On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:09:16 -0600, the infamous Frnak McKenney
scrawled the following:

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:25:47 -0600, Don Foreman wrote:
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:10:30 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools
wrote:

On Feb 25, 9:50*pm, Larry Jaques wrote:

[...]

Oh, please, Wes. *Most of us here could deal with a WFO throttle
without a problem or crash. *Most of the affected vehicles have
4-wheel disc brakes, too. It's simply not a problem in the vast
majority of the recalled vehicles...yet.

Better think again.

Several reports now indicate that the brakes do not stop the car.

TMT

Those without reason rely on rabid reports. The brakes are quite
sufficient to overcome even the V6 engine at WOT and stop the car.

I caught part of the Congressional Hearing one one of the C-SPANx
channels the other day. The testimony of one of the witnesses, a
woman who described in great detail her experience with a "runaway"
Lexus, left me puzzled.

She clearly stated that she was able to shift into each of the car's
gears

Without overrevving the engine? What, was the throttle stuck at a
scary 05% open? CONgress would call that a runaway condition, I'm
sure.


and that doing so had no effect on the problem. She also said
that she had been unable to slow the car down using her brakes.

Since she had time to call her husband on her cell phone (presumably
a hands-free setup), whatever she was experiencing evidently lasted
for a while.

That blows the hell out of the "runaway" concept, doesn't it?


Here's my question: With a Lexus transmission, presumably an automatic,
how are you able to shift into Reverse at highway speeds? I'm fairly
certain that if I ever succeeded in doing this in a manual shifter
I'd have left evidence all over the highway in the form of fluid and
little gears.

I was stunned one day when I had reached down to feel the floor outlet
to see if the heater vent was working in my '90 F-150. I was doing
about 30mph after leaving my driveway and as my hand came back up to
the steering wheel, it hit the shifter and knocked it into reverse. In
about 2 seconds, I sat on the road in complete silence in a non-moving
truck. It had actually gone into reverse and stalled the engine,
stopping the truck. That blew me away. I had no idea that an auto
trans would allow that today, with all the other nanny crap we're
"protected" by.

I got really lucky that day and the tranny was still in one piece
after my stupid little episode.

I'll have to ask Toyota if that could happen in the Tundra, though I
doubt I'll ever accidentally hit the shifter again.


Is this an "electric" shift of some kind that would have allowed the
driver to request/demand the shift into Reverse but refused to do so?

Similarly, how would one expect a successful shift into First/Low to
affect a "runaway" engine? Wouldn't it at least have slowed down?

And why don't people run the logic of the situation and remember that
the key which starts the engine can also turn it off, IMMEDIATELY?
(Prius not included)

--
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
--Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)