Suspending Sales? Wow!

[Westernskies]

Strictly speaking of odds, the odds I am going to have this issue seems to be about the same as my chances of being hit by lightning.

...or a runaway Toyota.

 

[TooFrugal]

to be about the same as my chances of being hit by lightning.

I actually have been hit by lightening. According to the National Weather Service, the odds are 1/6250 over an 80 year lifetime, so not as remote as most people think.

Steve Wozniak (the less famous Apple cofounder) was on the news last night stating that he has a Prius that has had sudden acceleration issues , surging up to 100 miles an hour, when the cruise control is on. So he believes the Prius may have a software, not gas pedal issue. He said he tried to contact Toyota about the problem but was never able to get through to anyone.

 

[W2R]

No one could ever fault a person for getting rid of that.

That particular 1992 Plymouth Acclaim was a piece of JUNK - - I never wanted it in the first place and two years before our 1998 divorce my ex gave my previous car to our daughter, and bought the Acclaim for me for $5K. Maybe he saw divorce on the horizon before I did.

Some people on the board had and liked Plymouth Acclaims and I'm glad, but it was really hindering my LBYM/saving/retirement efforts.

 

[easysurfer]

Article to today that the problem might be software related?

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says Toyota may have software trouble - Telegraph

 

[ziggy29]

That particular 1992 Plymouth Acclaim was a piece of JUNK - - I never wanted it in the first place and my ex gave my car to our daughter before our divorce, and bought that for me. Maybe he saw divorce on the horizon before I did.

Yeah, this is during the time when Detroit earned its reputation -- from about the late 1970s into the '90s. They may have improved a lot since then, but old perceptions die hard...

 

[M Paquette]

Steve Wozniak (the less famous Apple cofounder) was on the news last night stating that he has a Prius that has had sudden acceleration issues , surging up to 100 miles an hour, when the cruise control is on. So he believes the Prius may have a software, not gas pedal issue. He said he tried to contact Toyota about the problem but was never able to get through to anyone.

After spending so many years dealing with complex software and hardware systems, it would not surprise me in the least if there were multiple problems that manifest as the same general sort of symptoms. With something as complex as the 'drive by wire' systems now appearing in vehicles, we have lots of interesting opportunities for unexpected interactions between already complex subsystems.

The 'strong hybrid' cars like the Prius and Civic Hybrid use regenerative braking, running the electric motors as generators to recover energy and recharge the battery when slowing, and then switch to friction braking (brake pads) at a very low speed. In addition, these vehicles have anti-lock brakes (ABS), and possibly advanced options for stability control. These work by rapidly pumping the friction brakes to prevent the wheels from locking up and skidding.

Here's a fun interaction. If the vehicle is using regenerative braking, and the ABS or stability system sees a wheel stop turning, as there aren't any friction brakes to pulse, the ABS system can't compensate. Depending on design, a new interaction between the regenerative braking and ABS system may be needed. For example, the vehicle may have to switch from regenerative braking to the friction brake system, so as to give the ABS system the opportunity to avoid wheel lockup and skidding. The switchover at a higher than normal speed may cause a momentary loss of braking force (call it 0.1 to 0.2 seconds) while regeneration is cut and the hydraulics are pressurized. The driver will feel that momentary drop in deceleration force as a 'surge'.

That above interaction has been reported for the 2010 Prius by drivers on icy streets, and on potholes and speed bumps while braking when stability control is activated. I haven't heard of damages beyond soiled underwear yet...

What's going on under the hood is rapidly becoming very complex, and I'm not entirely sure the test methodologies of auto manufacturers, traditionally a very mechanical discipline, is up to handling this much software and electronics complexity in addition to the older electromechanical systems.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Oh the Plot Thickens...

Toyota inquiry expands to include additional models - latimes.com

< Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, specifically asked questions about similar problems in the Toyota Tacoma truck. He noted that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received more than 100 complaints about sudden acceleration in the Tacoma, which does not have the same accelerator pedal assembly as the recalled models.

He cited some complaints in which faulty floor mats, which sparked a Toyota recall last year, also did not appear to be the cause.

"What would explain episodes such as this, where drivers are experiencing an uncontrollable acceleration and, reportedly, no floor mats are present in the vehicle (or they reported the floor mat was not involved), particularly for this make and model where no CTS pedal is involved," Towns wrote.... >

 

[ziggy29]

I have to wonder how many of these new reports are figments of the imagination and chalked up to the power of suggestion. It's as if some people think every Toyota ever built is suddenly a death trap.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I have to wonder how many of these new reports are figments of the imagination and chalked up to the power of suggestion. It's as if some people think every Toyota ever built is suddenly a death trap.

Keep rationalizing...

 

[easysurfer]

I have to wonder how many of these new reports are figments of the imagination and chalked up to the power of suggestion. It's as if some people think every Toyota ever built is suddenly a death trap.

I had the very same thought about how many of these are just imagined. It will be very interesting to see how long / if Toyota can recover. Also, I bet Toyota's troubles set the ideas of hybrids back. Folks may automatically associate hybrids with faulty acceleration.

 

[Elderdude]

In December of 2006, I was driving my 20 year old Toyota truck in a Safeway parking lot and a guy offered me $1800 cash to buy it. It didn't have air bags, had been thru several accidents, and had dents and rust on the exterior. It ran fine and I didn't put it on the freeway much, but I wanted to buy a light weight camping trailer and needed a vehicle capable of towing. I knew Toyota made a 6 cylinder that could tow up to 6500 lbs and trusted the company's reputation for building reliable, relatively maintenance free vehicles. So I purchased a new Toyota Tacoma that same month, after selling the old one.

The truck has worked out really well. No problem towing the trailer up to Donner or over the the northern and southern beach area's of California. But last October I read a blurb in the newspaper about a floormat problem, the advice I found was to pull the mat and wait for Toyota to send me something in the mail early in January.
I have never received an email, phone call, or letter about the problem. If I wasn't a daily newspaper reader I would never have found out about the problem. Just yesterday I called the service department at the dealer who sold me the truck and inquired as to why, after five months, I hadn't even received a post card about the floor mat problem, the young women answering the phone said she wasn't aware that my model had a problem. I told her I was looking online at the Toyota.com recall information site and could see my model listed. After I started getting a little cranky she put me through to the service manager. He said that I should be receiving something in the mail in two to three weeks. When I asked him why no one had bothered to try and contact me about a potentially life threatening problem, he stated that that was the company's decision, not the dealer's.

While I still believe Toyota makes exceptionally reliable trucks and cars, I have no faith in the corporate leadership. They have let a small defect bring down the whole company by their lack of communication with their cusotmers. We will not be buying from Toyota in the near future.

 

[ziggy29]

Keep rationalizing...

Oh, whatever. Do you really think there is *no* placebo effect out there at all?

 

[misanman]

Oh, whatever. Do you really think there is *no* placebo effect out there at all?

Or the opposite as well - such as the previously mentioned BIL who drove his Tacoma into the side of his brick house but refuses to believe it was the car's fault - "must have been the ice scraper on the floor".

 

[MasterBlaster]

Oh, whatever. Do you really think there is *no* placebo effect out there at all?

Placebo effect aside.

What gets to me is the free-pass that Toyota gets compared to every other company.

If Detroit had this problem - you can bet the new York Times would be whipping up the class-action lawyers to take on this menacing conspiracy to public safety.

 

[ziggy29]

Placebo effect aside.

What gets to me is the free-pass that Toyota gets compared to every other company.

If Detroit had this problem - you can bet the new York Times would be whipping up the class-action lawyers to take on this menacing conspiracy to public safety.

No argument there. Perception is a very hard thing to shake.

Detroit earned its reputation 2-3 decades ago, and unfortunately it's discovering that old preconceived notions die hard.

By the way, I wouldn't say a free pass "compared to every other company." I'm pretty sure Honda would get the same free pass if it were their problem.

 

[samclem]

I think it will be Honda & Nissan that will profit the most by the Toyota recalls not GM.

The quality on Fords is quite good on many models, and these models probably deserve to benefit, too. But, perceptions are long-lived things.

I just rented a Nissan Versa for a day. I can't speak for the long-term quality, but the car had squeaks and lacked amenities (a map light, a center console, etc) that I thought were included on even bare-bones cars today. I'd put Nissan a cut below Honda and Toyota. Maybe this started since Renault bought a controlling interest in Nissan. With all the retro cars (Mustang, Camaro, Challenger) maybe it's time Nissan did a cool re-do of the 240Z. That could grab some interest.

 

[MasterBlaster]

The quality on Fords is quite good on many models, and these models probably deserve to benefit, too. But, perceptions are long-lived things.

I just rented a Nissan Versa for a day. I can't speak for the long-term quality, but the car had squeaks and lacked amenities (a map light, a center console, etc) that I thought were included on even bare-bones cars today. I'd put Nissan a cut below Honda and Toyota. Maybe this started since Renault bought a controlling interest in Nissan. With all the retro cars (Mustang, Camaro, Challenger) maybe it's time Nissan did a cool re-do of the 240Z. That could grab some interest.

Rental cars tend to be stripped so I wouldn't judge a whole car line by one rental car.

The other thing about rental cars is that they tend to be abused. So the squeaks and rattles you heard may - or may not be indicative of what you could expect were you to buy a new one.

 

[TromboneAl]

I have to wonder how many of these new reports are figments of the imagination and chalked up to the power of suggestion. It's as if some people think every Toyota ever built is suddenly a death trap.

ding ding ding. This is what I meant in the comparison to the breast implants. A better comparison is to the shark attacks in 2005

or the freeway shootings before that. It's a positive feedback thing -- the more the media covers it, the more people report it.

 

[Nords]

After spending so many years dealing with complex software and hardware systems, it would not surprise me in the least if there were multiple problems that manifest as the same general sort of symptoms. With something as complex as the 'drive by wire' systems now appearing in vehicles, we have lots of interesting opportunities for unexpected interactions between already complex subsystems.

I'm sure that Rickover is whirling rapidly in his grave ("Up on the governor, ready for electrical loading") shouting "I told you so, you pissants!"

The 'strong hybrid' cars like the Prius and Civic Hybrid use regenerative braking, running the electric motors as generators to recover energy and recharge the battery when slowing, and then switch to friction braking (brake pads) at a very low speed.

6 MPH. And yes, I can't help but check the calibration by glancing at the speedometer when I feel the crossover from regenerative to mechanical. It's very noticeable, especially when you're approaching the vehicle stopped in front of you and planning to ease it in to within six inches or so. (Whoops.) But after driving it for a day or two you adjust, and we have no proficiency issues switching between our 2006 Prius and our 1997 Altima.

Because of the regenerative-braking design the Prius mechanical brake shoes are supposed to last for 100K miles, even with a teenager operating the brake pedal. So far so good, although she has entirely too much faith in her reaction time and the braking system.

Here's a fun interaction. If the vehicle is using regenerative braking, and the ABS or stability system sees a wheel stop turning, as there aren't any friction brakes to pulse, the ABS system can't compensate. Depending on design, a new interaction between the regenerative braking and ABS system may be needed. For example, the vehicle may have to switch from regenerative braking to the friction brake system, so as to give the ABS system the opportunity to avoid wheel lockup and skidding. The switchover at a higher than normal speed may cause a momentary loss of braking force (call it 0.1 to 0.2 seconds) while regeneration is cut and the hydraulics are pressurized. The driver will feel that momentary drop in deceleration force as a 'surge'.
That above interaction has been reported for the 2010 Prius by drivers on icy streets, and on potholes and speed bumps while braking when stability control is activated. I haven't heard of damages beyond soiled underwear yet...

The drivers could be misdirecting their blame, and it's not just the 2010 model year. When the driver is braking under normal foot pressure, the car defaults to regenerative. If, anywhere during the braking process, the driver slams on the brakes, then the braking computer automatically switches over from regenerative to mechanical. There's the usual slight hiccup (from the brakes, not the driver) whenever the system switches over, although it's a lot more noticeable at slower speeds.

When the driver applies the brake pedal normally but the ABS system senses a wheel losing traction, a yellow "loss of traction" icon lights up on the dash. This light comes on so seldom (I've only seen it twice in nearly two years) that I can easily understand a driver thinking "OMG, I've lost the brakes!!" and slamming their foot down. And by golly, the next thing that they feel is a slight hiccup. But this time it's no longer a "slight hiccup", it's a "deadly surge of acceleration".

Ironically both times this light came on when driving on a bumpy road. (Not many stretches of icy road here on Oahu.) When the wheels leave the ground while regenerative braking is in progress, the car correctly decides that traction has been lost and lights up the icon. I think that causes the driver's reaction.

What's going on under the hood is rapidly becoming very complex, and I'm not entirely sure the test methodologies of auto manufacturers, traditionally a very mechanical discipline, is up to handling this much software and electronics complexity in addition to the older electromechanical systems.

No different than Microsoft's crack team of millions of [-]eager early adopters[/-] beta testers.

You'd think that Toyota would have learned from the operational experiences of NASA, Boeing, and Disneyland...

 

[NW-Bound]

I once worked for a megacorp that was, and still is, a major player in avionics. Our department developed and certified a fault-tolerant digital autopilot with automatic landing capability for a jetliner. But even before my time, using all analog circuits, they had triplex and quadruplex fault-tolerant autopilots.

The requirement from the FAA is that exhaustive analysis must show that the probability of a total loss of a critical function (read "crash") must be less than 1 in 1 billion per hour of flight. Before each take-off, the system must perform a self-test to exercise all functions to ensure that no latent failure exists. Without that self-test, the system may accumulate dormant errors or failures with time, unknowingly to the pilots, until that last failure that breaks the camel back. It is like the requirement to check the pressure of your spare tire before every trip.

Even military aircraft - that do not have the burden of carrying hundreds of passengers in the back - have dual hydraulic actuators. Fly-by-wire systems often employ triplex servos and actuators, such that if one channel fails and runs away, the other two good channels can override it by "force voting". Such redundancy is the reason aircraft costs so much, in the hundreds of millions a piece.

About avionics software, the standard DO-178B specifies how it should be developed, tested, and documented. Software written for an aircraft autopilot or to run a nuclear plant is not written and released casually like software for PC.

There is plenty of precedence outside the automotive industry, but these are costly solutions, and I do not think that all these techniques must or should be applied. For example, one cannot shut down the engine of an aircraft and park it in the sky, but can certainly pull to the side of the road with an auto. It means that an automotive function can afford to be "fail-passive" or can have a degraded mode, and can still be safe.

I have never worked in the automotive industry, but think that people in that field do know what they are doing. They obviously cannot apply all the expensive redundancy techniques from other fields, and have to make many judgement calls on balancing the cost and weight of the car versus the wrath of the customers and the threat of liability lawsuits. It's a tough job!

But despite the engineer's best intention and effort, he may still make boo-boos. Sh*t happens! We will know more about Toyota's problems in the days ahead.

 

[Telly]

I just rented a Nissan Versa for a day. I can't speak for the long-term quality, but the car had squeaks and lacked amenities (a map light, a center console, etc) that I thought were included on even bare-bones cars today. I'd put Nissan a cut below Honda and Toyota. Maybe this started since Renault bought a controlling interest in Nissan. With all the retro cars (Mustang, Camaro, Challenger) maybe it's time Nissan did a cool re-do of the 240Z. That could grab some interest.

The Versa is a French design, not a Nissan design. Reliability not too good according to CU. But much better and much sportier than the Renault Dauphine

 

[M Paquette]

I'm sure that Rickover is whirling rapidly in his grave ("Up on the governor, ready for electrical loading") shouting "I told you so, you pissants!"

Oh, yeah. If a safety system wasn't based on passive physics that could be explained in an equation or two and a paragraph of text, it didn't go in. I recall showing one young man a voltage regulator, and he was baffled by the lack of any electronics. Not a chip or transistor in sight, no heat sinks, just a funny looking transformer. Ah, the wonders of the Magnetic Amplifier, a device on the cutting edge of 19th century electrical engineering.

A safety system that required an active sensor-effector loop to operate would definitely not cut it.

When the driver applies the brake pedal normally but the ABS system senses a wheel losing traction, a yellow "loss of traction" icon lights up on the dash. This light comes on so seldom (I've only seen it twice in nearly two years) that I can easily understand a driver thinking "OMG, I've lost the brakes!!" and slamming their foot down. And by golly, the next thing that they feel is a slight hiccup. But this time it's no longer a "slight hiccup", it's a "deadly surge of acceleration".

Ironically both times this light came on when driving on a bumpy road. (Not many stretches of icy road here on Oahu.) When the wheels leave the ground while regenerative braking is in progress, the car correctly decides that traction has been lost and lights up the icon. I think that causes the driver's reaction.


No different than Microsoft's crack team of millions of [-]eager early adopters[/-] beta testers.

You'd think that Toyota would have learned from the operational experiences of NASA, Boeing, and Disneyland...

Heh. For what it's worth, there's a fix, phased into the latest 2010 Prius cars built this year.

Toyota Investigates Brakes on All Hybrids After Problems With Prius
In Toyota's first news conference on the emergence of the Prius brake complaints, Hiroyuki Yokoyama, Toyota's quality general manager, said that in late January it rewrote the braking-system software following an increase in complaints in December. The Prius cars assembled since then all carry the modified version of software in their braking systems, but the company has yet to decide on whether and how to rewrite the programs on the cars it has already sold, he added.

It sounds like Toyota could do a field upgrade if needed to the Skid Control ECU firmware.

 

[samclem]

This article is a little wonkish and short on specifics, but describes Totyota's recent trip up and down the quality spectrum.

Excerpts:

As TTAC’s Steve Lang recently discussed, Toyota has been on a decontenting binge since the mid-to-late-1990s, putting profit above the quality obsession that had defined its operations up to that point. As a result, the current generation of decontented Toyotas and accompanying quality issues and recalls can be seen as the culmination of a long-term trend. But why did that transition take place?
. . . .

What did “fat product” mean in real terms? Around 1990 Toyota’s global output was about 300k units per month, comprised of no fewer than 60k product variations, 25k of which were assembled only once per month. The worst-selling half of these variations made up only five percent of total sales. This variation proliferation was caused by Toyota’s ability to respond to the market’s demand for product differentiation, but in the cutthroat global car business, this was not a sustainable state of affairs.
In addition to overbuilding variety in response to consumer demand, there is evidence that Japanese firms also overbuilt for quality in this period as well (although this is often difficult to objectively quantify). Fujimoto notes:

When I interviewed a product engineer at a German car maker in the late 1980s, he commented that one of the leading Japanese models was about $500 more expensive that the equivalent German model owing to overquality and excessive designs, other things being equal.
​

Whether this phenomenon existed across Toyota’s product range is nearly impossible to prove, but one thing is certain: in the early to mid 1990s, Toyota’s managers clearly believed that it suffered from “fat product” and moved aggressively to limit its effects.
. . . .

The real extent of this cost-cutting, decontenting and “design leaning” won’t be easy to quantify, but the fact that it’s been taking place since the early nineties and is only now yielding negative effects suggests that it’s been relatively well-managed. But Toyota’s reputation was built on those “fat” products of the mid-80s to early-90s, and it won’t be returning to the old practices that created them anytime soon due to their competitive disadvantages. This seems to suggest that, once damaged, Toyota is unlikely to ever recover its former quality halo.

It's a complex story involving exchange rates and the intricacies of vehicle design and manufacturing, and a company that got so good at doing things well that it might have put them at a competitive disadvantage.

 

[lets-retire]

This article is a little wonkish and short on specifics, but describes Totyota's recent trip up and down the quality spectrum.

Excerpts:


It's a complex story involving exchange rates and the intricacies of vehicle design and manufacturing, and a company that got so good at doing things well that it might have put them at a competitive disadvantage.

You have to admit though Consumer Reports gave them a pass and rated them highly, because of the overbuilding.

 

[Meadbh]

That particular 1992 Plymouth Acclaim was a piece of JUNK - - I never wanted it in the first place and two years before our 1998 divorce my ex gave my previous car to our daughter, and bought the Acclaim for me for $5K. Maybe he saw divorce on the horizon before I did.

Geez, W2R, I hope he didn't want to avoid alimony by bumping you off!