No Defect Found On Camry (lexus Es Moels)

[Lexusfreak]

Hey guy's, just came accross this article on the Car & Driver site....good news!

check out the link:

http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?se...article_id=8386

[jragosta]

Hey guy's, just came accross this article on the Car & Driver site....good news!

check out the link:

http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?se...article_id=8386

I saw that one in the WSJ yesterday morning, too.

Just to avoid confusion, let me elaborate.

This particular complaint is one where the car surges forward by itself. Frequently, the person complains that they stepped on the brake and the car shot forward. There are several complaints involving damage (often hitting the back wall of a garage). This type of complaint appears (from my limited search) to occur with a wide variety of cars. In the case of the Camry and the ES, there were multiple complaints in recent years, although I haven't taken the time to determine whether the complaints were more frequent than with other similar cars. If I remember correctly, there were only a couple of complaints for the ES and more for the Camry (presumably due to the relative popularity of the cars).

While there was one case 15-20 years ago where a car was found to have an auto-acceleration problem (Audi?), the result of the investigation is almost always 'driver error'. As justiification, NHTSA claims that the frequency of the complaints is related to how familiar the driver is with the car - arguing that someone who is not familiar with a car is more likely to hit the gas pedal instead of the brake.

It seems odd that it would happen that often (the basic foot pedal configuration in cars hasn't changed in my lifetime, although I realize that some cars have the locations slightly different), but there really are complaints with almost any car type you can imagine.

This does not appear to be related to the transmission problems of the ES models. When you read the NHTSA reports in detail, you can clearly identify which ones were complaints of the car accelerating on its own and which ones are complaints of severe hesitation.

Just one more reminder - be sure to file your transmission complaint at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/. I'm filing for arbitration today and want as much evidence as I can find.

[steviej]

While there was one case 15-20 years ago where a car was found to have an auto-acceleration problem (Audi?), the result of the investigation is almost always 'driver error'.

jragosta, you are correct, it was the Audi 5000.

That problem made it all the way to 60 minutes. One of the outcomes of that issue was the requirement that there be a PARK lock switch that was deactivated by stepping on the brake pedal. It has been equiped on every automatic tranny car since.

steviej