As expected (I still love that title), operator error and other causes are probably to blame for the rash of runaway Toyotas, because the feds have found no problem with the electronics:
Federal safety officials announced today they found no evidence that electronics were to blame for runaway Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles.
Instead, the government blamed sticky accelerator pedals and trapped floor mats — two causes that led Toyota to recall 11 million vehicles worldwide, including nearly 8 million in the United States, since 2009.
“The jury is back. The verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. Period,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a prepared statement. “Our conclusion — that Toyota’s problems were mechanical, not electrical — come after one of the most exhaustive, thorough and intensive research efforts ever undertaken.”
Audi officials released the following statement: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
rea
Let’s wait until a few actual rather than metaphorical juries come back with verdicts on this before crowing, Sec. LaHood.
scarshapedstar
“sticky accelerator pedals and trapped floor mats”
That’s a polite way of saying DUMBSHITS AND OLD CODGERS WHO HIT THE GAS INSTEAD OF THE BRAKE. Seriously, these people who say “I slammed on the brakes and it just kept speeding up!”, they looked at the ‘black box’ and that’s what it showed.
Oh, and there was that one guy who didn’t want to get pulled over for speeding so he just kept driving and blamed it on the Prius.
Speaking of Priii, mine has yet to need any service at all over the 6 years I’ve driven it, save for the battery finally dying during last week’s snowpocalypse.
Barb (formerly Gex)
Serves them right for being a company originally from not America. It is great fun to use Americans innumeracy to advance your own greedy goals.
ETA: I looked at the numbers and then did a rough estimate to normalize them based on the numbers of cars on the road. Which made everyone else just as risky as Toyota. By why talk about rates and percentages when you can just talk gross numbers?
someguy
It’s interesting how right wing talking points about Toyota not being at fault have become DOT doctrine, now that Republicans are holding the purse strings, and DOT has totally backed off on what it said it knew just last spring. War on Science, Chapter 2…
El Cid
For those less familiar with the 60 Minutes-ginned up panic against the Audi 5000 sedans going on mass rampages here in the US but no where else, here’s a summary.
Because of this, Audi and other manufacturers made sure to require that the brake pedal be pressed before you could start the engine. Also, trying to make sure and put the brake pedal farther away from the gas pedal.
Cases under current investigation once again center on a vanishingly tiny sample of cars sold in the hundreds of thousands.
Many of Toyota’s recent UA cases were caused by people who got the accelerator caught under a loose floor mat, and Toyota solved the problem by alerting people to remove their floor mats and offering to replace them for free at dealerships.
People should probably check to make sure that their floor mats haven’t slid forward enough to catch the gas pedal. It was something I’ve always done, but as an owner of one of the Toyota models and years in question, I never saw the mat in any proximity to the pedals.
The floor mats I have even have hooks to keep the mats in place. Yet this wasn’t enough of a safety for people to monitor.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
@someguy: Actually that article confirms what LaHood said in the above quoted piece. Toyota was fined for not reporting the sticky accelerator problem. That is a mechanical problem NOT an electrical problem.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
@El Cid: But Audi and Toyota are evil corporations so data doesn’t count in this case.
joe from Lowell
I have the opposite problem with my ’99 Civic. I step on the gas, and it doesn’t lurch forward at all.
El Cid
@joe from Lowell: My ’93 did okay, but on the plus side got 40 mpg.
trollhattan
Still gotta wonder about that CHP officer and his family in the Lexus. He couldn’t have figured out a floormat/turn-off-the-ignition resolution?
Not saying he didn’t perhaps panic for an extended period but given the CHP’s extensive vehicle handling training, I’m skeptical.
Don’t own a Toyota but I’m frequently surrounded by them.
joe from Lowell
@El Cid:
Yeah, the ’99 was really a low point for the Civic. It appears that my Tsongas/Dodd-supporting habits cross over into my commercial choices, too.
I also managed to buy a Sony Vaio laptop during the roughly 9 minute period when they came loaded with Windows ME.
Jonathan
@joe from Lowell:
…I finally find out who the other guy was that bought a Vaio with ME! That was a miserable laptop.
Gozer
@joe from Lowell:
Win ME…BAHAHAHAHA….ok…carry on.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Regarding “sudden acceleration” problems, I’ve long thought that one of the most effective answers would be to outlaw automatic transmission. Not going to happen in fat, stupid, entitled America, of course.
Tom Betz
I know that my biggest problem with my Venza is sometimes fat-footing the gas pedal with the edge of my foot when I hit the brake wearing low-top (wide sole) hiking boots. Toyota could probably stand to increase the spacing between the pedals a bit without making it too difficult for smaller people to transition between them; but it’s not a big deal for me.
AnnaN
Of course the committee would find nothing. The Toyota witch hunt began as an effort to shuttle car buyer’s purchases to American automotive manufacturers by literally scaring the US consumer into doing so. From what I read at the time, the number and type of complaint against Toyota unintended acceleration was pretty much identical to consumer complaints against all other car companies.
trollhattan
@AnnaN:
It’s more likely Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru and VAG were pushing it, since they would pick up the vast majority of former Toyota owners. All but VAG build cars here and have a ton of clout.
lovable liberal
VW Audi had an electronic problem in their late 1980s cruise control, even if it was so rare it evaded testing. I had a runaway in a VW Quantum 5-speed when the cruise control would not shut off. The Audi 5000 that had the reported problems was the automatic transmission, but it had the same cruise control electronics.
In my VW at highway speed, I tried heavy braking, accelerating, fiddling with the switches, and even turning the cruise control entirely off. Finally, I chose to kill the engine rather than myself and shifted to neutral. The engine redlined, but I turned the ignition off in time to save it.
VW replaced $1100 in electronics free.
Corpsicle
@trollhattan: He was driving a rental that he was not familiar with. Plus cops don’t necessarily know shit about cars.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
The moment I heard about the alleged mysterious, uncontrollable acceleration, I thought of the Satanic Audi hoax (because that’s exactly what it was, as El Cid outlined above). The only surprising thing about this finding is that it’s getting any attention at all.
My Prius occasionally has a weird problem when I step on the gas after coming to a stop – the transmission seems to slip and it hesitates for a split-second before engaging and moving forward. It mostly happens in the rain. Since my little anecdote does not constitute evidence of a widespread, defect-related problem, I am refraining from lawyering up and hooting and hollering all over the TV about devil-driven foreign death-wish-mobiles.
trollhattan
@Corpsicle:
Didn’t know it was a rental, which could have been a factor (wonder where the ignition is, or if it was possibly keyless?).
CHPs aren’t “cops” in their driving skills. They have very rigorous training (I live near the academy, which has a test track “Top Gear” could film at). There are many who can’t hack it. They go on to be city cops, or sheriffs.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
As an owner of a 99 Celica, I can attest to the sticky accelerator pedal mechanism. And I’m not a senile, old codger either.
The problem is that it would stick right as you would try to press on it for the first time. Then you’d put more pressure on it and then it would suddenly “give” and them vroom, off to the races.
It was a problem from the gitgo and only fixed after years of tinkering by my mechanic. I don’t remember what he eventually did to fix it other than to say he’d seen it a bazillion times and the local, big-fish-in-a-little-pond Toyota dealership refused to acknowledge there was ever a problem.
Oh, and the driver side matts would scoootch up so that they’d hang on the accelerator rod going down to the pedal.
All of this on a manual transmission.
Allen
Yes, it almost always driver error. to assume that a Prius brakes can’t stop a stop an even full throttle car is rediculus. Look at what happened to Audi, almost destroyed them. Sales fell to point that they didn’t recover until 2000.
Corpsicle
@trollhattan: The car had a start button. To turn the engine off he had to hold it down for 2 or 3 seconds.
catclub
@trollhattan: Agreed. I am pretty sure that the ‘so called liberal media’ which had just finished pillorying the government for bailing out Detroit, had not turned on a dime.
The southern senators who had most vociferously opposed the Detroit rescue all happened to have the above named foreign auto assembly plants in their states.
Malron
Um, I need to correct you. A sticky accelerator pedal means the pedal does not disengage properly once it is released, it does not mean it was operator error. A trapped floor mat means the mats were poorly designed and capable of interfering with the operation of the pedals. Do you really think the president of Toyota would have still come to America to do his “I’m so sorry” tour if he thought it was just a bunch of olds fucking up behind the wheel?
Also, too: if Americans spent half as much time breathlessly defending foreign car companies, who create the same amount of defects and have recalls equal to those of American car companies, the Big Three would never have needed a bailout.
Countdown until some elitist asshat progressive starts defending their preference for foreign-made automobiles by citing the bogus “unionized American autoworkers make $70.00 an hour” talking point.
Linnaeus
Count me in as one of those who really doesn’t see any kind of “plan” to gin up false or erroneous stories about Toyota defects in order to benefit U.S.-based automakers. And I in particular wouldn’t expect to see this from the right wing; most of the rightists who are in any position of real power in the U.S. pretty much despise the domestic automakers, which I’m sure is linked to the existence of foreign automaker plants in their states.
That said,
To be fair, I think this is actually pretty rare among progressives; sure, I’ve seen a few otherwise progressive people try to make this argument, but it’s overwhelmingly advanced by right-wing types, IME, though I have no systematic way of proving that. Most progressive types that I know who prefer foreign company auto just say they like the cars better.
Corpsicle
@Malron: “elitist asshat progressive starts defending their preference for foreign-made automobiles by citing the bogus “unionized American autoworkers make $70.00 an hour” talking point.”
Never in my life have I heard a progressive make this argument. Plenty of us buy from companies like Toyota because their vehicles tend to be designed and built to a much higher level of quality.
Politically Lost
I’ve done a couple of lemon law cases here in California regarding ghosts in the machine. We got one car bought back because it continually displayed numerous problems with stalling, jerking, hesitation, poor gas mileage, among other problems. The problems had been going on for two years. It was intermittent (of course) but Toyota finally installed a black box and instructed the driver to press the button on the box whenever it displayed the symptoms. A week after it was installed it was returned to the dealer and Toyota got the box back. The dealer told our client, there is a problem but we can’t help you and the dealer would not discuss any of the findings by Toyota. Toyota customer service went silent and that’s when we got the case. They settled immediately.
I wish we’d had the chance to request discovery on that case, seems that it may have been relevant to other issues.
We have another similar case that’s been subsumed by a consolidated action in California so I’ll get to look at the discovery, including the linked report, probably in the next year. Should be fascinating.
Douglas
Dude, the wingnutsphere is that ——-> way.
uptown
I drove a few of the Audi 5000s, worked for a dealership at the time. The problem was the placement of the pedals. The engine/transmission hump intruded way into the cabin and the pedals were placed further left. Uncomfortable to drive and it was a stretch to hit the brake pedal with your right foot unless you sat kind of twisted.
El Cid
It should be clear that cases in which problems in which mechanical origins didn’t appear to be the factor in no way disproves either the existence of severe and dangerous mechanical (electronics included)
The bit about the floormats isn’t so much that it is not a problem, and is not a result of bad floormat design, but that (a) it’s the sort of thing people should check anyway as one of the factors they need to regularly check to ensure their vehicle is safe to drive, and (b) if it was the factor in the reported cases of UA, I suspect that some relevant number of those affected noticed the mat problem and should have been reported on equally to those speculating an electronics origin, also leading to a faked TV demo, and (c) in any case leaping to a particular hypothesis of why an apparent problem occurs is media malpractice on things way outside their area of expertise to the extent they have any.
Nerull
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: The only vehicle I’ve ever been in that ‘lurched forward’ was a manual/standard.
Corpsicle
@El Cid: “It should be clear that cases in which problems in which mechanical origins didn’t appear to be the factor in no way disproves either the existence of severe and dangerous mechanical (electronics included)”
Umm… no offense dude, but you might want to switch off your random word generator.
joe from Lowell
@catclub:
I’ve long thought that the Democrats need a Southern Strategy; or rather, a Split the Rest of the Country Off From the South Ern Strategy. Remember the regional polling from 2008/2009, when the rest of the country went one way and the South went the other? That equals big wins for the Democrats.
The Detroit rescue, and the Southern Republican reaction to it, should be in the first ad. They wanted to kill the American auto industry. They wanted to throw another million people out of work, and wipe out the regional economy of a good deal of the Upper Midwest.
joe from Lowell
Umwut?
joe from Lowell
@Politically Lost: Ever represent someone who bought a computer with Windows Me?
It was just like that.
El Cid
@Corpsicle: Well, I did say it should be clear. Not that it was. Or would be.
Yeah, sometimes proofing or at least glancing at a comment helps.
I just meant to say that just because I gave a case in which there didn’t to be a mechanical cause of a problem, I wasn’t saying that other serious problems had no mechanical cause.
I.e., if the Audi 5000 case of UA was caused apparently by people hitting the gas instead of the brake, and that this was hyped up via a news-show fraud and ridiculously biased presentation of facts, it doesn’t follow that some new complaint is also caused by some wrong use by the driver.\
If that doesn’t make more sense, I just give up the point.
Ruckus
@joe from Lowell:
We may not make the same decisions, yet our decision tree grows the same fruit.
Politically Lost
@joe from Lowell:
There was a washing machine that ran similar to the Windows machine which you describe…
Tom Betz
@EL Cid:
When I picked up my new Venza last April, the dealer refused to give me a driver’s side floor mat, even though I promised I wouldn’t use it. About 5,000 miles later, during the first oil change, they cut about 1/2″ off the bottom of the accelerator pedal and said I could put my floor mat back in. I asked “What floor mat?” whereupon began a discussion that ended up with Toyota giving me a new set of floor mats just to replace the one they had withheld and lost.
techno
As a long-time Lexus driver, I had GREAT difficulty believing these “problems” were Toyota’s fault. The way Lexus treats their owners is so solicitous it is almost embarrassing. To charge that Toyota was deliberately withholding evidence that would endanger their owner-drivers is so far beyond my personal experience, I must assume Toyota’s enemies are lying.
But my SO was able to get a great deal on a RAV4 during this silliness so I guess it wasn’t ALL bad.
Intercalation
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Sounds like the traction control engaging. If you spin your tires on acceleration the traction control will cut the gas momentarily to allow the car to regain traction. I drive in the snow a lot, so I find it pretty obnoxious that I can’t power through turns, but I’m sure it’s safer for the average driver who isn’t used to managing oversteer with the gas pedal.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Nerull:
To be clear, I’m not claiming that manuals are perfect, just saying that if they were the only choice it would have the effect of weeding some portion of incompetent drivers out of the pool.
Bill Jones
The scare served its purpose. GM and Chrysler had just cratered and the little kabuki show helped knock a couple of points off Toyota’s market share and helped bail-out the bail-out.
rapier
Car and Driver said Toyota is the only one in the world that does not program shut off of the fuel injectors when the brakes are applied. I am not sure if this is true but if it is then either a faulty stuck pedal or gremlins in the electrical system would be defeated the moment the brakes are applied and represents a poor design choice.
Back in the day there was an Audi performance outfit with the name Intended Acceleration.
El Cid
@Tom Betz: I think you went through more scrutiny to get those floor mats from Toyota than you would have received buying a Glock with an 8,000 bullet magazine.
someguy
DougJ nailed it last year. Bought & Paid for.