On Mar 1, 11:47*pm, terry wrote:
On Mar 1, 6:01*pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:



"In any passenger vehicle, even the weakest set of brakes is more
powerful than the strongest engine. There is no reason that a driver
should not be able to stop a Toyota when it exhibits the run-away
problem. The key is to not panic, apply the brakes, shift into neutral
and pull to the side of the road."

Sounds easy enough. ;-)- Hide quoted text -

While there may be some sort of unsolved interface problem that causes
an unexpected acceleration one does wonder how many genuine instances
there are? And maybe how many litigiuos one!

There may be also be something to the allegation 'Here's chance to
take a bite out a none North American auto producer'.

But how many 'incidents' are due to driver error or insufficient
competency in dealing with something unusual.

Every driver SHOULD, although one doubts whether many do, know what to
do if/when their vehicle acts in an unexpected manner.

For example when we started towing a trailer with a 1976 Chev. Impala
we reviewed what could happen if, for example we lost the car's power
assisted hydraulic brakes (no dual braking then!) and/or the engine
stopped and we had no power assisted brakes or steering. With engine
off we then practiced bringing the whole rig to a stop by using the
foot operated parking brake. Never had to do it for real but knew we
could and with the family and all gear on board.

In another instance we had a V.W diesel 'take off' (running on it's
own crankcase fumes on a warm day). Having read about the probable
cause we depressed the clutch, disconnecting the engine which started
to race uncontrollably; pulled into side of the road, stopped, and
then stalled the engine, hoping not break anything! It stopped and
when the engine had cooled bit we drove to the dealer.

Many years before, in 1953/4 we had a wheel break off the rear axle of
a 1926 Daimler! But again somehow we knew which way to turn the wheels
and brake (manual rod brakes no power assist at all) to bring the
vehicle to a halt without turning over.

Included in the above axiom of "Think about what COULD happen and
rehearse what to do about it", is that all members of this family
(except one) prefer manual vehicles and state a preference for a
proper hand brake lever located centre console. Which also means that
in certain emergency situations the front seat passenger could also
operate the handbrake!

How do you explain the fact that over the last 5 years or so Toyota
has a rate of these incidents happening that is 2X or 3X the rate of
other car manufacturers? If it was just people doing something
wrong, the rates should be about the same. They are not. I saw a
chart comparing them and GM was low, at like 1/3 the number of
Totyota. And Toyota was similar to other manufacturers before they
moved to the new fly by wire system. Which is not to say that proves
it's an electronic problem, it could be something mechanical in the
design too, but it does tend to support that it's an electronic
problem.