More BAD news for Toyota
 

Seems they can't catch a break lately. On the front page of yahoo....

EL CAJON, Calif. ? A California Highway Patrol officer helped slow a runaway Toyota Prius from 94 mph to a safe stop on Monday after the car's accelerator became stuck on a San Diego County freeway, the CHP said.
Prius driver James Sikes called 911 about 1:30 p.m. after accelerating to pass another vehicle on Interstate 8 near La Posta and finding that he could not control his car, the CHP said.
"I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny... it jumped and it just stuck there," the 61-year-old driver said at a news conference. "As it was going, I was trying the brakes...it wasn't stopping, it wasn't doing anything and it just kept speeding up," Sikes said, adding he could smell the brakes burning he was pressing the pedal so hard.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_runaway_prius

Detroit should thank Toyota for saving it's auto industry.

I dont even want to know what toyota will have to do to regain trust

Sound like an excuse to get out of a speeding ticket to me :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

i will never get why people don't simply switch to neutral and then hit the brakes. why would you leave the gear in? idiots

3.. 2... 1 Launch Conspiracy theory to save the US auto industry.

they obviously stole the cookie from the cookie jar

Seems pretty odd to me. But people are idiots.

I thought prius actually doesn't have any gears to switch, it's just 2 buttons I think, drive and reverse, so it's impossible to switch to neutral?

Well as far as I know you have to actually bake and stop the car before you can switch gears. Doing it while the car is in motion would destroy the transmission. Which I guess would then stop the car. You can kill a mouse with shotgun too if you wanted. I think fucking up the transmissin would be the LAST resort for most people.

you dont kill a transmission for switching from Drive > neutral..

you kill it if you attempt to go from Drive > Reverse..

or if you attempt to go from drive > neutral > drive

I got an auto and sometimes i'll pop the gear out of drive and just leave it to neutral while i coast to a stop

Bad news everywhere :(

And if you're on the freeway and something unexpected happens like a car accelerating you expect for most people to act calm and rational? I suspect many people in the process of going from D to N will accidently put it in another gear just because they are panicked. You shouldn't judge people unless you've been in their shoes instead of calling them idiots.

cars with pushbutton start all u have to do is hold the button for 3 seconds and the car shuts off, and a car with a key, just turn the damn key off! this isnt rocket science

its getting worse and worse for toyota! cant imagine this doing their share prices any good

not recommended because it will also disable brake assistance. and also the steering wheel lock might lock the wheel - which could lead to accidents.

also Toyota recommended switching to neutral - it will neither harm the transmission nor destroy the engine. after doing that hit the brakes till you stop, then switch off the engine

:mad::mad:

Just saw interview with the driver and the police officer who helped him. Sounded pretty terrifying.. he was STANDING on the brake and emergency brakes and the car barely slowed, then lurched to an even higher speed.

huh? i fully sympathize and not calling any of them idiots.. if it were me id probably wreck too.. i was just correcting you that _it_is_possible to pop the car from D to N without damaging gear... never did i saw they were idiots...

This will lead to all new cards having an accelerator override when you hit the brake.

haha, for sure :)

why don't you fat ass lazy americans have non electronic automatic gearboxes for? the rest of the world has manual gear shift and doesn't rely on computers for accelerating and changing gears.

I dont remember anyone asking me if I would want fly-by-wire for gas and brakes..

89 class-action lawsuits that could cost Toyota $3 billion or more have been filed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100309/...Fzcy1hY3Rpb24-

lawsuits are bing filed non stop (no pun intended)

not everyone can drive a standard, there are a lot of women and sissy boys that simply need an automatic to get around town. or they are just pratical folks who buy autos because they sit in traffic jams for 3hrs a day and dont wanna haggle with popping a clutch every 5 seconds.

this is unrelated, but i think the new "drive by wire" gas pedal technology sucks ass. i prefer the old school throttle cables anyday where my foot is physically connected to the intake flap

The Prius uses a CVT transmission so there is no changing of gears although I was loaned a Niassan with a CVT transmission that did have a neutral, not sure about the Prius though.

Not all of us Americans are "fat ass lazy" as my car is a six speed manual and my partner's car is a five speed manual but I am amazed that almost none of my friends know how to drive a stick. My Vette accelerator is drive by wire. I've never had any issues with it but if I did I would just turn the key to off and the engine would slow the car down even if I didn't hit the brakes. The wheel doesn't lock unless I completely remove the key.

I still don't get why these people with run away cars don't turn off the ignition but I've never owned a car with a push button start.

He was able to turn the car off once he slowed down, fucking idiot.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,3699926.story

who cares about brake assist, its better than not being able to stop, thats the only way to stop a push button start car, the prius doesnt have neutral...
Gone are the days of old cable throttle bodies unfortunately. I love driving manual anyway so i dont think id ever run into this problem

no neutral? so when you start the car it starts driving forward instantly? you can't leave the engine running without a foot on the brake? that's hard to believe

park, drive, reverse, i believe neutral can be had by holding the shift lever forward for 3 seconds, im not sure if u can do this while the car is moving, either way its not hard to steer a car with no PS or "brake assist"

you'll have to pry my 6 speed manual from my cold, dead hands...

the flaw starts with the idea that electronics should control a throttle instead of a cable.

& the fact that a prius has no neutral option while moving is really inexcusable. I guess Toyota assumes their electronic drive controls are flawless under all conditions.

:thumbsup

LOL Toyota is already offering no interest on any cars you buy. Looks like they will be dropping prices in the near future as well.

fucking-around-and-business-discussion/957899-recent-toyota-publicity.html

The ninja is correct.

This story is a hoax.

With all this news, you are going to get a few crazies who think their cars are out of control even though nothing is wrong. Just like when anthrax was in the news, mail rooms and offices would get should down now and then because someone said they saw a white powder when they didn't.

I don't see how a company can go from being voted number 1 for reliability to being thought of as unsafe at any speed within two months.

The number of complaints have skyrocketed as well which doesn't make sense. Were cars going out of control before but the owners never bothered to report it until now? Complaints have gone up like 300% which doesn't make sense.

ABC news has been relentless with this story as well and they were just caught using fake footage of a "runaway tachometer reading" during a recent story.

It's not a conspiracy, but this has really been blown out of proportion I think.

it might rev the shit out of the engine, but then better than getting killed:2 cents:

It's much easier to text and drive with an auto transmission then it is with a manual.

I hope my Toyota doesn't get me in trouble :(.

when a car auto-accelerates, even putting it in neutral won't disengage the gear.

i heard about that on the news. pretty fucked up situation with Toyota. its bad when the accelerator sticks adn the brakes dont work :helpme

turning the car off is probably the worst decision you can make. power steering will go out and the wheel can lock, which will allow you to do one thing... keep going straight until Newtons law of motion takes into effect

Interesting news, thanks for sharing... :thumbsup

I think it was an inside job. :(

And he said he couldn't apply the brakes. At least the way my auto works is that you can pop it to neutral and back to drive, but to go to any other gear, you have to apply the brakes first.

derp? explain that one to me. transmission and accelerator are two different systems.