Waxman: Toyota Told Us Gas Pedals Were Not the Problem

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

Two congressmen issued a strong statement Tuesday afternoon suggesting that recent statements by Toyota's top U.S. executive to the public about the causes of random acceleration were misleading, and that in private Toyota officials had said that sticky gas pedals were not the problem.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D.-Calif., and Rep. Bart Stupak, D.-Mich., questioned public claims made earlier this week by James Lentz, Toyota's U.S. president, that sudden acceleration was due to "two different issues," sticky gas pedals and poorly fitting floor mats, and that the company was "confident" that fixing those two problems would stop runaway Toyota incidents. Waxman and Stupak demanded answers from Lentz by the end of the week.

Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Stupak, chair of the Investigations Subcommittee, said that during a January 27, 2010 meeting with committee staff, Toyota executives said sticky gas pedals were probably not the cause of the more extreme incidents of acceleration, and that the actual causes of random acceleration were hard to pinpoint.

"Your public statements are different than the representations that Toyota officials made on January 27, 2010," Waxman and Stupak wrote in their letter. "When Committee staff inquired whether Toyota could be certain that floor mat entrapment and sticking accelerator pedals fully explained reports of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles, the Toyota officials present responded that causes of unintended acceleration are 'very, very hard to identify."



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/waxman-toyota-told-us-gas-pedals-problem/story?id=9730328

[alstephenson]

1. When is Toyota going to come clean???

I drive a 2010 Camry, so I have more than a little interest in this. I'm so disappointed in Toyota - this is my 4th Camry and I've always been happy with their cars, but their handling of this issue has been TERRIBLE!

[WriteDown]

2. This is a good lesson to learn....

In Japan, the company or the boss is NEVER at fault. Stupid consumers and their floormats.

[JaneFordA]

4. Cynical old me

I saw that report on ABC last night with Dianne Sawyer and the Big Shot seems to be not-so-subtly blaming it on the installation folks on the assembly line. All sorts of pretty pictures about how the big boys at Toyota have figured out a way to "fix" the problem with some sort of additional part.

Now if this were a hardware problem, it would have been found and solved a long time ago. In fact, the entire report seemed to hint at "wear and tear."

Wasn't one of the first news reports covering that fatal accident of a (relatively) new Lexus?

If it isn't easily repeatable (the first excuse we had), then it isn't a hardware problem.

It's a software/electronics problem. You know, the squints in the white coats.

The ones who seldom, if ever, lost their jobs in the automotive industry, anyway, no matter where they were.

My paranoia is high on this one, folks. I think it's a sneaky and subtle blame-game where it doesn't belong; if Toyota were unionized, I would be dead sure of it.

Since they aren't, I think this may be a hint that non-unions providing "living wages" may be on the chopping block.

IF this persists, though, after this "fix," then every Toyota bigshot should be assured his place on the tumbril for a date with Madame Guillotine.

[RamboLiberal]

5. LaHood had to send someone to Japan to get them to take seriously

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota was slow to deal with safety problems with its gas pedals, asserting in an interview Tuesday that it took government pressure to force the company to recall millions of its most popular vehicles.

LaHood, in an interview with The Associated Press, defended his department's handling of the Toyota investigation and said the Japanese automaker was "a little safety deaf" during its probe of the problem. The company was so resistant, LaHood said, that it took a trip from federal safety officials to Japan to "wake them up" to the seriousness of the pedal problems.

"They should have taken it seriously from the very beginning when we first started discussing it with them," LaHood told AP. "Maybe they were a little safety deaf in their North American office until we went to Japan."

"If it had not been for the work of (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) pushing Toyota to make the recall, traveling to Japan, meeting with the top officials of Toyota in Japan and telling them that their folks in the United States seem to be a little safety deaf when it came to us talking to them, I don't know if the recall would be taking place," LaHood said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/02/business/main6167391.shtml?tag=stack

[WriteDown]

6. Wow....just wow....

but not surprising.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. They flew an Engineer to Seattle to work over my Scion xB.

To find a damn 'klunk' on acceleration. They disassembled and re-assembled the engine bay 4 times, before they found the problem, and modified the firewall so the engine couldn't contact it under load/P torque.

I've found them to be very responsive to issues with the cars, without having to pitch a fit.

To give you an idea how obscure this could be, Ford had a problem with mid-80's LTD's dying in traffic, because they mounted part of the electronic ignition to the block, and it was overheating. It took 20 years for a class action suit to force them to fix it.

20 years.

You can be easily killed if your car stalls out on the freeway, especially in cars with boosted brakes and steering.

This is not unique to Toyota, it's just that Toyota happens to be the manufacturer having problems with it at the moment.

[ingac70]

3. It isn't the floor mats or pedals.

Toyota has made shit for years, and the media and their cult like consumers have helped hide it.

[CreekDog]

14. by that standard, everyone else has made shittier cars

the reliability and engineering of Toyotas is not a myth.

certainly there was a big screw up here, but that doesn't mean they didn't make quality cars for decades --they did.

[ingac70]

15. They managed to make quality cars for ...

approx. ONE decade. Between the Toyotas of the 70s and early 80s where the crappy bodies deteriorated around the most mechanically sound engine in the world, and the crap they started pumping out in the mid 90s, the cars were great.

[1monster]

8. My husband and I both had sudden acceleration problems with vans (not Toyota)

years ago and years apart. No one could tell what the problem was, so we traded my husband's van in.

In between his van's problem and my van's problem, I read something on the Internet about unexplained sudden acceleration. It said that in many cases the cause of the sudden acceleration was a small bead of moisture creating a contact in the cruise control.

I had just turned into my driveway and hit the break to park. But the van didn't stop; it actually went faster. I had my foot all the way to the floor and the engine was still racing. Fortunately, I had been almost at a stop turning into the driveway, so I had a small bit of maneuvering time. Since the house was coming up fast, and the breaks were not stopping the car, I threw it into park. (Probably should have put it in neutral, but all I really cared about was stopping the van before I hit the house.

There was a 15 foot skid mark where my breaks were trying, unsuccessfully, to stop the car...

My husband took the van out when he got home and also got a sudden acceleration problem.

The next day, we had the cruise control disconnected and never had another problem with sudden acceleration.

Maybe Toyota should check to see if there is any way they have left a wiring flaw that allows moisture to close a circuit in the cruise control.

[tomm2thumbs]

9. sounds reasonable - I'd send a note/suggestion their way

sometimes a 3rd party can have a different view that is more sensible...

Like the old story of the big truck that gets stuck under a freeway bridge. Workers try all day to use various complicated tools and methods to pull it out, when a little boy walks up and says, "Why don't you just let the air out of the tires?"

The kid has suggested the most obvious, easiest, most effective solution, and it's amazing no one thought of it before.

[RamboLiberal]

10. Could be - moisture can sure effect electronics

BTW, Toyota is blaming moisture as one of the culprits in the accelarator problem. I'm personally wondering if there is more than one issue involved in the Toyotas.

[WriteDown]

12. They have found the exact cause of the problem....

[ingac70]

16. lol

:thumbsup:

[RamboLiberal]

11. U.S. Said to Probe Toyota’s Electronics as Acceleration Cause

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. safety officials are investigating whether electronic throttle systems may have caused sudden acceleration in Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, as alleged in at least seven lawsuits.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is trying to determine if electromagnetic interference may be causing the throttle system to malfunction, said an official of the Transportation Department, which oversees NHTSA. The official asked not to be identified because the review isn’t complete.

-----

In a Texas lawsuit filed on Jan. 29, plaintiff Alfred Pena said his 2008 Toyota Avalon unexpectedly accelerated at a stop sign on Jan. 14, causing a collision. He wasn’t injured, said Robert Hilliard, an attorney representing Pena. Pena’s wife, Sylvia, had a previous episode of unintended acceleration that didn’t result in an accident, Hilliard said.

-----

“The fact pattern doesn’t fit the idea of the pedal getting stuck,” Hilliard of Corpus Christi, Texas, said in an interview. Sylvia Pena “was sitting dead still,” and the car accelerated as she released the brake before she touched the gas pedal, Hilliard said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-02/u-s-said-to-probe-toyota-s-electronics-as-acceleration-cause.html


The U.S. Department of Transportation is looking into whether Toyota Motor Corp.'s problems with unintended acceleration can be traced to defects in the electrical controls rather than just the mechanical problems cited by the automaker, a Transportation official said Tuesday.

“We're not finished with Toyota and are continuing to review possible defects and monitor the implementation of the recalls,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

When asked whether the federal review includes possible electrical problems with Toyota vehicles, a Transportation official who asked not to be identified responded in an e-mail, “Yes.”

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100202/CARNEWS/100209972#ixzz0eQVHJFcQ

[RamboLiberal]

13. Canadian Suit Alleges Toyota Electronic Throttle Control Defect

According to a PR Newswire release, a class action suit has been filed against Toyota and supplier CTS, alleging “inherent design defects,” specifically a “lack of failsafes” in Toyota’s ETCS-i (Electronic Throttle Control System-intelligent), in use since 2001. As in not the pedal assembly. A similar suit was filed in the US last November. Today, Toyota’s Jim Lentz was emphatic that electronics were not the issue with the ongoing recall, but shortly after the US suit was filed, Toyota quietly announced that an electronic brake override system would be installed on certain vehicles with automatic transmissions. Is that as good as an admission of guilt? You can bet the lawyers are already saying so. The full release is available after the jump.


TORONTO, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ – A national class action has been commenced on behalf of all Canadian owners, operators, lessors and/or passengers of Toyota vehicles with the ETCS-i throttling system.

The claim seeks compensation for losses and injuries as a result of the purchase or use of numerous Toyota vehicles. The defendants named in the lawsuit are Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., Toyota Motor North America, Inc., Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc., Toyota Canada Inc., Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. and CTS of Canada Ltd., CTS of Canada Holding Co., CTS of Canada GP Ltd., CTS of Canada Co. and CTS Corporation.

The claim, filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, alleges that Toyota and CTS Corporation knew or ought to have known of inherent design defects in the ETCS-i System and its component parts that have been used in models of Toyota vehicles manufactured since 2001. The consequences of these design defects, including the lack of failsafes used by other auto manufacturers, have resulted in numerous reports throughout North America of uncontrollable unintended accelerations, including cases of collisions involving severe injuries and death to drivers and passengers of these vehicles.

Joel P. Rochon, a partner at Rochon Genova LLP said: “This is a complex problem spanning several years and many models–we are concerned that the recent announcement of a “fix” appears not to address the ETCS-i Systems itself, nor the issue of a lack of failsafe which would permit the driver to regain control of the vehicle in the event of an unintended acceleration.”

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/canadian-suit-alleges-toyota-electronic-throttle-control-defect/