]

This situation is not as simple as it seems. It's probably not just a simple case of the pedal getting jammed. On most current vehicles, there is no mechanical linkage from the gas pedal to the engine. Just two wires going from a sensor under the pedal to the engine computer. The computer then controls the fuel injectors. Drive by wire..The sensors can and do get full of dirt, water, carpet fuz, etc. My dodge diesel has 2 separate sensors, both connect to the computer, which then compares the two signals. If they aren't alike, the computer shuts everything down.