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The saga continues. Will Toyota ever own up to the real cause and do a proper recall?
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In a rather bizarre instance, a driver reportedly began to experience unintended acceleration from his toyota avalon and was able to drive the car to a nearby dealer with the vehicle still displaying wide open throttle, despite having the floormat removed. Dealer techs witnessed the problem and have reportedly offered to repair the vehicle free of charge.
According to a report from the safety record, on december 29, 2009, the driver of a 2007 toyota avalon experienced a bizarre case of sudden and unintended acceleration while driving on the highway, just miles from a local toyota dealer. The driver managed to switch the vehicle between neutral and drive multiple times, while en route to the dealer in order to show the dealer the problem as it was still occurring.
The driver was able to reach the dealer, place the vehicle into neutral, and allow it to continue operating at wide open throttle. The dealer sent out a tech who verified that the floor mat was removed, and pushing the gas pedal had no effect on the acceleration. The dealer was unable to stop the wide open throttle and was forced to shut the vehicle off.
This incident was apparently not the first for the driver, either, who had been to the dealer before about the problem. The first time the unintended acceleration occurred, the driver was able to slow the vehicle with the brakes and switch the vehicle into neutral – where the engine continued to hit maximum rpms. At the time of the first incident, dealer diagnostics revealed no problems in the computer.
The dealer eventually offered to replace the throttle body, accelerator pedal and associated sensors free of charge for the driver after the second incident.
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The Safety Record also reported on a one-car crash that occurred in Dallas, Texas the day after Christmas involving a Toyota Avalon.
According to the accident report, the vehicle inexplicably left the road and ended up crashing through a fence, and landing upside down in a pond – killing all four occupants. The floor mats were found in the trunk of the car – ruling out the possibility of the floor mat causing the accident.
The official cause of the Dallas crash has not yet been determined.
And some recent cases posted at a Toyota message board
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Well the fact that Toyota is adding a brake override system to the ECU via Toyota TechStream is a good indication that they are solving an issue without drawing too much attention to it. Some people do place blame on others for their mistakes, but this issue is widespread. ABC duplicated an acceleration issue without having floormats in. There's an ECU bug, and Toyota doesn't want to directly admit it because they'd be liable for MUCH, MUCH more.
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THis just happened to me today. Except I was just STOPPPED at a Red light idling. THe truck out of the blue reved up, lunged forward rear-ending the guy in front of me. Brakes non effective, eventually I got in park. Yes, all in a matter of 5 seconds or so. Sounds to me like a random electronic thing as I have not had an issue in 2 1/2yrs. Why now? In my case...mats aren't the issue nor is it driver error. Having your foot on the brake pedal firmly waiting for the red light to turn green does not equate to wrongly pressing the gas pedal.
i'd just love to see the media take this and run with it like they did with Ford and the Explorer/Firestone thing back in the 90s. partially because i think it's only fair, but mostly because people need to know and take appropriate measures.
I'm not surprised. The secular trend towards drive-by-wire meant that catastrophic software problems were bound to happen sometime, and the Achilles heel of Japanese companies has tended to be software rather than hardware. Going back to the San Diego Lexus crash that involved four fatalities, I never found it credible that a state trooper could have been foiled by a floor mat.
Why Toyota is in the process of fixing the problem with new floor mats and shortened accelerator pedals. I'd much rather be driving a Toyota than a Ford. Remember the Pinto
Why Toyota is in the process of fixing the problem with new floor mats and shortened accelerator pedals. I'd much rather be driving a Toyota than a Ford. Remember the Pinto
Why are you bringing up Ford's? I have not heard of a similar problem in the Ford line of vehicles.
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