Toyota Plans Press Conference For Today To Release Findings

And now we have parasites. Malorn comes to mind.

 

+1

 

the better an automobile manufacturer does in the marketplace the worse the company is to work with. 30 years ago GM was a disaster to work with. It got marginally better up to about 5 years ago, when it seemed to revert back to more of a partnership. The franchise agreement works for the manufacturers and the customers fairly well. The manufacturer could never provide the level of customer service at the price that the dealer network does. Over the years GM and Ford especially have tried to own stores, always failing miserably.

 

Here's a solid view from Edmunds who might very well have a better handle on this mess than NHTSA does. Posted as an Op Ed piece in the Wash Post..

Commentary: No Easy Answer for the Toyota Problem - Auto Observer

Some very interesting results of their analyses..

And this cogent comment..

 

I think Tesla has like 10 stores... this may be why. Or maybe it isn't a problem if they don't have any franchised dealers? do not know.

Too bad dealers don't have to compete on the basis of service. I would travel halfway across the country to pick up a car that I ordered on the internet, to avoid the "dealer experience."

 

I looked at about 50 of the NHTSA complaints attached to Mr. Kane's report on sudden unintended acceleration. 10 of them were complaints that their Toyota didn't accelerate fast enough...

 

thank you for reiterating this point again as repeating this was greatly necessary.

 

Good job DP. I really appreciate your posts. Edmunds is also on the right track.

La Hood and NHTSA are really over the top. What they say and do is NOT consistent with their records. The expense which they are creating is not helpful. There might be some useful thing done like:

1. Require that unseen pedals do not require moving feet from one pedal
to another, or
2. Hand controls for senior citizens,or
3. All controls by hand like some motorcycles.or
4. Adopt a rule that the driver will always be responsible so they had better be
careful.

 

I just hope to God Toyota doesn't go to the guy who thought up the reverse beeping thing! "Mr. Toyoda, I recommend different constant beeps, high pitched for accelerator and low pitched for brakes! And make the beeping really loud for those deaf Americans!"

 

"When we focused on the major automakers and limited our review to recent-model-year vehicles (2005 to present), the 52,000 complaints through September 2009 -- a fair stopping point, because it was before news reports erupted -- showed that every car company had incidents of sudden acceleration. This is not strictly a Toyota issue. NHTSA head David L. Strickland said as much when he told Congress recently that Toyota's rate of complaints was "unremarkable."

This tells the REAL story. Lawyers, the competition and the media have made this a Toyota issue. The truth is that X% of ALL DRIVERS will mistake the gas for the brake with terrible outcomes. Moreover, they drive a variety of auto makes/models.

Case closed? It should be, but those with a vested interest (listed above) will continue to beat the drum over and over again. No amount of logic or reason is going to stop this as their motivation isn't to get to the truth - it's about the dollar. Duh.

-Brad

 

Bold added.

But what if the wheels are going, say, 90 mph? Will MG1 still overspeed and burn out?

 

I think the most striking fact stated in the Edmunds OpEd piece is that the NHTSA data on UA claims is such a mess. I don't feel the need to pick through it on my own but having been part of assembling and reviewing "issue" logs before I can certainly understand the problem. What is disappointing is that NHTSA hasn't already done the cleanup of the data themselves.

- D

 

See this: Toyota Prius - Power Split Device

If neutral is selected, the speed of wheels has NO effect on the speed of MG1, MG2 or the engine. If the accelerator is stuck down, power will be apportioned between the engine and MG1 depending upon the load demand and the charge of the traction battery by the ECU. The lower the charge of the traction battery the greater the speed of the engine.

The condition which justlurkin describes is what Sikes claims and so he should have fried his MG1. The fact that his MG1 did not fry makes his claims about as likely as Hell freezing over.

 

Youd have to prove Sikes was a liar. Dollars to donuts says he's already been asked by some entity, and REFUSED to take, a lie detecter test.

.

 

So you declare. I declare you wrong. So there.

They should absolutely get out any info that can work towards clearing their name. If you knew of info that cast doubt on someone making serious accusations about you wouldn't you want to get that info out?

You don't hire a lawyer if you don't need one. If he isn't planning on suing and having the lawyer work on contingency then he has to be paying the lawyer up front. He doesn't have any money. Why would he go further into debt to pay for a lawyer that he supposedly doesn't need? Unless he realized he needs protection from the law.

Also, he did say he didn't want to sue, and that all he wanted was a new car. Hm... lease is up, $700,000 in debt... I'm sure he didn't want to sue, he probably thought with the publicity Toyota would make him a quick settlement to shut him up. Unfortunately for him that didn't happen and now he has all this scrutiny on him. It all adds up for me.

Aha! So he has a dog in this fight, his pride, reputation... whatever. That explains a lot.