Grommet in floor carpet

You can buy a tool at Walmart that installs grommets and things like tarps I don't know exactly what the grommet size is looks like 5/16 looking down at the hole maybe half inch so you would put a hole in the carpet I would use a leather type punch to put the hole in the carpet and then put the grommet in and smack it together with the tool I don't know if you can buy the grommet at the Toyota dealer I think it comes in the floor carpeting of the given car I didn't realize they had different complete floor carpeting for the base and upper trim level that's interesting I thought I had a base but I guess I don't because all my cars have the grommets in the factory carpet not the floor mats for the hook that holds the floor mats

 

#1) That little clip serves no purpose other than being a fake solution/fix for a billion dollar settlement back in 2012 for unintended acceleration lawsuits that led to many injuries and deaths.

#2) Harbor Freight and other stores sell Grommet kits. It's not a specific part you can buy from Toyota unless you want to buy a floormat for an outrageously high/scandalous price from a Toyota Stealership.

 

I think you'd have to buy the factory original carpet not the mat but the carpet and that's one piece it goes under both the front seats and the backseat if I'm not mistaken and flips over the edge right under the seat bottom in the back and then of course goes all the way up under the foot rest opposite the gas pedal and same on the driver side so you'd have to have the front seats out the back seat bottom and I think you can get away getting the carpet out in the new piece in with the holes seems like an awful lot of work to have floor mat holders. Seems to me you could take some of that new plastic velcro and glue a piece of that right there we're normally those holes would be with the grommets glue a piece of that plastic velcro down glue a piece on the back of the floor mat Make sure the glue is well dry and set and then set the floor mat on the Velcro the two pieces together in the car stepped down on it and don't look back hopefully probably trying to lift the floor mat out of the car now we'll rip the velcro right off the original carpet flooring because that just seems like what would happen.

 

How is it a “fake” fix?

If the mat doesn’t move and there are no additional ones stacked on top then it’s nearly impossible to get a stuck on accelerator pedal.

ALL of the deaths/injuries were caused by operator error usually due to panic, too many floor mats or other items contacting and jamming the accelerator pedal to the floor or some combination of the two.

Every single one of those horrible unfortunate deaths was preventable by putting the vehicle into Neutral and slamming on the brakes.

Which is EXACTLY what I did the few times it happened to me when working on or test driving customer vehicles as a Toyota dealership technician.

 

You're correct that is was caused by operator error as there are several ways to shut the vehicle down if it started to accelerate in a way that is "out of control" but when you're talking about billions in damages in multiple lawsuits and you're negotiating a settlement, there needs to be some kind of minor admission of wrong doing.

So Toyota said that maybe, just maybe their floor mats could contribute to the problem and they created a new safety protocol where all floor mats are confirmed to be secured to the floor when doing any kind of maintenance work and if a customer has a floor mat that's not secured their warned that the liability is on them, not Toyota.

 

Yes I know, are you aware of how many damn floor mats I had to move during my MPIs as a dealership technician?

That’s why I posed the question I did. It isn’t a fake fix by any means it’s the actual very low tech, free and easy fix for the problem

Additionally they redesigned the accelerator pedal, modified existing pedals on a wide range of vehicles where an updated replacement wouldn’t work, and updated millions of PCMs to have logic that if both the accelerator and brake pedals were pushed simultaneously while the vehicle was in motion that the brake input was priority and force the throttle to idle.

That last part is really the only thing Toyota ever did wrong by not implementing that pedal input logic when they rolled out their first drive by wire controlled vehicle.

GM actually was the first one that implemented this feature when they first launched drive by wire in their luxury Saturn and Cadillac brands.

Toyota lost a lawsuit over literally 2 lines of computer code and the general tendency of the public to be stupid , panicked idiots.

 

They didn't lose the lawsuit they "settled" the lawsuit and criminal investigation without a conviction or admission/proof of guilt. Specifically: "a $1.2 billion fine and a deferred-prosecution agreement..." which means that money is paid out as a business expense/tax write off.

As for the modifications and change in computer code and gas pedal design, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that was only done in vehicles built after 2010 and there were no recalls changing anything in 98-2010 other than securing the floormats.

And even if hypothetically a floor mat got bunch upped in front of the accelerator pedal, rather than behind, you simply slide your feet back to pull the mat out of the way. Also you can shift into neutral to stop an unintended acceleration. You can also hold the power button down to shut down the vehicle and coast to a stop.

Also to further the confusion of the discussion the video below added a correction to state that:

"VIDEO COMMENT CORRECTION- All Prius are equipped with the over-ride that cancels acceleration when both the gas pedal and brake pedal are pressed."

 

Usually when you're mat folds up it slides under the gas pedal usually now my foot slides off the gas pedal it's kind of high up I figured on purpose If I have cheap enough floor mats that they can fold up three or four times and get high enough to be smashing the gas pedal down well I'm probably going to buy some better quality floor mats You're certainly not going to do that with the factory floor mats with a grommet and a hook or not now with the cheap stuff from the parts store the junkie floor mats that last the one season or whatever possibly I like factory floor mats I'll pay the $159 17 years later to get a set off eBay brand new in the box no problem with minimal care they last to the 600,000 I'm going to

 

Yep... The type of clumsy unaware person that would allow the floor mat to gradually bunch up in front of their gas pedal rather than behind deserves to be given a Darwin award after they're dead. As in you can't fix stupid. Also our society should make it required training for every person born to learn to not freeze up with panic when a life threatening incident presents iteself. It'd save a fortune in health care costs!

If you want my advice on the best floor mats for cars, I'll send you to the memory foam bath mat section at your favorite big box discount store. It's super comfy and warm on the feet on long drives with no shoes and easier to clean than all the thin custom cut overpriced garbage.

And as I've already said, those clips to hold the floormats didn't solve a problem, it was nothing more than the terms of a ridiculous billion dollar settlement in lawsuit filed by people who lost their loved ones, or those who were seriously injured due to their own physical incompetence/freezing up during a life threatening situation not manufacturer defect.