Ouch. This is expensive.

[Flyin Ryan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[JHamilton]

Holy crap. Unfortunate issue all the way round. Someone recently died after driving into a pond near here. It is believed to be related to this issue. They have so many cars on the road, they really need to advertise for folks to shift to neutral. Less technically savy folks, and at the risk of being sexist, women may not think of this in a moment of panic.

[quantic]

Throttle sticks? Turn off engine with key and don't crash in a fiery ball. Simple

[Peter Dunne]

Assuming that Toyota are using "fly by wire" throttles one would expect it to be a fault with the throttle position sensor which could tell the ecu that the throttle is fully depressed when in fact it has returned to the closed position?

On a slightly different, but related subject, we used to have a Saab 93 turbo diesel.
My wife mistakenly over-filled the engine with oil. Normally you would think that was not a big deal? Wrong. After about forty mins driving, oil pressure built up to a level where the turbo started to suck the oil from the engine causing the engine to scream at well above full revs. At this point, the engine was running on the oil, not the fuel! I was driving at the time, and will never forget sitting at the side of the road, ignition off, keys in hand, while the engine screamed like a banshee! It took a few minutes of repeatedly depressing and releasing the clutch with the car in gear, to eventually get the thing to stall.

Needless to say, we sold it shortly after

[GORDON STREETER]

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...53#post2595953
I've seen this several times and mentioned it on post 128 a while back.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Peter Dunne

My wife mistakenly over-filled the engine with oil.

Sorry - does not compute. How do you get one to even check the oil let alone do anything to adjust levels?

Oh, hang on, hmm, probably better that they don't?

[Peter Dunne]

Originally Posted by grantp

Sorry - does not compute. How do you get one to even check the oil let alone do anything to adjust levels?

Lol. She is actually quite good at all things technical! (apart from that wee faux pas)
Having a brother and a husband who have been racing for years, I reckon some of it had to transfer to her

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by quantic

Throttle sticks? Turn off engine with key and don't crash in a fiery ball. Simple

You're making the mistake of being rational.

Here's all models affected:

The problem centers on accelerator mechanisms which might "on rare occasions" get stuck in a depressed position or be slow to return when released. This latest recall affects the following vehicles:

- 2009-2010 RAV4
- 2009-2010 Corolla
- 2009-2010 Matrix
- 2005-2010 Avalon
- 2007-2010 Camry
- 2010 Highlander
- 2007-2010 Tundra
- 2008-2010 Sequoia

Currently, there's no fix for the problem, other than to slam on the brakes until you can safely turn off the car and hope you don't have a rogue floor mats getting in the way.

http://jalopnik.com/5454064/toyota-r...elerator-pedal

Jalopnik's been covering this for a few months: http://jalopnik.com/tag/toyotarecall/

So how high up will the firings go on this one?

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by quantic

Throttle sticks? Turn off engine with key and don't crash in a fiery ball. Simple

Turn off engine....steering lock kicks in and straight on into something that in neutral you'd be able to steer around whilst safely slowing down.

[GORDON STREETER]

At a garage I worked at years ago the stores van started to smoke very badly and the foreman asked me to take a look at it.
When I pulled the dipstick out oil started to run out of the tube, it appeared that one of the women that drove the van thought that it was a level hole and kept pouring it in until it came out !

[Flyin Ryan]

http://jalopnik.com/5459053/timeline...e#viewcomments

Timeline for everything.

[JHamilton]

Somehow I don't think this is going to end with the "sticky pedals". I bet it's electronic.

[Hepatic]

more details on it here, including the european models affected which includes mine

http://blog.toyota.co.uk/list-of-eur...cted-by-recall

[strider]

It was on the BBC News tonight that they are recalling all owners of cars affected by the problem in the UK. This is going to do massive harm to Toyota's reputation. Some quite serious incidents are being reported and that's bound to escalate.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by strider

It was on the BBC News tonight that they are recalling all owners of cars affected by the problem in the UK. This is going to do massive harm to Toyota's reputation. Some quite serious incidents are being reported and that's bound to escalate.

Sound like a good idea. Heck way back just after I passed my test I had a summer job that occassioned, rarely thankfully, using an old van to pick up and deliver supplies to a gang of painters - of which I was one. Thankfully the distances were short and mainly off public roads. I seems to recall that little worked on that van and half the time one had to lift the throttle with the toe of your shoe to allow the engine revs to drop. The alternative was to take the engine cover off and operate the throttle by hand but it was a bit noisy and smokey and rather messy to do that.

I soon got the hang of it - what's the big deal .... ?

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Peter Dunne

Lol. She is actually quite good at all things technical! (apart from that wee faux pas)
Having a brother and a husband who have been racing for years, I reckon some of it had to transfer to her

Ah, an attuned version. I understand.

My eldest daughter moaned, as the colder days started last year, that her 2 year old leased Astra was not responding well to the cold and wet roads. One of the tyre looked a bit down, as modern tyres often do, so I asked when she had last checked the pressures. Blank look. 'They probably checked them when I had that new tyre fitted a couple of months ago ...'

So I checked. I didn't find two the same - or within about 5ft/lb of each other. I re-inflated to pressures slightly above 'normal' as she was about to head off down the M1 with a full complement of frinds on board. She sent me a text message later saying how much better the thing felt to drive.

When she started to drive, some years back now, she seemed keen to be aware of the 'maintenance and general care' issues of running a car and even the finer points of driving. That lasted about a year. It's not cool to be into that sort of thing at University it seems.

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by strider

It was on the BBC News tonight that they are recalling all owners of cars affected by the problem in the UK.

Might be better to recall the cars!

[GORDON STREETER]

Lots of cars that come in for servicing have tyres with way under half the recommended pressure and almost out of oil (nothing showing on the stick).
I'm sure I am not alone in finding this and I am not talking about old bangers but cars that are under 5 years old.
Customers will openly admit when asked that they don't do anything between servicing apart from putting in fuel and don't even know how to open the bonnet !

[grantp]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Lots of cars that come in for servicing have tyres with way under half the recommended pressure and almost out of oil (nothing showing on the stick).
I'm sure I am not alone in finding this and I am not talking about old bangers but cars that are under 5 years old.
Customers will openly admit when asked that they don't do anything between servicing apart from putting in fuel and don't even know how to open the bonnet !

I suspect that people have become so used to the plethora of warning lights and the touted engine management 'controls' that will tell them when there is a problem, that they mostly just don't bother unless a light comes up. To be fair I can't blame them. I rarely check my oil. Once know the pattern of oil usage between services there seems little point. Plus in my case recent mileage has been a lot less per annum than the service interval recommendation so there seems to be little imperative to keep opening the bonnet.

For some reason all the cars I have had blow oil smoke at startup from my drive - but never seem to burn any significant amount. Anywhere else they are fine.

Tyre pressures are a different game but until this current car the only time I saw any noteworthy pressure drop over extended periods was when I picked up a puncture or two. The current car is different - something funny going on since the last round of tyre changes so pressure checks and large adjustments have become a more regular event. I had the alloy wheels refurbished yesterday to see if that makes any difference. My 12V pump is sagging under the effort of keeping the things inflated.

If that fails to resolve the problem - not sure what to look at next.

But by and large if people have a fairly modern car and are not attempting their own servicing AND have the car serviced regularly I can see why they might feel there is little need to check anything, especially if the car is going to tell you when it needs a service, as BMW and VW do. When my younger daughter collected her Golf the sales persons just said "We'll see you in 20,000 miles or when the car tells you it wants some attention." No wonder people don't think there is a need to check much.

I suggested to the Golf driving daughter that she invest the extra £30 for the tyre pressure warning feature. I don't think she did in the end, but a few other options found their way onto the list.

I don't really condone the lack of all concern about checking anything, ever. But I can see how the messages from the manufacturers about how reliable their cars are and how little maintenance they need will persuade people that they can buy and forget. And once in that habit it difficult to break it.

If you think about it it's quite remarkable that the things last as long as they do.

[JimW]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

Turn off engine....steering lock kicks in and straight on into something that in neutral you'd be able to steer around whilst safely slowing down.

No it doesn't. Just turn the ignition off and don't remove the key and you'll be fine.

Jim

[grantp]

Originally Posted by JimW

No it doesn't. Just turn the ignition off and don't remove the key and you'll be fine.

Jim

Perhaps lacking in brakes after a short time and maybe power steering.

What happens to electric power steering with the ignition off? It's something I have never really thought about. Presumably it would still be driven from the battery (assuming charge available) if the engine was off but the ignition turned on?

Likewise gear changing. Automatics would be somewhat stuffed for regaining control of an errant engine so switching off might be the only option. What about the ever more popular semi-auto transmissions with electronic clutches? Presumably they would be stuck in whatever gear they had last selected? Or do they have some sort of by-pass to allow consumption from the battery anyway? I am thinking in terms of being able to select 'Park' before starting if the gear selection is in the worng position for some reason. Or maybe the position selction does not matter anyway for most of them and anomalies are 'sorted out' in the period immediately after ignition is engaged?

Another thought. How do remote /button operated starts function if you have a need to turn off the engine whilst running? One of my daughters had keyless entry and button start/stop on a previous car but we never had the need to discover what happened in the even of attempting to switch off whilst moving. As I recall the semi-auto box had to be in park (or maybe neutral as an alternative) before the engine could be switched off. I could be wrong. I can't check because the car is gone.

[JHamilton]

You lose all power assist, both steering and brakes. The proper move is to move the gearbox to neutral and maintain control.

[Hepatic]

mine is keyless & it would lock the wheel if the button is turned off. not sure if it would allow that to happen if it was moving tho, and i have no intention on finding out! I have had my 106 stall whilst moving (flooded cylinder due to poor ignition) and the PAS stopped immediately, making the car controllable but flippin' heavy, way more so than a non-PAS car.

[Osella]

First thing this morning, I saw a Camden Council Parks Department Aygo/C1 thingy on a flatbed. There's probably a council-wide memo, DO NOT TOUCH THE TOYOTAS (or, most likely, given the illiteracy-crazed state of UK local govt., 'TOYOTA'S')...

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by grantp

I rarely check my oil. Once know the pattern of oil usage between services there seems little point.

Other than the fact that checking regularly will highlight an unexpectedly low oil level and point to a potential leak that can be diagnosed and fixed before terminal engine damage occurs or you get an oil fire under the bonnet if it's dripping onto a hot exhaust. Other than that - little point