Prius locks up like a frozen PC

That's not a bug, its a feature. :madgrin:

I used to drive a 74 Ford Courier back in college. Under the right conditions (fog, cold temps), it was susceptible to carburetor icing. That is an interesting phenomena, to say the least. The throttle sticks, but eventually the engine starts to lose power as ice forms in the throttle opening. Almost self regulating.

 

Just a precision on the link above:

 

Who cares about what they think, most are probably still driving a Taurus and think it is the greatest car of all time

 

Ohhh, I've had to pull the plug on a Mac a few times to resuscitate it, but I still preferred it over the PC's - teaching multimedia courses and simply pushing the machine too hard with too many open applications.

The Mac fan boy students bet me that I couldn't do it..I laughed.

 

Wow. Those complaints may have been true in 1990, but no longer. I run Windows on 5 personal machines and never hang. I have upgreaded from Vista to Win7 with no problems.

 

Most people still run XP.

 

That's even more fun in an airplane, although at least then you have carb heat. Carb heat, on the other hand, can be a killer.

I almost didn't make it on a touch and go one time when I forgot to turn off the carb heat. Hot air is less dense, and as such it lowers the output of the engine. After I squeaked over the trees and a building I thought: "Why the hell is this thing climbing so poorly?" Seeing the carb heat still on quickly answered that question. Another classic case of pilot error.

Tom

 

So, if I interpret your post correctly, you only believe what you personally see. It certainly takes ambiguity out of your life, huh?

On the topic of unintended acceleration, well it happened to me. I don't feel any strong need to prove that to you. Oh well. However, every single automotive issue starts as narrative reports. Then, if we are lucky, engineers attempt to duplicate and correct the problem.

In terms of your broadly sweeping remark about no unintended acceleration, ever; remember Audi? They had exactly that problem and eventually solved it. Ford had it too as I recall. Sticky throttle cables. In fact, every single car maker has reported this very same problem (with widely different causes) over the years. Toyota has isolated some mechanical causes. I don't think they have worked out what ECU issue caused my problem. I know they are interested and care.

Also, with your attitude, I think I would avoid quantum physics. There is just so much there for you not to believe.

 

You need to try harder. Install more poorly written applications, especially shareware, and keep them all open. Perhaps your electrical supply is too clean. Iffy power can go a long way toward getting back to those hang-ups and crashes. If all else fails (or in this case, doesn't fail), install a bad hard drive. That works every time.

Tom

 

I agree that communication errors and actual ECU failures are unlikely in the unintended acceleration. In my case, the car was fine 99% of the time. Just once in a while it decided to run away. By the way, using the brake always caused the engine to stop racing, etc.

My very unscientific theory is that some internal issue in one of the ECU's caused the cruise control to take over for a while. My only proof is that when I was at a red light and this happened, the only way the engine stopped racing when I took my foot from the brake was after I (randomly) pressed the cruise control on-off button (cruise was off at the time). Flimsy evidence.

Based on my experience, the problem was electronic. I know the gas pedal wasn't stuck because I coasted a while before applying my brakes at the light. I know the brake override worked correctly. I also know that the "problem" didn't stop until I finally tried the cruise on-off button.

Why didn't I turn off the car? Cause I was curious to see what was going on and I was stopped at a light and the brakes worked. Also, I didn't think of it at the time.

 

It does seem extremely unlikely that a failure could cause all the various failsafe mechanisms to break simultaneously. Is it conceivable that a very clever and malicious software engineer working inside Toyota dropped something nasty into all the control systems (by the way there is only one ECU - Engine Control Unit - but lots of other CUs) that manages to subvert them all at the same time...maybe, but again highly unlikely.

It seems to me that it's much more likely that there is a sensor or mechanical issue with the accelerator pedal that causes the unintended acceleration, and this then gets compounded by panic where the driver fails to do the smart things (like putting the car in neutral or even powering it off). I understand that some earlier models didn't have break override, but I would still have thought that hard application of the brakes would stop the car even if it were still at WOT (wide open throttle).

There was a note in a quoted article earlier that the Prius is entirely brake by wire. Is this true? I assumed (and we all know how bad an idea that is) that the brake pedal initially operated an electrical system (the regenerative braking), but that pushing the pedal further activating a direct mechanical link to the hydraulic brake system. Does any KNOW the reality here? Just interested.

 

ECU = Electronic Control Unit

Hydraulic braking is normally controlled by operating solenoids (brake by wire) but there is a direct hydraulic path to the front brakes in the case of electrical failure.

 

Maybe flimsy evidence, but at least you're thinking about it and experimenting, not running screaming to the press. Actually quite an interesting thought. Also nice to get confirmation that the brake override works...

 

Electronic Control Unit.

All Prius have brake override to shut down power in the event of heavy braking.

In normal operation the Prius brakes are brake-by-wire. They fail over to normal hydraulic friction brakes. The parking brake is cable operated, which provides another backup. All of this is explained in great detail elsewhere on PriusChat.

Tom

 

If you're implying that Audi's problems were sticky throttle cables or otherwise mechanical, that is false.

And actually it more supports the "psychology" angle of the Prius situation.

 

ya, that must be it. i'm sure they han't looked at or even thought about the cruise control. probably don't even know it's connected to the car. they should call woz for advice.

 

All I can interject into this useless thread is, I have owned 3 Prii (all 3 generations), logged over 150,000 miles over 10 years of driving them, and I have never once, experienced any type of "event" or lockup/uncontrolled acceleration. I guess I am just lucky, eh? Perhaps the "mass's" should not be driving high technology cars, and would be happier in their old beater boxes.

 

Useless thread? This thread is pure art. No other thread has combined rampant speculation found in YouTube comments and the never ending Mac vs. PC argument. Genius. :madgrin:

 

My Prius went forward the other day when I wanted it to go backward. I had accidentally shifted into D instead or R, but I still consider this a flaw with the car. It should have been able to sense that I wanted to back up.

This potentially disastrous situation was saved only by me realizing that I wasn't going backward, at which point I stepped on the brake. What if I hadn't stepped on the brake? What if I had pushed the gas harder? This whole thing is unacceptable.



Tom