Toyota Pays Whitewash Firm to Produce UNBELIEVABLY Bad Whitewash
To get an idea of just how ridiculously bad the Toyota-funded study of its “sticky accelerator” problem is, you need only compare the 6 vehicles the contractor in question purchased to study, with the years and makes of vehicles Toyota has recalled.
Here are the 6 cars the contractor has studied:
- 2002 Camry (North American VIN)
- 2007 Camry (Japanese VIN)
- 2007 FJ Cruiser (Japanese VIN)
- 2008 Sienna (North American VIN)
- 2006 Lexus IS 250 (Japanese VIN)
- 2006 Lexus IS 350 (Japanese VIN)
And here are the vehicles recalled on January 21, 2010 for the “sticky accelerator” problem:
- 2009-2010 RAV4 (except Japanese VINs)
- 2009-2010 Corolla (except Japanese VINs)
- 2009-2010 Matrix
- 2005-2010 Avalon
- 2007-2010 Camry (except Japanese VINs)
- 2010 Highlander (except Japanese VINs)
- 2007-2010 Tundra
- 2008-2010 Sequoia
Further, Toyota makes it clear that no Lexuses have been recalled, nor any of the following models: Prius, Tacoma, Sienna, Venza, Solara, Yaris, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser and Highlander hybrids, and Camry hybrids.
And just to be over-cautious, here are the vehicles recalled for the “floor mat problem” on September 29, 2009:
- 2007 – 2010 Camry
- 2005 – 2010 Avalon
- 2004 – 2009 Prius
- 2005 – 2010 Tacoma
- 2007 – 2010 Tundra
In other words, not a single car the contractor has been studying for the past two months is suspected of having this problem!! It has limited its testing primarily to cars with Japanese VINS. One exception–the Sienna–was not included in either of the recalls. And the other–the 2002 Camry–is an older model than the recalled Camrys.
There is a lot more glaringly, embarrassingly wrong with this study (starting with the fact that the contractor in question only pulled 6 Toyota cars in the first place) as well as the fact that the contractor is a known whitewash specialist. (h/t PJEvans) I’ll get to those once I’ve reviewed the study more closely.
But for now, know that Toyota paid a contractor to try to replicate this problem in a group of cars–just 6 cars–that Toyota doesn’t apparently suspect of having the problem.
Toyota’s report doesn’t even make a good shiny object distraction.
Oh, they used it to get 100 stories headlined, “Toyota report: no fault found in electronic throttle control.”
But then Ed Towns (and, probably, Darrell Issa) asked for a copy of the underlying study.
Good grief, don’t make me start liking Darrell Issa … I’ll nevvuh forgive Toyota for this !
bwahaha! Petro!!!
No worries, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.
LOL
In the spirit of Taibbi’s grand, brand-new compendium, shall we call Toyota’s move the “Nigerien Dossier?”
Every car company experiences recalls, it’s not a big deal. Heck, my Volkswagen had a recall for steaming hot, toxic antifreeze leaking into the passenger compartment. What is a big deal, though, is trying to cover up issues like this and playing games.
As much as I like the Prius, I’m not sure I’d consider Toyota for my next car. The corporate culture seems really broken, and that says more about a company than any mechanical issue. This is not a good way to maintain market leader stature.
Its (sadistically) nice to see the darling of labor-bashers come down a peg. I hate that it is at the expense of safety and lives, even if the victims are some who bought the narrative of “its not union, so its quality”.
EW, you weren’t supposed to actually read the thing.
So I’m confused. Is this locally grown whitewash or outsourced whitewash?
The company–called Exponent–is US based. But here’s the kind of stuff they specialize in:
nice resume. so, home grown whitewash.
thanks for the info. next time I’ll click through the links. :)
I wonder what the study will find wrong with the cars they’re studying? This is so bad, it’s bound to go wronger.
They’re not going to. THe tests this firm did on the cars are just the most basic kinds of tests that cars undergo. If the cars couldn’t pass them, they wouldn’t be on the road.
THey stopped well short of doing anything with teh cars that might actually replicate the problem, even assuming these non-recalled cars had the same problems the recalled cars had.
the contractor in question only pulled 6 Toyota cars in the first place
Do you mean that there were only six cars in the sample upon which they’re making their pronoucements? Pretty dang small sample, if that’s the case…
Yes. And none of them were known to have the problem. And, as I pointed out, none of them are even the models and years being recalled for the problem.
none of them are even the models and years being recalled for the problem.
This is a really transparent joke, even for a company as sleazy as this one obviously is.
Toyota North America and Toyota Japan are much smarter than this, which suggests that something deeper is rotten, either in its top management ranks or its cars. Its vaunted total process control has run amok and it’s running scared, empowering lobbyists and professional deniers instead of engineers and straight-up managers. The results will be sickening.
That’s what mr. ew and I are trying to figure out–what is making them act like this, which is sure to make things worse.
Some suggestions (and note, these are just guesses):
They’re trying to protect an underlying contractor
They’re hiding something about specs they use for foreign cars (that is, not Japanese), as compared to Japanese cars
They don’t know WTF the problem is and the contractor who can tell them isn’t going to do so
I had wondered in my feeble mind if US PTB have a stake in a cover up. That is, are these cars manufactured in the US non labor friendly shops? Protected by those most vocal about evil unions, etc.? that’s where my mind wanders.
The Matrix is made in CA’s NUMI factory (at least for another week or several). So it’s actually Toyota’s one US union plant.
No, they would finger that to protect the larger company and entire Japanese Auto industry credibility in a heartbeat; that is not it.
Listen… these recalls should have happened a loooong while back It’s a huge crisis now that Japan doesn’t want our military in their country any longer.
Non sequitur.
thanks…I didn’t get it. scratching head.
There are a few people in Japan who want the U.S. military out of Japan, but this is not the position of the new govt under Prime Minister Hatoyama, which only wants the “footprint” of U.S. forces in Okinawa prefecture reduced. (This is primarily because of local political factors in Okinawa.) 4 years ago the U.S. and the then Japanese govt under the Liberal Democrats agreed to plan for moving a Marine heliport in the middle of a big city in Okinawa to a less populous area (a plan which requires considerable ecological damage to the seashore in a relatively remote area), but this plan was never implemented. Since the new Hatoyama govt (Democratic party of Japan) took over in Sept 2009, the U.S. has steadfastly refused to consider any compromise plan and has insisted on the full implementation of the 2006 plan agreed to by the previous LDP govt.
It is very difficult for me to understand why the US Govt is being so intransigient. Surely some sort of compromise solution could be hammered out. The only thing I can think of is that the US still has close ties with the LDP and is deliberately trying to destabilize the Hatoyama govt. (Not a good idea, from the US point of view, as it’s bound to backfire.)
Is there any chance the former NHTSA personnel they hired helped “steer” them toward Exponent?
With only slight will in Washington, NHTSA can demand the data it needs and get to the bottom of this. I haven’t checked, but I’ll bet Consumer Reports has more reliable, more broadly-based data on this than Toyota is claiming to have. As with torture, the truth is likely to come out. At best, Toyota is buying time at the considerable expense of loss of reputation and, hence, at least the loss of US market share.
They have resorted to a brutal, Dick Cheney “deniers” defense I would expect from Ford forty years ago or from GM any day of the week. It’s the opposite of commendable route Johnson & Johnson took during its famous Tylenol poisoning scare decades ago. (Then again, today’s J&J probably wouldn’t choose the route they once took, either.)
Who does make these accelerator systems? GM, a Chinese supplier, a major Japanese vendor? Are they made in the US, China, Timbuktu? Or did they buy them off Audi from a stash they’ve kept since the old model “100” stopped crashing into garage doors?
It’s the opposite of commendable route Johnson & Johnson took during its famous Tylenol poisoning scare decades ago
That episode is now considered to be the classic case study in how to manage such a crisis. Why anyone would choose not to follow such an approach in this situation boggles the mind. Yes, the industries are different, but at least some of the major elements of that strategy could and should be employed…if they got any f-n brains.
But I thought all carmakers kept records of all service provided. It should be a simple matter for them to find out how many acceleration complaints they had (and what models and years were involved). Was their database maintained by the guys who archived White House email for W?
The dealers should have records, too. I know the one I go to has computerized records. (Dealer, because it’s an ’02 Prius and the number of user-serviceable parts is low. Nice car, though: very conventional in look and feel.)
Yeah, that’s what I want to know…this expensive term paper put out by Exponent is a waste of tree pulp.
It sounds like Microsoft Made the accelerators: “press start to begin stopping” might work.
You get today’s prize.
thankyouverymuchthankyou
You’re welcome. But I should remind you it’s an eprize bestowed by someone who hides behind a screen name. So you might want to consider that before adding it to your resume. *g*
If it is free. if it is “e”. It must be priceless. Or worthless.
That’s a solid design. Plug in the license key and you’re good to go…well…stop, actually, but still…
They’ve blamed them on Indiana-based CTS, which has always very tersely said, “our parts match Toyota’s spec.”
There are several things that may mean: thta Toyota pushed them to do something to save money, that they were using someone else’s spec (that is, that they didn’t do the design–the prior supplier was Denso and Toyota has been known to give Denso plans, especially, to later suppliers and ask for the part).
Or it may not be the accelerator at all. I’m of the latter belief. I think it’s something in the Engine Control Module (which this engineering company very pointedly didn’t touch, even though it’s a black box between the accelerator and the throttle). And I don’t know who’s involved with that.
ECM problems would be a can of worms. More proprietary s/w, from China possibly. More questions about where some of the data ecm’s now collect goes – to the dealer, insurance companies, the government, perhaps, but virtually never to the car’s and the ecm’s owner. Analysis of ecm data might involve analysis of other systems data, besides that involved with acceleration. And if these accelerators are wired instead of using mechanical linkages, that presents a host of problems that may extend to other cars and, possibly, other manufacturers.
I think that is already underway by the House Committee. As to your other question, Toyota uses almost exclusively NipponDenso, which is part of the Toyota Group family.
Except that non-keiretsu companies would be involved for the US model range, such as the Indiana supplier at issue here. As you know better than most, acceleration specs are central to the driving experience: they affect acceleration under varying conditions, transmission selection and function, mileage, rpm loads, etc.
Whatever they are, Toyota central would have signed off on them and the materials, mechanical, h/w and/or s/w components and principal vendors that make-up or made the system.
Yeah, Toyota is acting very un-Toyota-like. It sure smells like something got nuanced forward in a (sub)contractor workflow and the blame is too ripe to spread around.
For some reason I actually think the details will come out with very few mystery holes. And if Toyota stops fraking about and fixes things this will slide into public obscurity (apart from being a Biz school textbook counter-example).
Otherwise, their rep takes a big, ugly hit.
I’d rank those:
They don’t know WTF the problem is and the contractor who can tell them isn’t going to do so
They’re trying to protect an underlying contractor
They’re hiding something about specs they use for foreign cars (that is, not Japanese), as compared to Japanese cars
With the difference between the first two being not much at all.
I might agree with that.
Except that if they really didn’t know what was going on, they wouldn’t pay this whitewash company to try to find out. They’re pay someone with real expertise in the field to go and get cars FROM owners. And they’d have someoen buy up all cars which had ever been alleged to have this problem.
THey have not, apparently, done that. Which leads me to believe they know what the problem is but don’t want to tell us.
That’s why I said not much between those two items: I can’t tell which is more likely.
I suspect they have more than one problem, for example:
Corrosion or wear in the sending module on the accelerator causes intermittent bad signals to be sent to the engine control module.
The engine control model’s software is designed to “trust” the sending module on the accelerator, and performs no range or rate of change tests on the signals received.
Intermittent (and invalid) signals to the ecm, cause intermittent unpredictable results at the throttle.
I has a Land Cruiser, and last year the the “gas pedal failed”, and I experienced problems from no action from pressing the gas pedal, to sudden acceleration. I live in SoCal, as did the vehicle for all its life, not close to the sea, so it’s very unlikely I had a corrosion problem.
Underlying this is maybe potential failure to fully test ecm software (an impossible task), and both Toyota’s software test suit and its ecm software is know internally to have limitations.
In February of 2008, Ford issued the industry’s largest-ever recall, affecting Lincoln and Mercury SUVs, pickups, cars, and vans of model years ‘93 to ‘04. The lowly cruise-control switch was behind this mother-of-all do-overs. It had a nasty habit of catching fire, sometimes hours after the vehicle had been parked and turned off.
Ford 1996 (8.6 million vehicles):In 1996, after customers complained of fires caused by faulty ignition systems
GM 1971 (6.7 million vehicles): In 1971, some GM customers got the ride of their lives as engine mounts began separating from frames and falling back onto throttles.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/total-recall-ten-largest-auto-recalls-of-all-time/1971-gm/
So is this a “cover up” that is drastic, or is it only big news because it isn’t one of the big three, who as we speak are STILL making recalls for various defects that, yes, kill people.
This is as bad–perhaps worse–than Ford’s behavior in the rollover problem.
In those other examples, the manufacturer recalled the cars when they identified the problem. Here they didn’t recall the cars until the govt made them do so. And their public claims right now as to what is wrong are patently, provably, false (as were Ford’s with the rollover).
This totally reeks. This is a PR epic fail from start to finish. I feel like we are all reduced to living in the days of Shirtwaist Factory Fires. Life is cheap in the US.
This is investigative journalism at its finest and thank you, EmptyWheel.
PS Thought you’d appreciate this:
“Investing Local: Can the City of Angels Move Its Money?” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-santiago/can-the-city-of-angels-mo_b_467515.html)
The answer is “Why yes!” and so can so many others including Neighborhood Associations, HOAs … the possibilities are endless! Show the fidiciary responsibility folks this super-fine, numbers *MACHINE*:
http://us1.irabankratings.com/MoveYourMoney/IRACommunityZip.asp?zip=97214&submit=Search
Posted on previous “will he testify” at #39 but belongs here too.
“2002 seems to be when the switch to ETCS-i (‘accelerate by wire’) was made
with some previous use on a more limited basis.
The executive summary states “This report summarizes some of the testing that has been performed. Exponent’s testing and analysis is ongoing.”
What are they doing with the eight ECMs listed as purchased on page A6?”
I looked at the VINs of the ECMs, also a mix on Japanese and American manufacture, with some pairs ( one Japanese one US manufacture of the same year and make).
One VIN came up as sold at an insurance salvage auction this summer.
Maybe someone has a CARFAX account to check this out in detail.
Saw the VINs on the ECM. THey don’t seem to make any sense, either. And it’s not clear what they’re actually doing with them.
They have gone and industrialized prevarication.
Toyota has a new solution available: A free car cover to make the problem disappear. What recall?
As I follow the Toyota saga I get the feeling that corporate Toyota listens more to the marketing and production departments than to engineering and quality control. As an old quality control guy I find it hard to believe that Toyota’s own test track data didn’t turn up these problems. Especially when it comes to anti locking breaks. Unless they just don’t conduct rigorous testing. Video of cars plowing through water and over extreme bumps are only for commercials I guess. I wonder; is there a spread sheet some place in the bowels of Toyota accounting proving that it’s better for the bottom line to deny defects than to fix them?
Whatever it is, it’s something they started doing with the ’04 Prius, and expanded to other models and years.
I found this guy’s blog entry interesting as I traversed the google: http://majid.info/blog/on-the-toyota-accelerator-fiasco/
I don’t know the guy or what his credentials are, but he has an interesting explanation.
It’s a likely explanation. Two things though. It doesn’t consider whether the problem is in the Engine Control Module (that is, the software rather than the component itself). And that may or may not be a US supplier.
Why does it matter whether it is a US supplier? This, whatever it is, is clearly the sort of problem which afflicts all complex electro-mechanical systems. That can arise in components designed by engineers whatever their nationality. Please be careful not to turn this into a “US is best” argument. And by the way let’s not forget that people who run into things tend to want to blame the machine. This may yet turn out to be largely a “man-machine interface” problem. In due course we will find out exactly what is happening (you might be right about the ECU), but at the moment it seems obviuous to me no-one really knows.
“In due course we will find out exactly what is happening (you might be right about the ECU), but at the moment it seems obviuous to me no-one really knows.”
I’ll hazard a guess that more than a few people know what is happening with respect to the NHTSA handling of these complaints with and/or without Toyota’s involvement.
Some simple questions:
Were these complaints handled in the usual manner?
Was all the appropriate information provided to NHTSA when required/and or requested?
Were attempts to minimize or mislead made?
Without making accusations when asking those questions, people on all sides know these answers.
IF something untoward has happened with this issue (and I’m not making accusations), some of the participants will know that this has occurred, some will know the motive for such.
You are inflating matters.
And there is an issue with whether components/vehicles are made in the U.S., in part because it’s a political issue. At this point we cannot rule out corruption here in the U.S., not without more research.
Or did you miss the bullshit with Senators Corker and Shelby during the prelude to the bailout of GM and Chrysler?
There’s also the issue of pollution regulations which are different here in the U.S. and may change programming; did that not occur to you, too? This wouldn’t be a matter of nationalism as much as diagnostics: were specs for a specific country/region a part of the problem matrix, compounded in complexity by which company may have made the component?
I don’t think it’s so obvious that no one really knows. Toyota would have been working on this for quite some time. Inherent in a mandatory, safety-related recall, which are usually made near the end of a long process, is that the manufacturer has a credible fix and a plan to implement it across the spectrum of affected vehicles. What the public should know is what exactly is being fixed, parts, s/w, etc.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/in-toyota-city-recalls-are-blamed-on-foreign-components-1888499.html
“The faulty accelerator pedal, for example, was made by a North American company – one reason why Toyota is reportedly switching back to its decades-old domestic supplier Denso Corp. ”
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/01/how-to-tell-if-your-toyota-is-affected-by-the-recent-recalls.html
“For the pedal recall, if you own an Avalon, Matrix, Sequoia, or Tundra, or a Pontiac Vibe, those vehicles are only manufactured in North America, and all have the pedal made by the parts supplier in Indiana, so all are subject to the recall.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/28/business/main6150882.shtml
“CTS Corp. officials say they have ramped up production at three factories to manufacture redesigned pedals. The pedals are meant to solve problems with condensation that Toyota has said can cause them to react slowly when a driver presses on the gas. In rare cases, the gas pedals can get stuck.”
http://www.etruth.com/Know/News/Story.aspx?id=504261
[ Don’t be put off by the name “etruth” — it’s just short for The Elkhart Truth, the local newspaper ]
“Our product has consistently met Toyota’s specifications and we have no knowledge of an accident or injury due to this rare phenomenon”
The recitation seems correct in general. I don’t know if is correct for the Toyota cars, or all the Toyota cars, that have experienced problems and are subject to this recall. For example, not all the recalled cars may have drive-by-wire systems.
The writer’s examples are certainly true regarding Japanese OEM’s reluctance to source from non-keiretsu companies. Those reasons were largely driven by loyalty to and control over familiar, related companies, and by technical issues, including American suppliers unfamiliarity with Japanese production methods and what used to be lower standards of quality.
For example, one American supplier of valves for road tires made very good products, but used a production method that left particulate matter near the intake. That was blown out in the normal American tire inflation process. But its valves initially failed when used in Japan because the Japanese used a non-American tire inflation process that blew the particulate matter into the valve intake, jamming it.
The experience highlighted several issues: 1) The failure mode was analyzed by Japanese-American methods, not by the US valve manufacturer. 2) The American supplier assumed rather than verified the way the customer would use its product. 3) The American valve production process could be (and was) revised so as to eliminate or remove debris previously considered “normal”. 4) Even when assembled correctly, the normal acceptable valve failure rate was still high by Japanese standards. And, 5)either the Americans could improve their production processes and failure analysis or they could take the then Mercedes approach and test all products, rather than a statistical sample of them.
Here is a good explanation of the issues being discussed and also a good explanation of how these systems are designed and function that may be understood by the average participant here.
Story title :”Toyota’s latest woes may be hardwired” at CNET. LINK:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10446502-64.html
The CNET folks also helpfully provided this link in the story in reference to the NHTSA complaint filed by Jordan Ziprin. LINK:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2006-01-03-E5-8151
There is a discussion of this issue loaded with links at GM Inside News LINK:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:t7JUYT5clOMJ:www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f19/nhtsa-toyota-sua-investigation-status-88081/+pe04021&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
More to come on this.
Update from the last thread:
Toyoda accepts Edolphous Towns’ invite to testify personally.
I feel safer already!
From the second link in my comment @50: LINK:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2006-01-03-E5-8151
NOTE: ODI is the NHTSA Office of Defect Investigation.
“ODI found that 171 of the 432 reports (40%) involved driveability concerns. These reports describe a condition where the operator intentionally applies the throttle pedal, in expectation that the vehicle will accelerate, and then experiences a delay or hesitation in vehicle response.9 Complainants allege the delay lasts from 2 to 5 seconds and that during that period the operator further depresses the accelerator; this results in a greater than anticipated vehicle response which is disconcerting to vehicle occupants.10 Many reports allege that this condition is a safety problem. ODI has interviewed several complainants and found that while they express concern and frustration over the issue they nevertheless continue to operate the vehicle on a daily basis. No crashes, injuries or fatalities have been alleged to result from this condition, despite the large subject vehicle population and years of exposure. These complaints, which relate to delayed throttle response, involve vehicle response to intentional driver commands. Therefore, ODI does not consider this concern to be related to the allegations raised by the petitioner and these reports do not provide support for the investigation requested by the petitioner.
9 This is contrary to the other throttle control categories ODI established and to what the petitioner alleges, i.e., that the accelerator opened by itself and the vehicle accelerated without driver input.
10 This issue is the subject of a Toyota technical service bulletin intended to address the driveability condition.”
Here an apparent situation that the vehicle does not respond as commanded by the driver.(The engine speed IS NOT controlled by the accelerator pedal).
Note that there are 171 such reported claims as a subset of more different but perhaps related claims of defects.
What is the NHTSA ODI response? ( my paraphrase)
NHTSA:” that’s OK- nothing has happened yet”.
Also “That is not the same as uncommanded acceleration”.
Although you may not be an expert, is that your conclusion?
Nate Silver today DESTROYED Firedoglake polls. Silver says Firedoglake polls should not be trusted because the wording sucks. See the link. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/can-you-trust-those-firedoglake-polls.html
Post that over at FDL then. And see what happens, because Nate isn’t always right.
That is bullshit; you either didn’t read Silver’s post or you are lying. He wanted to do what you are saying, and had to admit that he didn’ have shit for facts to back up his whiny ass peevish little prejudices against FDL. And don’t bother coming back here either.
That means FDL’s results contradict his and that they are gaining traction in the media – and inside the Beltway. Good onya, Jane.
As for Silver, there’s credible polling and there’s leading the donkey by the tail. It’s one thing to ask whether you support a grossly flawed health reform bill. A lot of people would say no. It’s another thing entirely to ask whether you support what a credible reform bill should contain. A lot more people would emphatically say yes to that.
This sort of bias by Nate Silver should make one pause in accepting his analysis:
I like Silver’s tarring FDL with the Obamaite description of “11-dimensional chess”. Emotional pique and statistical analysis do not often go together well.
I’m sure that FDL’s poll affected Snyder’s decision. Not.
On this one, Nate is full of it. (He sounds like some of the posters at the Great Orange Satan, the ones who are so filled with anti-FDL sentiments that they invent things to complain about.)
If accelerator or breaking problem occurs, please restart car fastly.
Be sure flag cable is correctly connecting.
The rumor that I heard was that this recall is in retaliation for kicking US military off of Okinawa. I have drove Toyata forklifts that were clearly superior to comparable to US manufacturers. I installed their booths at car shows for five years and on occasion got to drive a Solara. Which operated like a dream come true. Politics and reality rarely meet. Just what I heard is all.
That’s not very likely.
For one thing, it’s a lot cheaper and easier to use trade embargoes. And it wouldn’t kill people.
I did not assume that there were not a laundry list of issues. What I was talking about is the current admins reaction or lack of for a very long time. As far as killing people, that is the main reason that the Japanese want the American military off of Okinawa. Rapes and murders abound committed by service people stationed there. The loss of this strategic base would in the military sense weaken the “western shield”. Kill people? What do you really think that it is about? More than the 34 Americans that the media seem so indignant about are murdered by Obama every day before you even get out of bed.
I give my eprize to you PJEvans
I have a computer manual with references to ‘flag cables’. It took a while to figure out what they meant.
The Prius is also experiencing loss of both headlights simultaneously.
I can’t find the article, but I swear I read that BOTH lights were programmed to go off and on, as they felt drivers wouldn’t notice only one light off. You get a glitch in the software controlling this “feature” and you lose both lights while driving.
I can’t shake the feeling that the Toyota code is sprinkled with poorly thought out programming choices that are susceptible to electronic glitches/interference, to catastrophic result. And I had forogtten this from a previous L.A. Times article:
I think I know where that place is, more or less, since there aren’t that many police stations in the Valley.
I’m so glad I don’t have keyless ignition. It’s what my father, a good mechanical engineer, described as ‘one more thing that can go wrong’, along with power windows and door locks. (At least my car has mechanical locks on its front doors. And a real ignition switch, with a key.)
I’m getting that feeling now, too.
One of the engineers in one of qweryous’ links terms it “electronic disobedience”.
I’ve wondered at what impact a Portable GPS unit can have on a car’s electronic controls.
After thinking about this, and knowing the area they’re talking about, I’m calling shenanigans.
(1) There’s high-density residential across the street, there before the LAPD built the station, and any transmitter with enough power to affect a car’s electrical system wouldn’t have been allowed there under FCC rules (and even if it were allowed, the residents would have been affected first and raised hell).
(2) The LAPD doesn’t need to put high-power transmitters at their stations anyway; they only need to cover their patrol area and reach a repeater, and no place in the valley is more than ten miles from a repeater, which could have much higher power than the station transmitter.
(3) The police station is on a major street, with a lot of traffic; if the transmitter was affecting the electrical systems on cars, you would expect that more cars would be dying right there, and that’s not happening.
(4) The police station is at least 300 feet from the nearest businesses (which are along the cross streets a couple of hundred yards in either direction).
Another observation may play into this. The federalization of local, especially big city police forces continues ahead. One never knows what goodies the feds ask police to try out for them on the taxpayer’s dime. LA seems to be a frequent target for such experiments.
That one, if it were such an experiment, would be better tested at a government-owned location with a lot more space and a lot fewer innocent bystanders. Testing it in a large city is asking for dead bodies in the street, from cars that plow into other cars or pedestrians (and that location is close to a university campus: it has pedestrians).
It might not be bullshit. The problem rosalind is describing isn’t a software problem but a shielding problem.
It’s not improbable at this point without actual testing and without more data that shielding on a component isn’t blocking EMR from frequencies which we would ordinarily consider legitimate and occur widely.
Rayne, I’m saying that if it is, then there should be a lot more instances in that area, and I would expect it to be more generally known at the local level.
I’ve driven through there – it’s close to a shopping center I got to weekly – and it isn’t full of tow trucks and stalled cars, so I think it’s something else peculiar to that one car, not something like RF or EMI, which should have more general effects.
You seem to be assuming that the signal causing the interference is constant. I don’t. It could near-random bursts such that you only get the problem when the wrong car is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If it’s an outside signal, there should be more than one incident with one car. (Multiple incidents with one car each, or one or more incidents with multiple cars.) As I said, that’s a busy neighborhood, with a lot of traffic. (And being in LA, you can bet that a lot of cars are Toyotas. Very popular. Up until now.)
Because I don’t believe that a manufacturing defect like that would be in only one car.
And I don’t believe RFI/EMI would affect only one car.
(‘Only one car’ is a random problem. Good luck with that.)
What JTMinIA said.
Cars today may also be manufactured like computers, depending on the purchasing practices of the automotive manufacturer in question. I’ll use Dell servers as an example; I’ve ordered hundreds of them, with delivery over a period of time, cracked them open to do inventory on the components like the hard drives. I’d find that unless the purchasing specs were very, very tight, we’d have the same model of server but as many as four different brands of hard drives in a lot of servers. A batch under one packing list might all have two Seagates and four Western Digital; the next packing list with the same model server might have all Western Digital or all Seagate drives. Because Dell assembled machines as hard drives were shipped in, I might be getting the end of one truck of drives and the beginning of another truckload of drives.
In some ways the Toyota problem described is not unlike the problem I had with drives; we had frequent failures of drives, which over a period of time appeared to be associated with a certain brand. As more failures occurred, we had more data and could tell Dell that hard drives from one manufacturer received during a particular time frame on specific packing lists were problematic and needed replacement enterprise-wide before more of the drives failed.
But we ended up doing all that research, not Dell; it was not until we had a sizable body of information from failures that we could tie it to a specific make of drive. And every failure began with the same systematic evaluation ruling out other factors like software, other hardware, electrical problems, so on.
Which is a long way of saying that Toyota might have a quality management problem; it’s possible they can’t isolate one manufacturer out of a couple of them, let alone isolate which batch of components are implicated in a shielding problem. And what if the shielding problem isn’t limited to one component, but several within the same car, each of them having different sensitivities to different frequencies?
Compound the problem with spotty conditions like EMR which may be blocked from time to time by other physical features near the car, weather conditions like humidity, EMR which is not stable but fluctuating and it’s a bugger to solve.
I think what concerns me is that parts manufacturers in this supply chain are frequently ISO certified, with most required to have traceability on their components. Were all Toyota suppliers ISO certified? were they audited and compliant?
And what about the dealer network? how have they been handling these problems with respect to gathering data?
Exactly. And my working hypothesis is that Toyota has no idea what frequencies cause the problem and are playing for time.
Also from the second link in my comment @50 LINK:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2006-01-03-E5-8151
“Similarly, 93 of the reports (~20%) allege throttle control concerns where the brake was reported by the operator to be ineffective at controlling vehicle movement despite brake application, indicating that, if the reports are assumed to be correct, simultaneous failures of the throttle control and brake systems must have occurred.11 These incidents, sometimes referred to as “sudden or unintended acceleration” incidents,12 occurred under various operating conditions and often resulted in a crash with alleged injuries and or fatalities. ODI has interviewed 24 of the complainants 13 and learned that most vehicles were subsequently inspected by dealership, manufacturer and or independent technical personnel who were unable to discover any evidence of a failed or malfunctioning vehicle component or system or any other vehicle condition that could have contributed to the incident.14 Additionally, for reports where an interview was not conducted, many state that no vehiclebased cause was ever found in postincident vehicle inspections. For these 93 reports, the complaint rate of 4.9/100k vehicles is similar to that of the general vehicle population and is unremarkable.15 The complaint trend is also constant and neither increasing or decreasing. Accordingly, because these reports do not appear to indicate a distinct safety defect that would warrant investigation
[[Page 166]]
and are factually distinguishable from the specific facts of petitioner’s case, the reports do not provide support for the investigation requested by the petitioner.”
Here the fact that the complaint that the brake was ineffective is assumed to be caused only by a failure of BOTH the ETCS-i (accelerator control) AND the brake system.
Since these complaints are again ‘different’ from Ziprin’s complaint, they are not supportive of his complaint and are “backburnered’ or roundfiled.
All in all, this sounds like another episode of
When Cars Turn Into Computers.
Did someone mention that Toyoda will testify? (Haven’t read all of the comments yet.)
Updated teh last post and included the update in comments, where you couldn’t see it.
Now let’s see whether the Congresspeople on Oversight can ask appropriate questions.
Um, crikey, that is kind of asking a lot of the critters isn’t it? I predict preening idiocy with any real work done by staff behind the scenes.
Congress critter:
“Last week my staff sent me an internet and the tubes were plugged. The ‘puter in my office never works right for me, and these kids keep telling us we have to regrade our outputting systems.
So my question for you is: when is my next campaign contribution arriving?”
They all copy code(Morse), send them a telegram. Maybe they’d answer that.
HERE IS DONATION STOP ALL I HAVE IS FUNNY PAPER STOP
Conpriuscy
Perhaps you have been wondering “Could I stop a vehicle in a runaway acceleration event using the brakes?”
Here is some additional information concerning the issue of stopping a vehicle in a wide open throttle situation.
This document is also a NHTSA response to a Toyota acceleration complaint.
Document may be found here: LINK
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-11-02-E9-26265
The subject vehicle was a 2007 Lexus ES350. VRTC is the NHTSA Vehicle Research and Test Center.
” Testing conducted by VRTC determined that the brake pedal force required to stop a subject vehicle with a wide open throttle was significantly greater than when the vehicle is operating with a closed throttle.
Significant brake pedal force in excess of 150 pounds was required to stop the vehicle, compared to 30 pounds required when the vehicle is operating normally. Stopping distances increased from less than 200 feet to more than 1,000 feet. 7
7 VRTC Memorandum Report EA07010, VRTCDCD7113, 2007 Lexus ES350 Unintended Acceleration, Section 3.3.1 Application of the brake, April 30, 2008.
Many of the incident drivers interviewed by ODI have stated that application of the brakes reduced acceleration but did not stop the vehicle. In assessing these complaints ODI notes that brake effectiveness in controlling a stuck open throttle event is significantly reduced once the vacuum reserve of the vacuum boosted power assist system is depleted.8 The friction generated from brake application with the wheels driven by full engine power results in significant heating of the brake components. Continued operation in this mode causes degradation of the brake friction materials, further reducing brake effectiveness and the ability of the driver to control vehicle speed.
8 The petitioner also incorrectly interprets the loss of vacuum during operation at wideopen throttle as a “Functional Failure” of the brake power assist unit as defined in S4 of FMVSS 135. VRTC’s testing demonstrates that the braking performance described by drivers of incident vehicles is consistent with open throttle braking with depleted vacuum in the vacuum boosted power assist system. Consequently, the petitioner’s concerns with the adequacy of the service braking in the subject vehicles do not provide any basis for further investigation.”
IF the vehicle for whatever reason goes into a full throttle acceleration, the brakes may not be able to stop the vehicle.
The conclusion by the NHTSA: nothing here.
This document also reveals some of the ‘logic’ in the control system (ECM) of the engine. Specifically what happens in a wide open throttle situation when a full brake application is made.
Answer: NOTHING
From the same document:
“Issue 7: Contradictory sensor data logic should resolve on the side of safety
The petitioner posits that “contradictory sensor data (e.g., open throttle and sustained extreme brake pressure) should error on the side of caution and safety.” The petitioner correctly notes that the subject vehicle’s throttle control logic does not change with brake application. However, while in certain circumstances it may be [[Page 56690]]
desirable for the vehicle throttle control system to respond to simultaneous applications of brake and accelerator pedals by prioritizing the braking command and limiting throttle opening, the absence of this function in the Toyota designs does not render the vehicles noncompliant with any applicable FMVSS and further investigation at this time is not likely to result in identification of a defect trend.”
The software design process where this decision was made might be the subject of some litigation.
Start with the assumption that this is a problem with the electronic throttle. Refine the assumption to it being RF interference. This would be incredibly hard to duplicate. Even if you went to the locations at which problems were experienced, the odds of the same RF being present is low. So, right now, they have no idea what the problem is and, therefore, no way to fix it. But you can’t stop selling these cars and they don’t have a quickly-swapped-in mechanical alternative. So you whitewash for now while you desperately search for the problem and then a fix you can swap in while claiming to be doing something else.
The last people you’d hire right now were those who are competent. Yes, you’ll take a hit on the credibility front, but that’s better than hiring someone who might find the problem and expose it before you could devise a fix and make it all go away.
Note: I would love to know if the people who experienced problems had cell phones in the car when it happened. Wouldn’t it be a gas – as it were – if the NSA doing a GPS check on the driver’s location is what set the throttle off? That would be hilarious.
One last post on this issue.
Some Toyota vehicles have what is called “Brake Assist” or brake by wire in an emergency feature. That feature is discussed in the document linked @83.
LINK:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-11-02-E9-26265
The applicable material:
“ODI notes that the petitioner confuses the Brake Assist system referenced in the Owner’s Manual with the brake power assist system. Brake Assist is a computer controlled automobile braking technology that increases braking pressure in an emergency situation (e.g., crash avoidance braking). The Brake Assist technology used by Toyota in the subject vehicles detects an emergency situation by monitoring the rate of change of brake hydraulic pressure from the master cylinder. Based on the information gathered by ODI in interviews of incident drivers, there is no reason to believe that Brake Assist was activated during the unwanted acceleration events.9 While virtually all of the drivers indicated that they applied a great deal of force to the brake pedal in an effort to slow and stop the vehicle, it is possible that the manner (i.e., rate) in which the force was applied, or the absence of the amplifying vacuum boost, did not produce a brake system pressure pulse that is necessary to activate the Brake Assist system.
9 It is not possible to determine whether Brake Assist was activated for any length of time during any of the unwanted acceleration incidents ODI investigated in the subject vehicle population.”
As has been discussed previously, is such an event logged by the ECM?
It might seem that given the history of unintended acceleration claims, going back to the first widely know incidents in the early 1980’s, that the “Brake Assist” might be triggered by braking under wide open throttle conditions. Apparently not.
from tonight’s LA Times Article:
like so many things organizations do, this is so foolish and so futile (because obviously a sham study).
my first reaction is not to condemn toyota but to ask “why”?
“why do this?”
“what could the institution possibly hope to gain from this window dressing?
questions aside,
the conclusion i draw from the last several months news from toyota is that this is a major business institution (i could say “corporation”, but i’m keeping it abstract in order to generalize)
that is in near chaos at its upper levels of management.
toyota leadership is flailing, and failing,
badly.
very badly.
The irony is that few are better at failure modes and effects analysis than Japanese auto companies. Which is why there is much more here than meets the eye.
Here is an interesting example of Toyota failure analysis concerning throttle body troubles with a 2004 Camry involved in some sort of incident.
The document is a heavily redacted 74 page PDF apparently submitted to the NHTSA and censored by them. LINK:
http://nhthqnwws112.odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/docservlet/Artemis/Public/Pursuits/2006/DP/INRD-DP06003-25328P.PDF
The interesting quotes include:
“Patterns water sucking into gearbox & Measures to prevent sucking” from page 70.
“Investigation Reports of Petitioner’s Throttle Actuator” from page 18,
“The trouble connected with P2103 & P2111 (motor short)(valve lock)…”
P2103 and P2111 are Toyota diagnostic codes stored concerning throttle body issues. Page 14.
Continuation of @111:
“Bearing leak investigation results” from page 28.
“2-(2)Seal deformation visual inspection results (@Nov.9.2004 1700 )” from page 30.
“2-(3) Dimension comparison between FPI parts and Aisan Japan parts” page 31.
“Hypothetical mechanism about the inversion of ball-bearing seal” from page 32.
“(2) validation test of water sucking into gearbox” Page 33.
Same quote from page 32 at page 34.
“Validation test for bearing seal lip inverted” page 35.
Perhaps Mr Biller from Rosalind @90 will be familiar with this issue.
Thanks to poster AMERICA 123 at GM Insider News.com for the link to this document. His link was in the thread I referenced earlier. LINK
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f19/nhtsa-toyota-sua-investigation-status-88081/#post1953910
What a useless piece of crap; it’s right up there with military and DOJ redactions on documents related to torture.
But thanks, it’s an interesting exercise to “read”.
I doubt the same ‘privileges” will apply to this document.
It was one of the quickest 74 pages I’ve read in a while.
“Measures to prevent sucking”- I think this may be a translated document.
Translated or no, it’s a useful phrase. I think it should appear atop every citizen communication to Congress.
mm
oh, and this,
keep in mind that the recently terminated g. w. bush administration was a bizzare bazzar where any political decision could be bought, including regulatory decisions.
toyota may have paid g. w.’s admin and/ or republican congressfolk or senators lots of money to quiet the nhtsa’s reviews of toyota’s accident proneness.
the effect of doing so would have been an indifferent, flaccid toyota engineering response to the problem;
there’s no need for engineering analysis when we have solved the problem politically, is there?
OT, but technology related: the plane crash yesterday in Palo Alto that killed 3 Tesla employees was recorded by East Palo Alto’s gunfire detection/acoustic surveillance system, and the data will be used by the National Transportation Safety Board to help piece together what happened.
Wait, I thought Toyota was the beacon of good and light because they make shiny happy hybrids that Greenpeace wants me to buy as opposed to the trucks that nobody needs.
Or at least that’s what you lefties were telling me before GM declared bankruptcy and everyone was like “Buy American!”
I’m confused.
EW, I love your twitter pic.
re rayne’s comment above about toyota’s quality control:
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/shifting-gears/2010/02/19/toyota-recall-yes-it-just-got-worse — now it’s power-steering, too.