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Detroit, 9:33 AM
Wed Dec 2
30 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/01/09
12/01/09
Or maybe Hunter (how ironic) Thompson was right--though he was talking about jack rabbits--bored, boring life--wait for a car, then go for the thrill of trying to beat it across the road. Deer hooning, maybe.
12/01/09
Some say he enjoys browsing for leaves & berries. Some say he has an almost pathological fear of men in orange vests. All we know is... he's called: The Stag.
12/01/09
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How much per pound?
11/30/09
IT'S ALIVE!!!
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11/30/09
Catch the deer in a lasso, make it run behind the car to your house, then blow its brains out in the driveway.
Problem solved!
11/30/09
11/30/09
I saw a deer bent into a U by the side of the road on my way in to work this morning. Maybe if the truckbed hadn't been full of pallets...no. I don't mind hacksawing off the head - it's hacksawing off the feet that gives me the willies.
11/30/09
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11/30/09
Not saying Toyota doesn't need to improve engineering and recall response. But if I worked for a manufacturer and heard complaints of unintended acceleration, my response would have been a whole lot less charitable than the one Toyota issued in April.
11/30/09
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11/30/09
Washing machines that just flash lights like KITT, yes.
But, what of these "troubles" you mention?
11/30/09
11/30/09
The implication being that, if my washer and dryer emulate KITT, all is well.
11/30/09
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11/30/09
Wow, how is this issue still about braking. FYI the officer in the accident DID brake. In fact, the brakes were used so much they were on fire.
People seem to think the brakes can always stop a car no matter what, but that's only true from a stop. The car was already traveling at highway speeds or faster, and the momentum of the car would make it very hard to stop the car. Also the engine would be well into its powerband by that time. Another factor is during WOT the vacuum assist on the brakes don't work.
I wish someone would do this in a test to shut the people up who still claim you can always stop a car at WOT moving at highways speeds by using the brakes. This incident seems to prove you can't always do so.
Also the car had push button start and requires a three second press to turn off the car. Being a loaner, the officer wouldn't have known how to use it.
So two options for stopping the car has already been eliminated. In a panic situation that's quite bad.
The last option is to shift to neutral and it's unclear if the officer attempted to do so. On quirk about the ES though is that the N for neutral is next to the up-shift notch for manual mode in the ES. If he was unfamiliar with the car, he might have mistaken the up-shift for neutral.
11/30/09
Here's a guarantee for you: right now, multiple engineers are testing ES brake response in a WOT condition. There's going to be a lot of money in expert fees spent on cases arising from the recall.
12/01/09
The computer problem they were talking about is that they can't shut off the car because of the the keyless fobs that are used now days.
There was never a problem drive-by-wire or anything else.
Toyota in the recent recall is reprogramming cars with such fobs to turn off the engine if the break and acceleration are pressed at the same time. ...and I can think of several situations were that can go bad.
12/01/09
12/01/09
From the article you linked:
"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has done six separate investigations of such acceleration surges in Toyotas since 2003 and found no defect in Toyota's electronics. "
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