New Report Points to Toyota’s Electronic Throttle Control

[DainBramaged]

A new scientific report from Quality Control Systems Corp. finds that the proportion of consumer complaints related to vehicle speed control in some Toyota Camry, Tacoma, and Lexus ES vehicles is substantially higher in those models with electronic throttle control systems (Toyota’s “ETCS-i”) than it is for the same models without electronic throttle control. The report also finds the proportion of reported speed control failures among complaints in the non-recalled Toyota Camrys with electronic throttle control compared to the recalled Camrys with electronic throttle control particularly troubling.

The report, written by Randy and Alice Whitfield, tested Toyota’s conclusion that there is ‘no indication’ of a throttle or electronic control system malfunction in the recalled vehicles as an hypothesis using data taken from consumer complaints made to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Mr. Whitfield stated: “On the basis of the consumer complaint data, we believe there is evidence both to question and to reject this hypothesis for the recalled vehicles in our study.”

The study was limited to the period beginning in 1999 until just before the well-known Santee, California crash so that the publicity surrounding the crash would not affect the study’s results.

The report adds new information about the actual differences seen in complaint patterns for specific models with ETCS-i in their engines compared to the same models without ETCS-i. Even among vehicles that were not recalled, speed control related complaints were reported at a higher rate for all three models with ETCS-i.

Differences in the reporting of speed control related complaints are also shown in the report for the recalled vehicles with ETCS-i compared with the non-recalled vehicles with ETCS-i. The Whitfields found that proportion of complaints related to speed control for the unrecalled Camrys with ETCS-i was 29%, compared with 25% for the recalled Camrys with ETCS-i.

Important questions have been recently raised asking whether accelerator pedal entrapment or stuck accelerator pedals fully explains many incidents of sudden, unintended acceleration. The report adds new data about the role played by electronic throttle control systems in the complaints to NHTSA by consumers


(you can download and read the report if you are so inclined)

http://www.safetyresearch.net/2010/02/04/new-report-points-to-toyotas-electronic-throttle-control/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35334990/ns/business-autos/

[louis-t]

1. You'd think the electronic throttle would be the

first place they looked.

[nonconformist]

2. You would think, but it was easier to blame operator error. Or floor mats.

Or U.S. suppliers. Or basically anything that wouldn't be their fault.

[louis-t]

4. You know, I have experience with Japanese manufacturers.

In the past, I had found them on the whole to be honest and they always stood behind their product. My family was in the sewing machine business. When a part failed inherently, they sent us a new part free. When my 1990 Honda had a recall on an ignition part, they gave me a new part and I put it on. No charge. What happened?

[tbyg52]

6. My personal opinion, with nothing whatsoever to back it up

is that they were scared @#$%less of it's being electronics and engaged in a little wishful thinking. A computer run amok is a lot more scary to customers than a sticking pedal. I've also thought it was computer-related since I first heard of it.

[TheMadMonk]

8. How do you look for something that disappears the moment...

...the ignition is turned off?

If it's in the electronics, and I personally strongly suspect it is, it is very obviously a rare and intermittent error. Possibly triggered by some external event as suggested in a later post.

Where Toyota truly fooked up is in not considering the possibility of a runaway acceleration failure mode of any type (mechanical or electronic) and coding/designing in a last ditch emergency stop system, that could be triggered either by the driver, or by a watchdog processor noticing that multiple parameters are out of bounds.

[HopeHoops]

3. Ah, but a cheap slice of metal is SO much less expensive than actually fixing the problem.

"Nothing to see here. Move along."

[DainBramaged]

5. Abject manipulation by Toyota (from the MSNBC report link)

In one case Chris Santucci, a former U.S. safety regulator hired by Toyota in 2003, played a role in discussions with NHTSA during a 2004 probe in which the agency sharply narrowed the scope of its inquiry, according to his deposition in a lawsuit seeking damages from the Michigan crash.

The substance of the discussions between the Toyota representatives and NHTSA investigators was unclear.

In that instance, NHTSA agreed to exclude from consideration reports of uncontrolled acceleration in Toyota vehicles where the incident lasted more than a few seconds or the driver hit the brakes.

As a result, Toyota did not provide information to the U.S. government about reports it had taken about such cases.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. If they are clueless at this point, they may end up checking to see

if these cars are near a tower broadcasting on oh say, channel three, or perhaps they are passing by one of those tractor trailers that have a hugely illegal CB radio amplifier, a linear as they are called. The kind that can explode a dragonfly sitting atop the antenna or light a light bulb at a distance.

[madokie]

9. Earlier I was reading an article on this in our paper

and they were using the term that the throttles were slow to return to idle. Thats a bald face lie and they know it. TOYota is digging their grave as I type. Being a motorhead I never did see that the Toyota or Datsun/Nissan were even comparable to an American branded auto, let alone better than. I about got killed in a Datsun pickup way back there in the '70s where if I'd been in some detroit iron I'd maybe have come away unscathed.