On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:44:12 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:04:57 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:46:43 -0600, Dean Hoffman
wrote:

mm wrote:
OT Toyota

If it's not the carpet that's causing Toyatas to speed up, then how
can replacing the gas pedal help?

I couldn't find the article I saw this in again. The problem is
moisture getting into the accelerator somehow. Symptoms of a possible
problem include the accelerator being harder to depress, not operating
smoothly, and or not returning to the upper position.

Well none of that is the pedal. They were still talking about the
actual pedal on Friday, the thing your foot rests on, right?

Then today Saturday they announced something but it's still about the
pedal, right?

The pedal is not just the pedal any more. It is an electronic device
with a footpad that tells the computer how fast you want to go and
some other servo motor opens and closes the throttle as needed.

Dang, new-fangled English. If God wanted us to have new words, he
wouldn't have given us a big supply of old words.

In the past, metal rods or cables worked the throttle and a spring
pulled it closed. It is now a drive by wire system that should
failsafe to a closed mode, but evidently is not.

But, despite my complaint above, apprarently this accounts for it.

Now, of the millions of people in the US who have Toyatas, and the 100
million+ other car owners in the US, and many millions elsewhere who
have heard about this, how many do you think know what you just said,
and how many think they are still talking about the actual pedal? Both
because of the word and because they were talking about that before,
since it actually might have caught on a floor mat (but didn't).

Their PR depeartment is sleeping.


I'm still amazed and outraged. On my '95 Chrysler, the pedal is
still the pedal. There is a throttle position sensor near the end of
the accelerator cable, and a few other sensors unrelated to the pedal,
but I think everything else is in the computer, so there is no greater
meaning to pedal. So people with old cars -- I don't know how old --
are even more likely not to know what you said.