After stopping at a stop sign I hit the accelerator and didn't move. All the lights on the dash were on, and not in error-mode, but the car didn't go. It was in Normal mode, the battery was at level 2, and I had plenty of gas. Few seconds later the pedal suddenly worked, and the car moved. This happened about 3 times in a row at various intersections. Then I found out from my wife that this has been happening for her, on and off for about a month! Normally I drive it every day, and she takes it alone just every now and then. But I'd never encountered this before. A few minutes later it happened again and lasted a really long time. We directed traffic around us, got out, moved the car out of the intersection (reversing it in neutral to park it in a red zone), called triple a. About a half hour later (after realizing that my triple a membership expired and they don't renew on the phone anymore) I tried starting it up and it worked, so I drove to a legal parking spot, and left it there, deciding to try driving it to the service place the next day, to save the towing fee. Next morning started it up and it wanted to rev and charge, so I let it sit there and do that, before I took off. I drove it to the service place without mishap. Problem is this: Service plays says nothing seems wrong, and the car didn't send any error messages. They keep test driving it, but it seems like a weird intermittent thing that they won't reproduce that way. Essentially they say "everything looks fine," but I know it isn't, but I can't get it fixed, because they don't know what to fix. I don't want to be on a freeway when this happens. Any ideas about what to do next? Or even what to think about checking or trying to replace? Thanks for any insight at all! By the way this is my first post and I didn't know what to put down for trim. It's the most basic one, but I don't know if it's "One" or "I," so I put "One."
Welcome and sorry for the problem. No idea but never had this happen to me. I think someone in South Korea or Thailand was having a similar issue to yours but cannot locate the thread. Sure hope its not a reoccurring issue for many of us.
welcome! and sorry for your troubles. i would call toyota customer service and lodge a complaint. perhaps they will have a field rep get out there to help the dealer. if you don't get any satisfaction, lodge a complaint on the nhtsa website, this is a serious safety issue.
I haven’t seen this problem, but I can offer a few thoughts: Are you sure the shift position was D at the times the problem happened? Might the car have shifted to P or N on its own? Has the car been checked for Vehicle Control History events (described in my previous posting) that might explain what’s happening, or did the dealer just look for diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs), not find any, and give up? Have the brake override system and drive start control system been checked, as specified in the Repair Manual (available by subscription to techinfo.toyota.com) for the symptom “Hesitation and/or poor acceleration” when there are no DTCs? Have the Accelerator Pedal Sensor Assembly, Stop Light Switch Assembly, and their wiring and connectors been tested, including checks for intermittent problems using the techniques in the Repair Manual? As @bisco kindly suggests, if the dealer can’t diagnose the problem, help is available from Toyota. The dealer should open a case with Toyota's Technical Assistance System (TAS), the dealer-only support line. Doing this is one indicator of a serious effort.
Thanks all. Elektroingenieur, those were very helpful checks; too bad I didn't see them before (for some reason I never got an email notification). In any case, the dealer matched this problem to Service Bulletin T-SB-0241-17, as described here (by Elektroingenieur, I just realized), and they performed the recommended update. Unfortunately because the issue was intermittent I can't be sure that it's fixed, but the battery SEEMS to be charging sooner, now, meaning it seems to be charging back up from level 2 more rapidly, and seems to maintain higher battery levels, longer, so I have hopes.