Toyota to Fix Accelerators after Largest US Recall

[coolman]

I guess they'll have to kill some more people before they get serious about fixing the real problem.

[RobAGD]

They can't admit there is a problem for legal reason, as there is a Class Action Lawsuit in process.

If it were a programing issue don't you think it would be a cheaper fix to re flash the cars vs actually replacing parts ?

-R

[Captain Awesome]

If they can pin the blame on "operator error" (i.e. bunched up floormat, pushing the wrong pedal, etc.) then they can pretend to be "helping" by offering to provide a "fix" out of the goodness of their hearts. They can give the impression that the design is fine but they will "improve" it by replacing the matts or even the pedals to make it so that "operator error" cannot happen anymore.

This replacement of a few simple cheap parts is way more cost effective than admitting a design flaw and subjecting themselves to the legal responsibility of paying the lawsuits.

As an added bonus, they can covertly reflash the car when it's in the shop for the matts and the instances of sudden acceleration will show a decline and "prove" that the matts were the cause when anyone in the future tries to sue.

All nice and tidy.

[coolman]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

If they can pin the blame on "operator error" (i.e. bunched up floormat, pushing the wrong pedal, etc.) then they can pretend to be "helping" by offering to provide a "fix" out of the goodness of their hearts. They can give the impression that the design is fine but they will "improve" it by replacing the matts or even the pedals to make it so that "operator error" cannot happen anymore.

This replacement of a few simple cheap parts is way more cost effective than admitting a design flaw and subjecting themselves to the legal responsibility of paying the lawsuits.

As an added bonus, they can covertly reflash the car when it's in the shop for the matts and the instances of sudden acceleration will show a decline and "prove" that the matts were the cause when anyone in the future tries to sue.

All nice and tidy.

That sounds about right.

[FenwickHockey65]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

If they can pin the blame on "operator error" (i.e. bunched up floormat, pushing the wrong pedal, etc.) then they can pretend to be "helping" by offering to provide a "fix" out of the goodness of their hearts. They can give the impression that the design is fine but they will "improve" it by replacing the matts or even the pedals to make it so that "operator error" cannot happen anymore.

This replacement of a few simple cheap parts is way more cost effective than admitting a design flaw and subjecting themselves to the legal responsibility of paying the lawsuits.

As an added bonus, they can covertly reflash the car when it's in the shop for the matts and the instances of sudden acceleration will show a decline and "prove" that the matts were the cause when anyone in the future tries to sue.

All nice and tidy.

Bingo.

You know toyota is the exact kind of company to pull that kind of bullsh*t, too. The owners of these defective cars need to raise hell and make sure everyone knows about it.

[The_Blur]

Why would they insist nothing is wrong and still replace the pedals? Something isn't right here.

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by coolman

That sounds about right.

I forgot to stress the point that by offering this helpful "improvement" to aid poor drivers and prevent them from hurting themselves, they will become more endeared by the media and their fans. They will tout this recall as an example of their stellar care for human life and humanity in general. You will read about this supreme selfless act of humanitarianism in reviews for many years to come.

[UCF w00t]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

If they can pin the blame on "operator error" (i.e. bunched up floormat, pushing the wrong pedal, etc.) then they can pretend to be "helping" by offering to provide a "fix" out of the goodness of their hearts. They can give the impression that the design is fine but they will "improve" it by replacing the matts or even the pedals to make it so that "operator error" cannot happen anymore.

This replacement of a few simple cheap parts is way more cost effective than admitting a design flaw and subjecting themselves to the legal responsibility of paying the lawsuits.

As an added bonus, they can covertly reflash the car when it's in the shop for the matts and the instances of sudden acceleration will show a decline and "prove" that the matts were the cause when anyone in the future tries to sue.

All nice and tidy.

As much fun as these sorts of theories are, there's no way they could pull that off. All it would take is someone to notice the TSB (recall notice, whatever) that included a reprogram and the NHTSA would be all over it. Just like they were all over these incidents years ago.....

Really, I don't think they could pull it off. This issue isn't going away anytime soon.

Originally Posted by The_Blur

Why would they insist nothing is wrong and still replace the pedals? Something isn't right here.

The NHTSA is forcing them. http://www.leftlanenews.com/nhtsa-sa...isleading.html

[coolman]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

I forgot to stress the point that by offering this helpful "improvement" to aid poor drivers and prevent them from hurting themselves, they will become more endeared by the media and their fans. They will tout this recall as an example of their stellar care for human life and humanity in general. You will read about this supreme selfless act of humanitarianism in reviews for many years to come.

I think you have thing whole figured out.

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by UCF w00t

As much fun as these sorts of theories are, there's no way they could pull that off. All it would take is someone to notice the TSB (recall notice, whatever) that included a reprogram and the NHTSA would be all over it. Just like they were all over these incidents years ago.....

Really, I don't think they could pull it off. This issue isn't going away anytime soon.

The NHTSA is forcing them. http://www.leftlanenews.com/nhtsa-sa...isleading.html

What makes you think they will TELL us they flashed the car?

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

What makes you think they will TELL us they flashed the car?

I'm with Captain Awesome on this. Toyota probably has an understanding of the issue but refuses to admit their engineering flaw for their design flaw because floor mats are believable to the foolish public who probably don't know what drive-by-wire means. Toyota probably instructs their idiot dealers to flash the cars that come in for the recall, and they will do it because Toyota said to do it without missing a beat in the bold lies of reliability that they will tell their customers.

I believe that they have an engineering problem. The tune is glitchy and causing some cars to accelerate to speeds that many of us joke a Toyota could never meet. All jokes aside, this is a really scary problem, and it would be unbelievable that floor mats would cause this, so the NHTSA is mandating changes that will make Toyota either admit that they know the problem is something else or will stop Toyota from blaming something so ridiculous. A mat sits there. An accelerator accelerates the car. The NHTSA doesn't care about the mat but does care about the sticky accelerator, so mandating replacement makes a lot of sense. Toyota will oblige to protect itself from blame for bad engineering in the general public, but every idiot dealer will probably plug in new programming without even knowing the pedal was never the problem.

I swear it's like doing business with the NSA. They'll cover this like the US protects its national security interests.

[InventoryGuy]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

What makes you think they will TELL us they flashed the car?

Really? Really?

Are you telling me that you people are letting your blind hatred for a manufacturer fog simple logic.

Do you really believe that any manufacturer can pull something off like secretly re-flashing computers without peoples knowledge or consent?

Do you really believe that the thousands upon thousands of Toyota employees will just look the other way when Toyota "makes" them do something devious at the dealerships?

Come on people. I don't know whether it was faulty design or the computer programs causing surging. But I do believe that Toyota will correct any issues that are encountered. I can say by growing up in and around that car business that Toyota is leaps and bounds above any manufacturer that I have been involved with in making things right for their customers. That is how they have earned the loyalty they have, not through clever advertising like some of you rocket scientists claim.

There is a great quote out there talking about winners and losers. It goes something like this:

"A winner acknowledges someones strong attirbutes and does their best to learn from it, a loser finds chinks in that persons armor and tries to tear them down." something along those lines.

I know this will fall on deaf ears and I will get flamed to high heaven but that is fine.

I think GM has learned a lot of lessons over the past several years, and I think they are moving back in the right direction. Everyone makes mistakes.

[InventoryGuy]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

I'm with Captain Awesome on this. Toyota probably has an understanding of the issue but refuses to admit their engineering flaw for their design flaw because floor mats are believable to the foolish public who probably don't know what drive-by-wire means. Toyota probably instructs their idiot dealers to flash the cars that come in for the recall, and they will do it because Toyota said to do it without missing a beat in the bold lies of reliability that they will tell their customers.

I believe that they have an engineering problem. The tune is glitchy and causing some cars to accelerate to speeds that many of us joke a Toyota could never meet. All jokes aside, this is a really scary problem, and it would be unbelievable that floor mats would cause this, so the NHTSA is mandating changes that will make Toyota either admit that they know the problem is something else or will stop Toyota from blaming something so ridiculous. A mat sits there. An accelerator accelerates the car. The NHTSA doesn't care about the mat but does care about the sticky accelerator, so mandating replacement makes a lot of sense. Toyota will oblige to protect itself from blame for bad engineering in the general public, but every idiot dealer will probably plug in new programming without even knowing the pedal was never the problem.

I swear it's like doing business with the NSA. They'll cover this like the US protects its national security interests.

King of the Rocket Scientists speaking...........

Mats don't just sit there. The floor mats in question have two holes in the rear of them. There are 2 clips that mount to the floor of the vehicle and the clips acutally go through the floor mat and hold it in place. Now where some flawed logic goes into play is that customers are placing the all weather mats ON TOP of the existing floor mats and there is nothing to seure them because the clip can't go through both. On the all weather mats they have deep ridges to catch dirt and water and the heel of your shoe catches that and slowly pushes the mat forward until it presses the accelerator down or when the accelerator gets pressed down the end of the accelerator gets caught on the mat and can't go back to the neutral position.

Now once again, I am not sure if that is the only cause of the issues being claimed but I do KNOW that happens because I have seen it happen first hand.

[manimsoblack]

Originally Posted by InventoryGuy

King of the Rocket Scientists speaking...........

Mats don't just sit there. The floor mats in question have two holes in the rear of them. There are 2 clips that mount to the floor of the vehicle and the clips acutally go through the floor mat and hold it in place. Now where some flawed logic goes into play is that customers are placing the all weather mats ON TOP of the existing floor mats and there is nothing to seure them because the clip can't go through both. On the all weather mats they have deep ridges to catch dirt and water and the heel of your shoe catches that and slowly pushes the mat forward until it presses the accelerator down or when the accelerator gets pressed down the end of the accelerator gets caught on the mat and can't go back to the neutral position.

Now once again, I am not sure if that is the only cause of the issues being claimed but I do KNOW that happens because I have seen it happen first hand.

The example you gave can and I'm sure has happened, but there have been site with people complaining about random acceleration for years. One was even on a test drive and when they got back and told the service dept about it they said it was the all weather floormats without even looking at the car and they had to explain that the just got it off the showroom floor and hadn't done a thing to it. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it just seems fishy. I wouldn't put it past any car company to screw a customer over, there's a dodge training vid on here about fixing a problem that they knew occurred in a bunch of cars, the fix was easy but the said in the vid to run X amount of tests after you found out the problem and before you fixed it to increase billable hours.