Comments on: Video: Toyota shares Prius demo video to disprove unintended acceleration claims

By: cblake

cblake — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 01:23:37 +0000

Disprove these sites, Toyota! You already BLAME the owners for EVERYTHING! Really listening to the Toyota owners? HARDLY! There are still over 3,000 waiting for you to respond to them!

htt://www.toyotasludge.com/
http://www.uc2.blogspot.com
http://www.toyotaoilgel.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs7WI2s-CVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNEZPKF_M_s
http://www.jacksonfosterlaw.com

Charlene Blake

cblake@erols.com
charleneblake@cox.net
Toyota Owners Unite for Resolution

By: rarson

rarson — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:45:22 +0000

Disc brakes are operated hydraulically. They are controlled electronically through ABS on every single car sold. There is “computer involvement” on every braking system available today.

By: plainspoken

plainspoken — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:19:12 +0000

Could be hydraulic could be electrical. No way of telling based on your link.There is some computer involvement based on the regenerative braking. If the computer is having a problem it could cause braking problems too.

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:12:20 +0000

“Something f’ing up and their cars having problems.”

I don’t discount that at all, I’m simply saying that I doubt the UA problem, whatever the cause, is going to affect the braking or transmission systems.

“I still can’t believe you just said your engine receives no gas when engine braking”

Holy crap, you’ve never driven a manual, have you? Have you ever looked at an ECU load map? I can take my laptop out to my car right now and datalog it for you so that you can see the injectors shut off when throttle position goes to zero and come back on as RPMs drop to 1500 rpm. Why the HELL would the engine need fuel if it’s braking?

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:10:33 +0000

rarson,
DID YOU JUST SAY THAT ENGINE BRAKING MEANS THERE IS NO FUEL GOING TO THE ENGINE???? AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! WHAT A FNCKING IDIOT!!!
YOU SERIOUSLY SHOULD LEARN HOW TO SHUT THE FNCK UP!!!

Wow…I still can’t believe you just said your engine receives no gas when engine braking….WOW!!!

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:58:43 +0000

rarson – “I understand that, but a failure causing the car to accelerate is going to be separate from a failure causing the car to be unable to shift into neutral. You’re talking about multiple failures in systems designed with redundancies; it’s quite unlikely to happen.”

Hmmmm, that sounds a lot like speculation. Again, you have no clue how a car will react when this is happening. Neither does anyone else which is why there is still a problem. I don’t care how many designed redundancies there are built in. Something f’ing up and their cars having problems.

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:37:05 +0000

“our resident Jack@ss Rarson seems to think that whatever he believes is his tiny little mind is gold and everyone else is wrong.”

No, not everyone, just the idiots that post without bothering to check their facts and spout horseshit all over the internet as if they know what they’re talking about. I can’t help it if I actually care about knowing CORRECT information.

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:32:13 +0000

“And you do use gas because your engine is STILL on!”

You’re a moron. If the fuel injectors were firing, the engine wouldn’t be braking. Any car with a manual transmission cuts fuel above a certain RPM (on my car, it’s 1500 rpm) when throttle position is zero, for obvious reasons. You can even feel it when fuel delivery returns when you continue coasting. No fuel, that sound you hear is the engine spinning, you retard.

“Learn how to count!”

Sorry, five.

“I don’t see anything there that tells you what activates the brakes mechanical or electrical”

You understand how “disc brakes” work, right?

“I had said, what if the glitch caused a problem with the computers that control the shifting. There is no cable for the transmission, it is all computer controlled. So it is possibly that a spike in electricity or some sort of short can cause problems in multiple computers at the time.”

I understand that, but a failure causing the car to accelerate is going to be separate from a failure causing the car to be unable to shift into neutral. You’re talking about multiple failures in systems designed with redundancies; it’s quite unlikely to happen.

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:23:11 +0000

iggibiggi – Yes I agree with you, but our resident Jack@ss Rarson seems to think that whatever he believes is his tiny little mind is gold and everyone else is wrong. He provides no proof and twists everyone’s words to make it look like they are stuff they are not. I have had more than one occasion where that idiot has disagreed with what I have said. It seems like he is more of an arrogant argumentative arse each time. No wonder he is no longer married. Who would want to be near him.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:43:32 +0000

ajm11,
That’s what I’ve been saying too. This car is almost all electric, if anything goes wrong with one of the computers, you’re pretty much f-ed!…or at least according to toyota’s lack of a failsafe system.

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:40:16 +0000

rarson – You are such a f’ing idiot you know that. I never once said it was a fact that the transmission could not be shifted into Neutral. I had said, what if the glitch caused a problem with the computers that control the shifting. There is no cable for the transmission, it is all computer controlled. So it is possibly that a spike in electricity or some sort of short can cause problems in multiple computers at the time. So please go out and ride with someone in a Toyota into a brick wall you @sshole.

By: plainspoken

plainspoken — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:45:47 +0000

Brakes
Power-assisted ventilated front disc, solid rear disc with Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) and integrated regenerative braking
I don’t see anything there that tells you what activates the brakes mechanical or electrical.(this is from Mr Divoced Guy’s link.)

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:28:43 +0000

rarson,
“When I go down a hill, I leave my car in gear, so that I don’t have to use gas OR brakes. It’s called engine braking.”
-Good for you retard! Want a god damn cookie??? And you do use gas because your engine is STILL on!

“Did you really need to accentuate your ignorance with four exclamation points?”
-Learn how to count!

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:52:00 +0000

ajm11: Thanks for the kind words. I respect your opinion but unfortunately I cannot comply with your request as this is an open forum, so I will continue posting as I like, especially when I read complete misinformation attempting to be passed on as fact.

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:53:04 +0000

Rarson – I stand by my last comment to you. STFU I have no interest in anything you say, so please refrain from dragging any of comments into you BS statements you jack@$$.

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:33:46 +0000

“Sometimes when I drive down in the valley, which has unbelievably steep, long roads, I shift my transmission into neutral and turn the car off”

When I go down a hill, I leave my car in gear, so that I don’t have to use gas OR brakes. It’s called engine braking.

“how does anyone know aside from those who have experienced this phenomenon if the transmission control is affect or if the brake control is affected by the glitch or not.”

Because they’re operating off of separate electronic systems. The ECU only controls the engine, not the brakes or transmission.

By: rarson

rarson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:09:29 +0000

“The pruis uses throttle by wire, electronic transmission engagement, AND BRAKE BY WIRE!! THERE IS NO PHYSICAL CABLE LINKING THE BRAKE PEDAL TO THE DISK BRAKES!!!”

Ouch. Did you really need to accentuate your ignorance with four exclamation points?

Regenerative braking alone isn’t capable of providing full braking force. There’s an entire hydraulic braking system on the Prius, just like every other car. Perhaps YOU should look up things before spouting off misinformation.

If you need more help, here’s a link:
http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/specs.html

“I know I definitely would be concerned about accidently engaging Park or Reverse in a panic situation and going at a high speed, which I would imagine would cause the wheels to lock up and then kiss your butt goodbye.”

Not in an automatic. If you put it in reverse, it’ll just rev the engine high as the gear tries to engage (assuming it’ll let you) and the torque converter fails to do its job (I imagine after a while you’d do some pretty bad damage to the transmission). If you manage to engage park, nothing happens. The parking pawl ratchets as the car coasts in neutral, and once it stops, the pawl engages.

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:03:17 +0000

03T4R – Interesting analogy with comparing Toyota to MS Windows. I rely on MS Windows XP/ Windows 7 every day as I am systems administrator in charge of rolling out software silently to my company workstations. If I were to rely on Windows to keep my vehicle running so I could get to work, I think I would walk. Similar to my thoughts on Toyota, rental car company tried giving me a Toyota back in February went to the counter beside and rented a Seabring.

By: 03T4R

03T4R — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:43:58 +0000

That’s a terrible analogy nastacio, there’s no disputing a blown tire. If this problem were that simple, Toyota would have acknowledged and fixed it already. From this video, it’s clear a regularly operating Prius is capable of shifting in neutral and slowing down with use of the brake. Therefore, the problem was must be driver error or something that affects the brakes and shifter at the same time of unintended acceleration. Sounds like a freak electronic glitch to me, like getting the blue screen of death in Windows…and Windows has yet to fix that problem. Toyota is like MS Windows…no matter how many times they crash, people still use them.

By: beatusmongous

beatusmongous — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:43:51 +0000

All this video proves to me is that this guy needs to hire a real photographer before he tries to make a video demonstration like this. Just because you have a camera doesn’t mean you’re any good at using it.

By: nastacio

nastacio — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:14:10 +0000

Were there videos of Ford Explorer’s *not* rolling over during the whole Firestone snafu? Ford should have thought of it.

By: ajm11

ajm11 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:19:45 +0000

svtrader – The only thing this video shows is a Toyota salesman breaking the law by driving well over the speed limit. He should be ticketed for this. This Prius was operating normally, it was not suffering from Unintended Acceleration so it proves nothing. As does the Car & Driver article where they mashed their feet on the gas and brake at the same time as the Camry V6 was also operating Normally. If this is a computer glitch like many believe, how does anyone know aside from those who have experienced this phenomenon if the transmission control is affect or if the brake control is affected by the glitch or not. With cars so computer reliant these days I would not doubt these people that say they can’t shift into Neutral as there is no cable, it is computer controlled. The guy in California the other day never tried as he was afraid he would shift into reverse and flip the car so we won’t find out from him.

By: svtrader

svtrader — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:10:51 +0000

This video tells me that Toyota isn’t going to give one penny to the real estate agent driving the Prius with alleged UA in California. If he sues Toyota, I would not be surprised if they countersue alleging it was a hoax.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:58:49 +0000

torquemonster,
Shifting to reverse or park in ANY automatic transmission in new cars does absolutely nothing when a car is traveling at speed. The park and reverse actions disengage after the car is traveling slightly faster than parking lot speeds, so shifting into it almost like a neutral forward gear…if that makes any sense

By: torquemonster

torquemonster — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:40:59 +0000

And to the kind of people who say these people are faking these stunts to then try to sue Toyota, I’m not a lawyer but I believe you can only recoup damages, so the lady in New York might be able to go after compensation, but it would only be for repairing her car and paying for the boo-boo on her elbow or whatever. I.e. she’d still be stuck with that car, and wouldn’t be a gazillionaire. The Calfornia guy didn’t suffer any damages per se, except maybe being out one pair of usable underwear. And I guess shredded brakes, but he couldn’t get rich either. (Maybe his wife could’ve if he had offed himself on the freeway that day.)

By: rnickk

rnickk — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:38:27 +0000

I can’t help but wonder why Toyota would promote a video of someone exceeding the speed limit (at least 92 MPH on video). The drive of this car better be receiving a ticket. I think he could have provided the same info and not broken the speed limit.

By: torquemonster

torquemonster — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:28:20 +0000

carstuff2, the California driver said he feared he might accidently engage Reverse instead of Neutral, and possibly lose control of the car, and didn’t want to risk this in curvy sections of the freeway:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/10/runaway-prius-means-more-bad-news-for-toyota/ (start at 5th-to-last paragraph)

I know I definitely would be concerned about accidently engaging Park or Reverse in a panic situation and going at a high speed, which I would imagine would cause the wheels to lock up and then kiss your butt goodbye.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:17:06 +0000

Everyone should adopt VW’s way of preventing this crap from happening. I have tried all of this by the way. Sometimes when I drive down in the valley, which has unbelievably steep, long roads, I shift my transmission into neutral and turn the car off. Even though it’s off, I still have normal use of the steering and brakes. And when it’s time to start going up again, I just push the key in, and shift back into S mode Don’t even say anything about how that takes too long to do…it only take about half a second to turn it on and shift!
I don’t think it’s THAT hard for every car to have this kind of preventative measures, is it? I know ford has a decent way of doing it, though not exactly the same, and some others have it too, so why doesn’t toyota just shut up about proving other people’s claims to be false and actually create a program that stops this from happening? I still can’t help but think that they are trying to cover something up.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:57:03 +0000

Check out this video I found on youtube, it’s pretty good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT07_JbnKWQ&feature=related

By: Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:17:06 +0000

Well, Linda Leith is the president of Leith Automotive Group in Raleigh – you could always contact her and see. (I know this much as a former employee.) Sorry, I don’t know the Sean guy as I never worked at the Toyota showroom.

Actually, I was hoping to see if he’d wind that thing up to 100+ mph. That would have been something. But I agree with ajm11 completely, this video doesn’t demonstrate much, being that it appears to be a perfectly normally functioning car.

By: carstuff2

carstuff2 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:13:39 +0000

The California driver did not put his car in neutral. He stated that he feared the car would flip. Kinda lame.

By: Beefcake

Beefcake — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:07:22 +0000

Just to add I bet the on/off switch for the engine of the car is also controlled by the same computer. Is there an actual physical handbrake on these cars with a steel cable going to the rear wheels? If EVERYTHING is computer controlled, this is a HUGE safety risk as you are relying 100% on the computer.

By: Beefcake

Beefcake — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:04:46 +0000

Did Toyota remove the mechanical linkage for the automatic transmission AND the brakes!??!?! Clearly in the video the transmission appears to be controlled by computer. Don’t know about the brakes… but if these are both controlled by the computer, and the throttle is as well… I can see this situation as being described by victims very possible. Think of it simply as the computer locking up, like an application hangs… a lot of times it will continue with the last command being input into the computer, in a lot of cases, throttle. Pushing a button essentially for the brakes or to try and get neutral would not work if the computer is locked up. Maybe the ECU is overheating or there is some electrical fluctuation caused by the charging system. This who thing just screams software glitch.

Oh and this video is funny as hell… proving he’s speeding on a public road. I wonder what the dealership manager or even the owner will do when they find out their salesman did this. Somehow I doubt he was asked to do it judging by the quality of the video.

By: The_Fez

The_Fez — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:00:06 +0000

I hate CVT transmissions.

By: nastacio

nastacio — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:17:29 +0000

Glad to know that cars without the problem don’t present the signs of the problem.

I am **absolutely** sure that had UA happened during this session this honest salesman would have quit his job and posted the video on youtube anyway. Makes one wonder about how honestly he deals with potential customers.

By: plainspoken

plainspoken — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:51:42 +0000

Johnny, tell him what he’s won!!! You mister Toyota salesman get a speeding ticket for doing 85MPH in a 60MPH zone and being dumb enough to video tape it!!!

By: externalpower

externalpower — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:15:52 +0000

Look at facts people have died, this is not a conspiracy against Toyota.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:56:45 +0000

rarson?
WTF is wrong with you? Do you ever do research before you talk, or do you just always talk out your ass!! The pruis uses throttle by wire, electronic transmission engagement, AND BRAKE BY WIRE!! THERE IS NO PHYSICAL CABLE LINKING THE BRAKE PEDAL TO THE DISK BRAKES!!! Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me!

There is plenty of room for error in this system. I just wonder how devastating a problem like this could be if GM had just a tiny portion of the problem that toyota is having right now…they would *permanently* go bankrupt!

By: RKelly14626

RKelly14626 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:41:49 +0000

So… did this guy just prove that toyota has a ECU problem… cause thats kinda what it leads to be… maybe a tranny shift linkage problem…? We’ll see when they break down the 2 Prius’ that just crashed… unless toyota set them on fire first…

By: beatusmongous

beatusmongous — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:39:19 +0000

* many UA cases out there for the Prius.

By: beatusmongous

beatusmongous — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:38:29 +0000

Well, the concern is with UA, not with just your foot on the throttle. Do you know if the Prius has a mechanical linkage to the transmission, or if it is electronic? Because if somehow the system is crashing, it’s possible that the shifter becomes unusable. If it’s a mechanical linkage and not controlled by any computer systems, then shifting to neutral should have been possible.

However, the Prius was not recalled, which means there most likely were not very many UA cases out there. Plus, that one Avalon was able to shift to neutral (different car, but still). We need more info.

By: rarson

rarson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:21:14 +0000

Besides, the point of the video is that you can shift the car into neutral while the throttle is pegged and the car will still slow down.

By: rarson

rarson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:20:10 +0000

“Since the brakes/throttle/transmission are all controlled electronically, if there is an electrical problem, which almost everyone believes there is, this video proves nothing!”

Brakes are operated hydraulically, and through a cable with regards to the emergency brake.

By: rarson

rarson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:18:27 +0000

“The car was jammed on full throttle, could that have prevented the shift?”

No. Did you even bother to watch the video? The guy had the pedal to the floor the whole time.

“as some people are claiming the gear can’t be changed when the RPMs are above a certain amount.”

Some people are idiots. That statement makes absolutely no sense.

It’s clear to me that the Prius uses a lot of unconventional technology which its insipid users can’t be bothered to figure out. The guy with the runaway Prius said he couldn’t get it to shift into neutral. I wonder if he realized that he had to hold it there? Pity that he didn’t bother to familiarize himself with the operation of his vehicle, since that’s the entire reason cars come with manuals. If I got into a car with a shift mechanism that looked like that, the first thing I would do is break out the book to figure out how the hell it works.

We just need to stop letting stupid people drive cars.

By: iggibiggi

iggibiggi — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:56:54 +0000

I have just one problem with this video. Since the brakes/throttle/transmission are all controlled electronically, if there is an electrical problem, which almost everyone believes there is, this video proves nothing!