Shift-to-neutral to get out of trouble - not a sure thing?

No big deal... FWIW, in my 2nd gen Prius, I tried all 3 tests (in a safe area when nobody was around) at Luscious Garage | Blog | Floor mat anxiety? LG TV investigates…. The worst, not surprisingly was pushing and holding power since power steering was lost and thus became very heavy.

Bwilson4web has a video up somewhere of using the brake w/the accelerator at the same time at highway speeds in his 3rd gen.

 

Yeahhh, that lady also claimed the brakes didn't work, the parking brake didn't work, blah blah. I doubt the car had every major system fail simultaneously! Most likely she was yakking on her phone till she wondered why everyone else was going awfully slow, then saw the speedo and freaked out! Anyway, I read in another thread that if you try to shift the Prius into reverese it'll immediately go in neutral.

 

Any ideas about the gen 3 with the electric steering? Does it still work after you turn things off?

 

Toyota found that the brakes were all burned out on this accident. They concluded that the lady kept the wheels spin and then applied the brakes until they burned out.

 

Worn out as in lack of maintenance or as in burnt out?

 

The shifting to Neutral doesn't turn off the system. There's no real reason to Power OFF until you are safely stopped on the side of the road. Needing to do this would only be in the event that the stars and planets aligned in just such a way as to choose your specific vehicle to be the one.

I know thousands of Toyota owners, literally. None - as in Zero - have ever mentioned any UA issues, sticky brake pedals, mat interference or anything such as this. ONE person who also has posted herein did mention that she felt the 'bump' on her new 2010 Prius. That's it.

Myself, over the last 20 yrs, including my wife and children and over nine different Toyota's we've never experienced any of these issues ever. This covers at least 1 million road miles in those 20 yrs. In our collective view we then would have to be the unluckiest person(s) on the road to experience one of these issues.

Nevertheless I have tested the shift-to-N and shift-to-R at speeds up to 75 mph in my Prius and in my wife's Highlander. It works as stated above....perfectly. I have also accelerated strongly to WOT up to ~65 mph without shifting to Neutral and jammed on the brakes while not letting off the gas pedal....I almost ate the steering wheel while my 2005 Prius came to a sudden jolting stop.

Therefore this entire dustup is IOHO .. nothing. I never ever believe anyone else in these matters. I always do for myself to see if I find any credence in any of the claims. I don't.

 

I have said this before, almost all cars can come to a complete stop with full throttle, once.

Almost any car will burn out the brakes if you attempt to slow the car, rather than attempt to stop the car.

 

Recall that this crash did not involve a Prius. The shifter was more conventional, but still something different than his normal car.

A failure in any system can result in loss of control. This is true regardless of the technology: electronic, mechanical, pneumatic, or anything else. This is why engineers design redundant and failsafe systems. Properly designed, any of the technologies will be safe. Poorly designed, any of them can be dangerous.

Tom

 

^^^This, ...once...is the key word.

 

Shifting to neutral requires a hold in 'N' to prevent inadvertent shifting to neutral while driving (see Owner's manual, Section 2-1, "Driving Procedures/Transmission", pg. 171 or thereabouts), not defined as to specific time but manual states "for a while".

Interestingly, reviewing Section 2-1, "Driving Procedures/Alarms", pg.176, shows us that all of the following behaviors will shift the car immediately into 'N':
1) Pressing 'P' while car is in motion
2) Attempting 'R' while car moving forward
3) Attempting 'D' while car moving backward

Seems to me, in an emergency, the easiest thing to do is to hit 'P' as if it were an emergency switch. Doesn't matter if you are moving forward or backwards, there will be no damage and the transmission will switch immediately to 'N'.

On a related note - does anyone know if the manual parking brakes apply only to the rear wheels or all 4? In an emergency brake failure, shouldn't the parking brake work just as well (so long as it's all 4 wheels otherwise the car is likely to slide on locked rear wheels)

 

No disrespect intended, but if you listen to the 911 tape it's clear that he was in a panic mode. He was only speaking the whole time, never listening or answering to the 911 operator who even suggested that he shut the engine off. I'm not sure what caused the problem, but it was clear he was so focused on the unintended acceleration it doesn't sound like he tried any other alternatives to stop. At the end he simply gave up and let the car do its thing.

I'm not sure I would've reacted any differently in a car that is speeding out of control, but this is where we learn from the tragedies of others. After listening to that tape, I would hope that should a similar situation arise, I will be reminded to keep focused on the driving and find a solution.

In aviation we have a great phrase that applies equally well here:
"Aviate, Navigate, Communicate". In that order. We should be focusing first on keeping the car away from hazards, trying to slow down the car, and then finally, when safe, identify your location so you can call 911 and let them know. Calling them while you are in trouble won't help much - they're just a voice on the other end of the phone. Ideally, perhaps a passenger can call while you focus on the driving.

 

That Lexus had a conventional Automatic transmission with a gated shifter.
http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/g/l/1/jf_09is_ShiftGate.jpg
Finding N in a rental with that gate maybe nontrivial.

By comparison, on a Prius with the eCVT transmission, you can find N easy but need to hold N for a second.

 

All the more reason, when you rent a car, especially a model with which you are not familiar, to read the manual and take the time to understand how to operate the vehicle before driving it off.

People need to treat vehicles with more respect - they are complicated machines, and while you could just hop in one and go it wouldn't be the safest route. Just like most pilots could probably hop into any other single-engine plane and make it go, it wouldn't be the safest thing.

 

Yes it still works just fine. It's not really electric steering it's manual steering with an electric motor assist. It has a circuit that senses when you put pressure on the steering wheel and uses the motor to help you turn the steering.

When the car is shut off you still have manual steering which is easier to turn than normal hydraulic power steering with the engine off because you don't have to move fluid around in the system by hand.

 

Just the rear and there is no guarantee that the cables that operate the brakes will be adjusted equally so you my get more brake on one rear wheel than the other. I think it best to use it only as a parking brake.

 

Rear brakes only. Given that, and that they are non-assisted, the braking force is marginal.

Tom

 

Try for your self ... it's no big deal. Find a nice, safe, no-traffic place and see what happens when you:

brake hard over a pot hole
or
hold the gas pedal down hard then brake hard simultaneously
or
push the power button for 3 seconds

You'll find it quite anti climatic. After I did these things, I had to ask myself, "who are these people"? People lock there doors at nite, "just in case". So why not do it for emergency driving preparedness?


.

 

I suspect that by the weekend we may have more technical details about the Gibert and Exponent test configurations. Right now, we don't know which of the six leads were jumpered to what using what resistance to induce a run-away. Furthermore, we don't know if any of these leads share common path with other sensors. But a whole bunch of clever folks are looking hard in that area.

If we don't get more details by say Saturday or Sunday, I may put our 2003 Prius up on jack stands and run some tests:

But I suspect we'll know by Saturday what both have found.

Understand that sometimes a test can stretch credibility by being so far fetched and unlikely as to be impractical (aka., model rocket engines strapped to a saddle-bag gas tank.) Also realize that after diagnosis, the problem always seems obvious. That should never be used to assume the original designer was lazy or malicious. Sometimes even the best engineers are surprised.

We have seen one shuttle failure for every sixty missions and the shuttle is rocket science. Our best engineers didn't see the marginal "O" rings that didn't work in cold weather (or rather the engineer was overridden.) They also didn't see the ice puncture of the wing. After the disaster, these were obvious failures but before ... it is less clear.

So my suggestion is to be patient and give it to this weekend. By Monday, there will likely be multiple reports showing the failure mechanism and then comes the question of "what to do about it."

Because I've been tracking Prius fatalities, I know our car has half the fatality rate as the USA fleet. Other than 'being aware,' it is not time to panic. Just practice emergency procedures and stay tuned.

Bob Wilson