New Probes Of The Electronic Throttle System In Toyota And Lexus Vehic

[The G Man]

The potential for electronic defects in Toyota vehicles to cause sudden acceleration came under intensifying scrutiny Tuesday as both federal safety regulators and congressional leaders said they had begun new probes of the issue.

Federal safety regulators disclosed Tuesday that they had begun a "fresh review" of the electronic throttle system in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, which connect a driver’s foot to the engine through sensors, computers and wires, rather than a mechanical link.

The action comes after a growing number of independent experts have voiced doubt about Toyota’s explanation, saying it cannot account for all the reports of sudden acceleration and that part of the blame may rest with the electronic throttle system. The Los Angeles Times reported last fall that complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles skyrocketed with the introduction of electronic throttles.

[amcdonal86]

This makes a lot more sense than the "condensation in the pedal mechanism" theory...

[The G Man]

This makes a lot more sense than the "condensation in the pedal mechanism" theory...

This would be the worst case senerio for Toyota if the Fed did indeed find something wrong. I really never bought the floor mat and stuck gas pedal theory. Some drivers have claim they actually use their feet to try to lift the gas pedal up from the back side and the car still would not slow down. Rather they are telling the truth or not, that remine to be seen.

As of today, any diver who had one of these recall Toyota in MA and was involve in an accident because of the pedal will not have to play insurance surcharge.

[cduluk]

Of course that's the problem. Not for a second have i believed it's a mechanical device causing this problem.

Computers are complicated. Computers in cars? MORE complicated...

If it was indeed the mechanical "pedal" itself that's the issue (due to corrosion or whatever) pressing the pedal a little would quickly loosen it from it's so called "stuck position". There's no way a simply designed mechanically moving part (that's exercised constantly while driving) could build up enough corrosion to get "stuck" . Maybe if it's sitting underwater next to the Titanic, but not in a car's cabin. And especially not in a 1yr old car.

Having a lot of mechanical "common sense" and while looking at these so called "defective" pedals, i don't see any way it could be causing these problems...

The likelihood of a simply designed mechanical gas pedal (which has been in existence and modified through evolution for many MANY years) being more problematic than a newly designed COMPUTER DRIVEN drive by wire system... just doesn't make sense.

And it's already been shown that this apparent 'defective' pedal wasn't even installed on all of the cars that reported this problem. Some cars with this issue don't have the defective pedal. The one thing they DO all have in common? The DBW system.

Toyota is doing this to shut people up, in hopes of buying time to find the computer glitch.

If the DBW system is the issue (as i suspect), i'm not even sure Toyota will be able to find it. There are MILLIONS and millions of electrical parts involved, and unless an electrical engineer is present in a toyota while it's failing (having every component being tested at the same time for functionality), there's no way they'll be able to find the issue.

My guess? Toyota will replace all these so called 'faulty' pedals with 'different' ones, and in the near future even the repaired vehicles will have the same problem again. Unless they find a computer glitch and find an easy repair, this isn't gonna be good...

I do know one thing however, starting NOW this DBW system will receive a total re-design for future model Toyota's.

[The G Man]

cduluk. I agree a 100%. I just dont see how a 1 year old pedal can wear out faster than a 10 year old pedal with a similar design. I must admit I am a bit disappointed at Toyota for continuing trying to find the cheapest way to fix a very serious problem. Personnally, I would push the dealer for the gas/brake software safety upgrade instead of the new pedal. Although a free new floor mat is nice too :)

[RX in NC]

With each passing day Toyota shoves their sword a little deeper into their own abdomen. More and more organizations from the media to consumer safety to regulatory control to private citizens are questioning their honesty and integrity. Given Toyota's blind, all-consuming charge for growth and market share the past few years, I don't believe they have the culture or the humility necessary to properly handle this growing crisis and stop the bleeding. There's apparently been a tremendous amount of lying within Toyota over this issue and it is now coming back in full force to haunt them. It's not a full-blown Firestone Tire/Ford Explorer debacle quite yet, but it soon could be....

[cduluk]

It's just that Toyota doesn't know EXACTLY what is wrong. I'm sure they "know" it's with the computer system, but i don't think they know which component is failing, and therefore they can't fix it yet.

The real fix will be the replacement of the car's ECU. When they come up with a re-design you will see Toyota replacing every ECU with the new one.

At this point Toyota can either be honest, telling everyone they don't know exactly what's wrong and that they shouldn't drive their cars until further notice... or they can do what they've done- give people false piece of mind by telling them this pedal replacement will fix the issue.

If Toyota came clean and told everyone they have no idea how to fix the issue, Toyota would go out of business NOW. Telling consumers they can't use their vehicles until they "possibly" find a fix- can you imagine what would happen??

And this "engine disable" bi-pass software is in NO way a good idea from Toyota's perspective. That would basically be telling the public that this 'runaway car' issue will probably happen to you- but if you have a good reaction time and press the brake, the car will shut off for you!

May as well tell passengers on a plane that the pilots are drunk, and if the plane starts to go down you can press an ejector button so you'll pop out of the plane and a parachute "might" pop out and bring you down into the middle of the Atlantic...

I think logically it's a good idea (considering the real issue is still present) but it wouldn't support Toyota's position that the problem is 100% fixed by this pedal replacement. It would only be treating the symptoms and i think that would scare people.

This whole pedal replacement thing is just to buy them time to find the real problem. They'll replace all the pedals, and within a year or so, you'll see them asking everyone to come back and have their ECU's replaced too, "just to be on the safe side". Toyota is just hoping there won't be an excessive amount of future failures until they can find a permanent ECU fix.

It's all about money. It's cheaper for Toyota to do the $15 pedal replacement for every Toyota keeping the owners happy, than to tell every Toyota owner the actual truth that they have no idea what the issue is. They'd rather compensate for 5 deaths than to keep every Toyota off the road and destroy Toyota's reputation. If Toyota finds the ECU problem quickly enough, they'll be able to fix it before any more suspicion is raised. Until then, they're using the pedal replacement to keep everyone satisfied.

[Lexusfreak]

I don't think they have identified the 'root' cause of the problem either...and with each passing day...Toyota keeps digging themselves a deeper hole. :( Time will tell & I hope I'm wrong.

[The G Man]

And this "engine disable" bi-pass software is in NO way a good idea from Toyota's perspective. That would basically be telling the public that this 'runaway car' issue will probably happen to you- but if you have a good reaction time and press the brake, the car will shut off for you!

Toyota's drive by wire system is not much different from all the other car brand's drive by wire system, it will fail on rare occasions, after all, no electronic system is a 100% fail proof. The key to a safe drive by wire system is how the electronic system fails and what redundancy and safety override the system have. Usually, when a drive by wire system fails, it fails to a idle engine state, but the key is for the electronic to know that the system have failed and it is not the driver pushing on the gas pedal trying to get out of the way of a 18 wheeler on the highway. This is where the sensors come into play, the sensor have to know if the sudden increase in gas pedal pressure is cause by a component failure or the driver actually hitting the gas pedal. On some high end vehicles, there are two hall effect sensors on the gas pedal, if one fails and the computer detects that the output of the two hall effect sensors are different, it will go to fail safe mode and idle the engine.

There is simply no way for the design engineers to cover every single possibilities of failures, therefore a software gas/ brake override may be the best and cheapest solution for Toyota and Lexus. It a nice safety feature that will cover most of the scenarios and it is very cheap to install.

[SW03ES]

Makes me wonder just what was so bad about a throttle cable?

[cduluk]

Makes me wonder just what was so bad about a throttle cable?

It's because engineers want cars to be smarter. Slowly, mechanical devices are being replaced with sensors and electronic devices to make everything work more efficiently together. Features such as adaptive cruise control and many other modern safety features requiring the car to make decisions on its own won't work with a direct cable design. The DBW system uses human control, but has the option to change input based on the situation.

And there's no way the old cable design could ever work on a hybrid with two sources of energy <_< In my Rx400h, if i press the gas at any given point, the computer decides if i receive any power based on the situation. I don't have control anymore, it's kind of a scary thing :o Especially in snow!

It's a good concept, it just needs to undergo some more evolution before they get it right.

[SW03ES]

You're absolutely correct, this is the reasoning.

It just gives credence to the folks who say machines are getting too "smart" ;)

[cduluk]

You're absolutely correct, this is the reasoning.

It just gives credence to the folks who say machines are getting too "smart" ;)

One day i think engineers will be able to make electronic devices as reliable as mechanical ones, but for now there are going to be glitches.

This is why i believe the issue with the 'runaway' car is with the car's computer. What's happening is that in some certain (unknown) situations the computer is telling the engine to rev up even though the main input device (pedal) is inactive. For all we know, this could be happening because a certain combination of things going on in the car (ie radio so loud, temp so low, windows down, etc) has a bad reaction in the computer. It might be the most random of combinations, but for some reason this combination triggers a confusing output.

It would be simple to find the glitch if each computer system in cars were separated, but it's not that easy. The DBW "circuit" is intertwined with probably 500 other "circuits" that all combine into one board. And why do they do this? Because of money and space.

Think of each "function" in your car that requires a circuit: AC, radio, windows, lights, engine, transmission etc.. Each requires a large circuit that would take up a lot of room and require a lot of expensive components if created separately. So what they do is intertwine the circuits so components of one circuit may also control another. This requires less components and circuit space, which saves money.

Like in my 400h, a little wire got broken on the speedometer cluster and for some reason my center console lights went out And you'll often notice that when replacing fuses, there will be several systems controlled by that same fuse.

It saves money and space to connect the systems together, but makes it very difficult (and in this case more expensive) to find problems when they occur.

[The G Man]

Makes me wonder just what was so bad about a throttle cable?

Drive by wire, beside being very important in Hybrid control, there is also the stability system, some car cuts power to the wheels when it sense a stability issue. It is also use for smoother transmssion shifts, safety distance control and non-linear throttle mapping.

[tim john]

What bothers me is all these super smart people in the auto industry and still a big ??? over this deal? I learned more about this problem on this site and others, and more info about my 04 ES then i get from the service guy or girl at the dealer. The parts man at my Lexus dealer seemed to know more then the service rep. On the way home from work, at 11:00p.m., with open roads, I tromped on gas a few times and the response is a little strange, a little delay and the it takes off like a rocket ship. Depends on RPM, gear its in. Very happy with the car. Did Toyota have to show someone the foot pedal was bad before the recall? The company I work for was doing bad, and the owners, from Israel, clean house from the CEO down to supervisors. We are busy now. Toyota needs to be honest and get this fixed. Keeping my ES for a long time, maybe buy a GS soon.

Tim

[cduluk]

I think the toyota/lexus engineers (wherever they are, japan or whatever) "know" there is an issue with the DBW ecu, but i don't think they've found it yet.

I don't think for a second that they truly believe there's anything wrong with the pedals themselves. They're just doing this recall to buy time. As soon as they find the problem with the ECU, they'll develop a fix and recall the cars again, telling customers "it's just to be safe".

If you look at the numbers of cars that have failed per total cars sold, it's a VERY, VERY small percentage. My guess it will take toyota less than a year to find the true fix, and between that time and now, only a few more cars will probably fail, definitely not enough to stir up any more drama.

[The G Man]

I think the toyota/lexus engineers (wherever they are, japan or whatever) "know" there is an issue with the DBW ecu, but i don't think they've found it yet.

I don't think for a second that they truly believe there's anything wrong with the pedals themselves. They're just doing this recall to buy time. As soon as they find the problem with the ECU, they'll develop a fix and recall the cars again, telling customers "it's just to be safe".

If you look at the numbers of cars that have failed per total cars sold, it's a VERY, VERY small percentage. My guess it will take toyota less than a year to find the true fix, and between that time and now, only a few more cars will probably fail, definitely not enough to stir up any more drama.

My feeling is that the floor mat, gas pedal and the computer plays a role in the different cases of sudden accelaration. By issuing recalls on the floor mats and gas pedal, Toyota will have eliminated soem future case of sudden accelaration. There no way for Toyota to issue a recall on the computer system because no one is sure if that is even the cause. Until there is some solid finding, the last thing Toyota want to do is stir up some more panic.

[cduluk]

I think the toyota/lexus engineers (wherever they are, japan or whatever) "know" there is an issue with the DBW ecu, but i don't think they've found it yet.

I don't think for a second that they truly believe there's anything wrong with the pedals themselves. They're just doing this recall to buy time. As soon as they find the problem with the ECU, they'll develop a fix and recall the cars again, telling customers "it's just to be safe".

If you look at the numbers of cars that have failed per total cars sold, it's a VERY, VERY small percentage. My guess it will take toyota less than a year to find the true fix, and between that time and now, only a few more cars will probably fail, definitely not enough to stir up any more drama.

My feeling is that the floor mat, gas pedal and the computer plays a role in the different cases of sudden accelaration. By issuing recalls on the floor mats and gas pedal, Toyota will have eliminated soem future case of sudden accelaration. There no way for Toyota to issue a recall on the computer system because no one is sure if that is even the cause. Until there is some solid finding, the last thing Toyota want to do is stir up some more panic.

As of right now, there's no way to tell if it is indeed a computer issue, as no engineer has tested the computers of cars while they were failing. As soon as they run out of "other" ideas (mats, pedals...), the ultimate conclusion will be that the computer is messed up somewhere, they'll just need to find where. There's no other component that could cause these spontaneous failures.

[The G Man]

Here is the lastest news: Federal safety officials said they will review complaints from Toyota Corolla drivers about steering difficulties on their vehicles. NHTSA said it has received about 80 complaints from drivers of 2009 and 2010 Corollas. Many said their cars could wander when they drive on the highway, making it hard to stay in lanes.

I guess when it rains, it pours.

[cduluk]

Here is the lastest news: Federal safety officials said they will review complaints from Toyota Corolla drivers about steering difficulties on their vehicles. NHTSA said it has received about 80 complaints from drivers of 2009 and 2010 Corollas. Many said their cars could wander when they drive on the highway, making it hard to stay in lanes.

I guess when it rains, it pours.

Oh my GOD... are you serious?? 80 complaints out of HOW MANY SOLD?

Next, people will be complaining that the heated seats are too hot, or that the radio is in the wrong place...

[amcdonal86]

Another improvement of drive by wire has more to do with ease of packaging. You can put the throttle body in more places and without having to worry about connectivity with a cable!

EVERYONE REMEMBER THIS THREAD? (complete with carnage photos)

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...=56647&st=0

Got closed because some moderator thought it was completely made up. Who knows, maybe it is. But my guess is not.

It's funny how one day everyone can call you a lunatic one day, but the next day, most people agree with your suspicions.

[cduluk]

It's funny what a year makes <_<

We shouldn't doubt this is a real issue. We have no reason not to.

Computers can have problems. I can give several examples of how computers make mistakes... Sometimes when i turn my phone on, the background screen goes blank for a few minutes, then mysteriously comes back (sometimes). Another example, sometimes my computer will freeze, and i'll have to manually turn it off (again, sometimes...).

The cars computer telling the engine to power up even though it hasn't received proper input... totally understandable. I can't even count how many times my computer or phone will turn on or off even though i didn't give it a direct command...

The issue here is that this "runaway car" problem is happening too often and is very dangerous.

[SW03ES]

But you also must remember that all of the scenarios involving driver error also still exist...

[jainla]

I clearly remember this whole thing from Audi in the 1980s. This was before electronic throttles, stability controls, etc. All of those incidents were determined to be driver error and the pedals were redesigned so that operating the car in that manner became less likely.

The good thing here is that Toyota has recognized the problem and is doing a voluntary recall. Many other car makers (Ford, GM) had to lose a court case and have a judge point a gun at their head before they would consent to a recall (exploding Pintos anybody? Rolling over Explorers?). So far that hasn't happened here.

I certainly believe that it's possible that electronic throttles can go haywire; but you have to remember that automotive electronics are generally built to much tougher standards than your garden variety cell phone or computer, and that the software in these ECUs is actually pretty simple and much less complex than your 9 year old copy of Windows or even a cell phone OS. So the possiblity is quite rare. Toyota does have one glaring hole in their logic in that their cars generally don't have a brake interlock function (i.e. if the car senses your foot is on the brake it disregards any signal from the throttle pedal) but they've said going forward this logic will apply in all their cars; and that the current ECUs can be flash programmed to have that feature added in existing cars.

As for a grand cover up I don't buy it. The numbers just don't support it. In the past 10 years they've sold about 20 million cars in the US ALONE. Say half of those have electronic throttles; and we're talking about how many instances of unintended acceleration? At least half of which are probably driver error? I bet just as many cars simultaneously burst into flame or had transmissions explode in that amount of time; no mode of transportation is 100% foolproof. I bet that a much higher percentage of Toyotas were involved in accidents due to driver stupidity than some kind of ECU/throttle fault.

The media has however succeeded in blowing this competely out of proportion in our blogosphere addicted, twitter powered world. C&D has a very nice editorial about the whole thing and proof that it's possible to stop almost any car even if the throttle is pinned here.

Toyota needs to do it's part, they should offer to replace the entire throttle control system and all associated sensors for anybody who complains of this problem just to be safe. They also have to recognize that cars are complex machines and put in safeguards (like the brake interlock) to help reduce the chance of a malfunction, but again no mode of transportation is 100% safe, it's just the way of the world.

Consumers have to do their part as well. They have to SHIFT INTO NEUTRAL or TURN THE CAR OFF. A car running a curb into a building I can understand that a driver can't react in time, but a car running down the 405 freeway at 120 mph? Really? And they had time to call 911? REALLY? Come on.

[amcdonal86]

A car running a curb into a building I can understand that a driver can't react in time, but a car running down the 405 freeway at 120 mph? Really? And they had time to call 911? REALLY? Come on.

I absolutely agree. How in the hell can people have time to call 911 when this is happening!