New GenIII brake recall affects 87,000 cars

Thanks, I started looking:

I started looking through the excel files and the two small ones I started with looked to be some sort of database search terms or table definitions. They look like Dbase(?) but otherwise structural and not terribly interesting:

• 01_CEB03CLMCOM01_++---_T.xls - 93.0 KB
• 02_CEB06DASINDEX_DASמ+ק+INDEX-1_T.xls - 114 KB

So then I picked up a large one:

• 28_DAS Search Results Reports_T.xls - 4.5 MB

This one appears to deal with the Toyota Hilux pickup. The format consists of screen shots, possibly Dbase, with translator notes. It includes a table of defects, their costs, and some interesting charts showing projected vehicle populations. It was like seeing the contents of an engineering folder for a project or study report.

But this post came in while I was writing my summary of three files:

Read more: New GenIII brake recall affects 87,000 cars | Page 4 | PriusChat

It begs the question,"What is the remedy?"

• Replace our Toyotas with any other car?
• Contact a lawyer and sue Toyota to get a 1/3 cash award and 2/3 lawyer fee?
• Petition the NHTSA to have all Toyota's recalled?

What is your proposed remedy? Read these documents and the problem is solved . . . we'll all be safer?

Sorry but my speculated remedies are contradicted by:

• Low Prius fatal accident rate - even during the recent "Bell the Hybrid" nonsense, the NHTSA reports did not claim there was a fatality risk even though they used some dodgy statistics.
• NHTSA Insurance Cost - Published March 4, 2013, the average for class, 110, Prius at 101 the 8th on the list

Now the source of these document is a more curious question. If they came from one of the lawsuits against Toyota, such evidence is often held to contain trade secrets and kept from public disclosure by the court. This is not always the case but it is a common practice as I found when trying to follow the patent case against Toyota. But there is another potential source:

Source: Trade Secrets Blog: Former Toyota In-House Attorney Stole Documents He Claims Demonstrate Bad Conduct by the Auto Company

Given some of these documents appear to post-date Biller's collection, it is likely they came from discovery in a court case. However, I suppose a Toyota employee might have leaked them. Still, I'm not seeing:

1. A feasible remedy that does not kill the Prius and put Toyota out of business.
2. A smoking gun from independent data like the NHTSA FARS showing there is a real hazard.

My eyes are still open but the initial set of documents are unimpressive as the Toyota pickup truck, Hilux, is quite removed from PriusChat and our typical rides.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,
Are you now insinuating my motivation is that I am in cahoots with plaintiffs attorneys or regulators? That is hardly the case. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps soon the proof of what I say will be public.
Anyway, as I said before, speculating on my motives is really a waste of time, Bob. Should I speculate on yours? It is a waste of time.

Most of the disclosed documents originated with several of Toyota's defense law firms. Some originated with plaintiffs law firms. I was simply in the role of pressured editor of so-so translations for most of them, and in the role of translator for some. The quality of the translations is not great, by and large, but as I am disclosing them totally as a volunteer, retranslating all of them would be overwhelming, so I just made the source Japanese documents also available in Dropbox so anyone with a serious interest in a document can have it re-translated to confirm what it says. Plenty of documents are pretty boring, like drafts of say-nothing press releases. That's just what I got. I did not sort them out because each prospective reader of docs will be interested in different aspects.
The subtleties of Japanese are widely understood. I've been translating since 1978 so I've faced my share of puzzles. Japanese will always defend themselves against translations by saying no one but a native Japanese can ever understand Japanese well enough to translate it accurately. Well, I say that Toyota's defense law firms, who were preparing these documents for submission to the Department of Justice and SEC investigators, were perfectly content with the quality of these translations.

 

Bob,
My educated guess about the significance of the Toyota information systems show that Toyota had the infrastructure to get a handle on warranty repairs, design flaws. and complaints if they wanted to, but they didn't. Perhaps this is a result of the too-fast company growth.
One executive said to Congress that the company did not proactively delve into its databases for clues about upcoming quality problems. (This was a "see no evil" approach to problems in on-road vehicles; in my opinion, based on a reading of many documents, they did that to protect themselves from legal liabilities...if they do not look for certain problems, or report certain problems, then they can say we did not know about those problems.) When the SUA crisis arose, some documents showed that they had to scramble to analyze NHTSA complaint data to try to figure out what was going on.

This view of Toyota's possibly willful ignorance of SUA problems is echoed in the documents analysis provided by one of the highly qualified experts who reviewed the docs for Corporate Counsel magazine. Regarding a document that shows dealers are not making reports about non-repeatable SUA incidents, he said:

"This seems a completely bone headed way of dealing with customer complaints and one highly likely to be very counter-productive for Toyota because they thereby cut themselves off from customer feedback which would be a vital source of information about problems arising."

As I said yesterday, I suggest that you look for the Prius brakes files for information about the engineering challenges faced by the brakes designers.

Betsy

 

I called my dealer, Serra Toyota, and asked if they had any more recent information about the brake recall. They confirmed our 2010 is impacted (already knew this from Toyota's web page) but they have nothing more current about when the fix would be available.

For now, I'm OK with leaving our 2010 parked with just a weekly run to keep the 12V battery charged. Thursday I need to drop a failed, plasma TV off at a repair shop but being aware of the problem, I'm OK with taking a conservative route that minimizes braking and speeds. Furthermore, I'm ready to use the parking brake as well as "B" to augment stopping. I'm reasonably sure the failure mechanism partially fails one part of the hydraulic brakes.

We use our 2010 Prius for oversized loads and cross country errands. I have a 2003 Prius for commuting and it recently ran ~750 miles on a single, 12.2 gallons. But others may want to ask if there will be a 'loaner' while waiting on the permanent fix. I didn't because we are OK but not everyone has our choices.

Bob Wilson

 

Hi Bob,
The documents did not originate from Dimitrios Biller.
Some of the documents have a court protective order, which was imposed according to Toyota's request, so I am violating that order by disclosing them. The rest of the documents do not seem to have any protective order on them, and I am disclosing them in deliberate breach of my NDA with the translation agency that worked for Toyota's defense firms. The main defense firm, Debevoise & Plimpton in NYC, appears to have been representing Toyota to the DOJ and SEC. However, the Prius brakes documents were probably not from that firm, but were probably meant for discovery in some kind of lawsuit or government investigation by the NHTSA regulators.
If there are trade secrets involved, I don't know, and I would venture a guess that there are none because trade secrets have a shelf life.

No one is initially impressed by these documents, Bill. As has been discussed, there is no obvious smoking gun. They are complicated, boring, and it takes a lot of hard work to connect the technical dots, and maybe also subpoena power and depositions to get at their real meaning and significance from the authors themselves. Some of the people accessing these documents now may be able to bring these resources to bear. For your average person, most are pretty tough to understand. That is why I tried to point you specifically to the Prius brakes docs, where the emails are sometimes quite revealing, in my view.

As for a remedy, great question. A reporter asked that same question a few days ago about remedies for SUA specifically. This is what I came up with after consulting with experts-- not a comprehensive list:

1. Kill switch, including even retrofit.
2. Warranty and customer service changes that presuppose SUA drivers can be believed, even when failure cannot be replicated.
3. Overhaul of engineering practices to thoroughly incorporate state-of-the-art functional safety engineering according to relevant IEC and ISO standards; this may mean adopting best practices from other industries such as aviation and aerospace.
4. Programs to inform and train drivers on how to react to SUA and other unexpected vehicle behavior that can happen due to electronic glitches (there are now growing numbers of incidents of sudden uncommanded braking and sudden uncommanded steering in other auto makes, and even the limp-home mode must be trained for because it can be dangerous if it occurs while on the freeway, for examples...)
5. Laws that recognize that drivers are not responsible for even intermittent electronics-based vehicle behavior that does not leave physical evidence., to prevent jail time for innocent drivers.
6. Most important, going forward, is an industry acceptance of third-party functional safety certification of all autos sold in the US. (this will take legislation, and that is my ultimate goal...).

NHTSA is about to solicit bids for a study on auto electronics safety, including advanced electronics. Hopefully, the vendor eventually chosen for that study will recommend improvements to existing laws and regulations that will boost consumer protection.

Public access to the documents can serve as a deterrent to automakers for the future and I hope that will lead to safer cars. The main target recipients for the disclosure are not you or the people here. But I hope that when ordinary owners can also access the documents, the information and power imbalance between owners and Toyota will be slightly shifted in the owners' favor. I hope Toyota will take sufficient notice that they will overhaul their engineering so that in the future it can bear full scrutiny by anyone.

As for what remedies are available to SUA victims, in the worst cases you can sue. In milder cases, I respectfully suggest that consumers should not go to Toyota dealers but to well-trained independent mechanics who can do their utmost to replicate the problem and document it, and then maybe sue or complain. If a lawsuit is not brought, then the relevant parts should be replaced and the failed parts saved. I can arrange that the parts can be given to highly qualified forensic engineers for analysis on a volunteer basis. If a defect is found, the engineer can write up a defect petition to NHTSA and sometimes it will spark a defect investigation that can lead to a recall. This process was done on a Prius some months back, (it had an SUA one day and a snapped steering shaft the next day) and the engineer did discover a steering shaft defect that has now been turned into a formal defect investigation by NHTSA. This has been in the news.
Anyone interested in submitting failed parts for analysis by engineers should contact me offline.

Betsy

 

I think you have been clear about your motives but perhaps not complete in understanding the consequences. As for my motives:

• 2003 Prius - daily commuting car, ~$17,000 paid
• 2010 Prius - wife's car for cross country, ~$24,000 paid

So we have about $41,000 in Prius on the driveway and though my wife is not driving much, I drive both and I'm her primary care giver. I don't need an accident to impact our family well being.

In one respect, posting critical information in PriusChat follows a familiar pattern . . . the signature of Prius-skeptics. It wasn't until we bought our first Prius in 2005 that I had no idea how much time and energy is spent (wasted) by Prius-skeptics:

• Prius total lifetime costs are greater than a Hummer - CNW Marketing
• Prius battery nickel destroyed a Canadian mining town - Sunday Mail
• Prius EPA MPG is inflated - EPA.gov redefined the test
• Prius are a hazard to pedestrians - NHTSA and S.841
• Prius are environmental hazards - Top Gear and the battery
• Prius battery replacement negates mileage savings - various
• Prius must be taxed extra because they don't buy enough gasoline - various state governments
• [diesels | EVs] are as good or better than a Prius - various advocates

When a Prius owner reports a problem, I am interested and investigate because . . . my butt is in a Prius just about every day of the week. But when a non-Prius owner claims a problem with the Prius, well the first step is to look at their claims, their facts and data.

My interest are in those documents that have engineering metrics and analysis. I did get the impression they came from one or more legal proceedings.

I fully appreciate the problem, the cultural aspects that make translation sometimes so difficult(*). It is why I am more interested in the engineering related documents. I've read just under a dozen, SAE papers by Toyota engineers; "The Prius That Shook The World"; the 2003 and 2010 Maintenance manuals, and other Japanese-to-English articles. If I hadn't taken two semesters of Japanese and been stationed on Okinawa for a year, they would have made a lot less sense.

Bob Wilson

* - When as a young Marine I was transfered to Okinawa, I decided to take the hardest, college night school courses to find out if I could do college level work. English has always been a problem so I decided to take Japanese, two semesters and got a "B" and "C". But since I was in Okinawa, I tried to practice both spoken and written Japanese at the restaurants and bars.

At first, the hostesses at the bars were friendly enough until I started practicing my Japanese. Suddenly, they were not so friendly. I mentioned this to one of my fellow Marines and he told me,'The only GIs who they meet speaking Japanese have learned it from the Japanese girl friends and you are at the bar without her. You are butterfly.' (Butterfly is a term for being unfaithful.)

No problem, I had advanced to the point where I was working on the kana. So I brought my books in and asked for their help reading and writing. Well my social life did not improve but at least they started calling me sensei. <grins>

 

Comments inserted:

* * * quoted material * * *
As for a remedy, great question. A reporter asked that same question a few days ago about remedies for SUA specifically. This is what I came up with after consulting with experts-- not a comprehensive list:

1. Kill switch, including even retrofit.

In August 2009, a family of four died in Lexus crash when the floor-mat jammed under the brake. The police officer driver, Mark Saylor did not: (1) shift into "N" or (2) hold the "Power" button the second or two it takes to shutdown the car. Instead, he drove down a highway at high speed, did not turn off the pavement and into fields and shoulders. He was a police officer, someone trained in high-speed driving. But folks in the various Prius forums were curious so we conducted our own experiments (feel free to use the search function to see what we discovered)

1. The Prius brakes will stop the car even if the accelerator is held to the floor and the car traveling at a high speed.
2. The Prius will shift into "N" at anytime or "R" which also puts the car in "N" taking all engine power off.
3. Holding the "Power" button stops the engine.

The existing controls already incorporate a "kill switch" and since it would not be used in ordinary driving, there is no opportunity to train and practice use of the "kill switch." But there are "kill switches" called the shifter and power switch already.

2. Warranty and customer service changes that presuppose SUA drivers can be believed, even when failure cannot be replicated.

One of the things that came out is the built-in, black-box recording. When the air-bags deploy, it freezes the data and the subsequent analysis by the NHTSA has found evidence the brakes were not applied and the accelerator held to the floor. Driver error that confuses the accelerator with with brake is a common mistake with cars suddenly driving into stores or crowds. Mr. Google can find many examples.

There is no reason to take a driver claim if the black-box data is available showing miss-application of the brake and accelerator. The last time I checked, I thought the NHTSA was working on regulations to standardize black-box recording for all USA vehicles.

3. Overhaul of engineering practices to thoroughly incorporate state-of-the-art functional safety engineering according to relevant IEC and ISO standards; this may mean adopting best practices from other industries such as aviation and aerospace.

In 1976, I bought a 1964 Cherokee 140 for $7,000. Today, it would fetch nearly $70,000 as general aviation manufacturing has been all but sued out of existence. Even now, important safety and efficiency technologies are being ignored because it is too expensive to carry the insurance required.

In my years in GE, Boeing, SAIC, and other engineering companies, from time-to-time we've had "the latest" training or QA programs come down. Things like TQ stamps, quality circles, structured programming, good ISO-9000, and bad ISO-9000. What I've found is 90% of them are taught by sincere but non-technical idiots who have sold their nonsense to management.

So we all attend the mandatory training and take the multiple guess tests (until we finally pass.) There is 'great buzz' as we mouth the buzz words but folks return to their tasks and you can see the 'training' evaporate. We call it "just in case" training just in case some of it sticks. Mostly, a waste of time as it is the line supervisors, the ones who sign time cards and approve of work who truly set the standard. . . then the jobs are outsourced overseas.

4. Programs to inform and train drivers on how to react to SUA and other unexpected vehicle behavior that can happen due to electronic glitches (there are now growing numbers of incidents of sudden uncommanded braking and sudden uncommanded steering in other auto makes, and even the limp-home mode must be trained for because it can be dangerous if it occurs while on the freeway, for examples...)

I appreciate the goal but it remains impractical. The labor hours, training hardware, and expense is not going to work in the USA. BTW, much of what I've learned about handling vehicle failures predates electronic systems. Mechanical cars were no great safety boon. In contrast, electronic systems have the ability to mitigate more risks than they induce. They are called 'self-driving cars.'

5. Laws that recognize that drivers are not responsible for even intermittent electronics-based vehicle behavior that does not leave physical evidence., to prevent jail time for innocent drivers.

I took advantage of a sale and bought dual-camera, dashcams for each of our cars. Not installed yet, they will be my witness but there is one unexpected consequence.

In testing an iPhone, dashcam application I noticed some lazy habits in my own driving. Knowing an electronic, recording eye makes it much easier to fully comply with all traffic regulations and signs. My own car will be watching.

6. Most important, going forward, is an industry acceptance of third-party functional safety certification of all autos sold in the US. (this will take legislation, and that is my ultimate goal...).

We call them 'Insurance Companies' and the IIS is their trade association. They set the rates which makes risky drivers and risky cars expensive to operate.

* * * end quoted material * * *

Still, my interest is in the current brake assembly recall. We have a 2010 Prius parked except for unique trips only it can handle. I would like to take advantage of the warm weather and see how many miles I can get from one tank of gas BUT this looking for a 'bowling trophy' and not enough to risk the car.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob, I've commented below but deleted your comments to which I have no response.

 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about this. Many of us have 'done the experiment' of testing use of "N", pushing and holding the "Power" button, and use of brakes to override the car with the accelerator held down. To a reasonable degree of confidence, I and others have hands-on experience showing they work today.

Will they work tomorrow? No knows but like many things in life, you pays your money and takes your chances.

Given there is no standard for black boxes, I welcome the proposed regulations. I'll never fault having machine recorded data which is why I have two dashcams in hand for install.

Ok, $30 million will be perfectly fine and solve the problem. After all, we're not dealing with tobacco smoking risks.

Prior experience as an operating system programmer has let me see both good and bad aspects of software. Some of the bugs are so subtle that it takes a bit of luck to find the root cause(s). But the same is true with mechanical parts or for that matter, pretty much anything humans make.​

​

My attitude is 'the world is broke and engineers are here to fix it.' So I'm fairly laid back about problems when I find them. I am sympathetic to that when the code is written, sometimes we don't have all of the information and go with "what works" to meet external deadlines.​

​

Bob Wilson

​

ps. Having nothing to do with the pending brake assembly replacement, these are personal reflections on my own code. I remember one "lessons learned" from my Marine Corps days.​

​

I wrote some code to deal with vendor response time of a 3d party, maintenance company to see if they were meeting their contract requirements. I had to write my own 'time code translation' routines and at the time chose an integer too small for the number minutes for the range of values. Sure enough, I got a phone call nearly a year after I got out of the Marine Corps when the integer overflowed. If I remember correctly, we converted the internal representation to a floating point number and the larger range eliminated the possibility of overflow beyond the sum or our lifetimes. <grins>​

​

Another time in 1980-81, I spotted a problem in a device driver I wrote while working for GE on the Landsat program at Goddard Space Flight Center that could lead to a problem. A device driver is a part of the operating system that interfaces with the hardware. It is where physical reality first touches software. So I reported it to the change control board and they turned down my request to fix it.​

​

Skip forward to January, 1990 and I am about to start a new job with Boeing when I got a call about "VAX channels." It was my last week with GE working on a Navy contract so I took a day off and visited with the Marshall Space Flight Center team working the problem. Sure enough, there was my device driver, 10 years later, and there was a problem. Looking at the code, I identified a potential problem in an error handling routine. A day or so later, I remembered this was the same problem that 10 years earlier that I had tried to fix but was turned down.​

Over the years, I have learned that modern systems consists of three equal parts of:

1. hardware
2. software
3. people-ware

Faults are often cumulative within and sometimes across all three boundaries. With very rare exception, I don't find people deliberately building systems to fail. Rather, as long as we are human, we will approximate the best answer we have at the time. The few times I found uncorrectable bad behavior, well I've helped them find a career where they can excel and without rancor. However, I do "dust the soles of my sandals" as we walk away.​

​

One last 'old man's tale,' decades ago I stopped attending most 'going away' parties after I realized the wrong people were leaving. The only 'going away parties' I do attend are those I want to make sure the guest of honor leaves as I'm prepared to beat-up anyone who tries to persuade them to stay. But the good ones, the employees I truly like, I'll meet for an after work, beer, and continue my friendship. You don't forget the good ones . . . and sad to say, sometimes can't forget the bad ones.​

 

is it bob or is it betsy? lol

fascinating

 

Vote for Bob

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

Hey! This is not a competition but a discussion . . . a way to share our understanding of the facts and data.

Some of you may already know I have disagreements with Toyota about some technical aspects of today's Prius. Also, I have been up to my elbows in broken Prius and have a fine appreciation for what works and what should be better. But then I'm an engineer by attitude and training and to me, 'the world it broke so I'm here to fix it.' <grins>

Of course I am more interested in the brake assembly recall. But this morning I had to use our 2010 Prius to carry a failed, plasma TV to the shop for repair. It lies flat in the back but I also caught myself thinking,"What do I do if the brakes go soft now . . ." and "How fast do I want to be going as I approach this next intersection?" I had already decided to take the 'slow route' that keeps my speeds under 30 mph . . . except I forgot about a morning meeting.

I'll probably work through lunch instead of driving somewhere for a bite. When I get home, the 2010 will remain mostly parked until it can be repaired. But then I have a second Prius not affected by the brake recall.

Bob Wilson

 

What is the chance of happening something within these days before repair/recall? You had your 2010 Prius for 3years (1 thousand days) until now. Probably a flat or blown tyre is more lightly to happen on a daily trip...

 

The car has 40,000 miles and this is in the range of three of the four known brake failures. So let's say I'm mentally prepared while waiting on the repair kits to show up. Just I don't have to take every trip in the 2010 as we have a 2003 Prius that is perfectly fine.

Bob Wilson

 

Trade it in on a 2013

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

I known you have been asking for info of the failure/odo, but also hundreds of Prii are in the same status as yours.
Mine is not "affected" by the recall, as it was built later (Toyota.pt), and still it can fail on this part...

 

You are correct that subsequent versions may still have an as yet, undiagnosed, latent defect. But this sounds pretty specific to one lot:

The specific failure mode, "fatigue crack", makes me think there was an early materials problem with the bellows manufacturer. They may have used a metal alloy subject to 'work hardening' and the eventual formation of stress fractures, the precursor of "fatigue crack." . . . at least that is my understanding of how that works.

With the right alloy, a bellows is designed to flex and there should be no fatigue crack failures. But if the supplier 'took a short cut,' well that would explain it.

The other hypothesis, they may have a bad 'radius' in the bellows flex joints. This could concentrate the stress and lead to fatigue cracks.

Regardless, once the nitrogen gets in the lines, the hydraulic part becomes a nitrogen gas compressor . . . spongy brakes.

Bob Wilson

 

Did you suggest a throttle override when the brakes are pressed? Seems like a good idea, is Toyota finally putting it in all their vehicles?

 

I remember seeing a Toyota press release about it:
Customer FAQs Regarding the Sticking Accelerator Pedal and Floor Mat Pedal Entrapment Recalls

Bob Wilson