Owner can set off sudden acceleration in a Toyota (Don't try this at home!)
in [Toyota Prius]
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From: john on 2 Feb 2010 20:00 Chuck Eaton, a retired industrial engineer in Greer, S.C., said he has experienced a surge in his 2006 Toyota Tacoma three or four times, usually in warmer weather, when he deactivates the cruise control at between 65 and 70 m.p.h., then quickly resets it. But it has never happened in his wife's 2004 Toyota Camry. Full article at: http://www.freep.com/article/20100201/BUSINESS01/2010368/1331/
From: john on 2 Feb 2010 20:14 I Googled the article, scary: "Wozniak said he was surprised several months ago when his 2010 Toyota Prius started accelerating on its own -- to as much as 97 mph -- when he used cruise control to increase the vehicle's speed. He said he had to tap the brakes to stop the car from accelerating. Wozniak, 59, wanted to alert Toyota Motor Corp. and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to the possible safety issue, but he grew frustrated when he was unable to reach someone who would listen. A local dealership did not respond to his concerns, he said." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-wozniak3-2010feb03,0,3057333.story On Feb 2, 5:10 pm, Not Me <Not...(a)Home.Base> wrote: > > On this evening's network news, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reported > the same misbehavior in his 2010 Prius.
From: Mike Hunter on 2 Feb 2010 20:39 "Wozniak is famous for collecting technology he likes, including Segways, iPhones and Priuses. "No product is perfect," he said. "I would buy another one." He should know, he is an Apple co-founder ;) "john" <johngdole(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:e4bb9782-6294-454f-88c8-d6a4abf069ac(a)t34g2000prm.googlegroups.com... I Googled the article, scary: "Wozniak said he was surprised several months ago when his 2010 Toyota Prius started accelerating on its own -- to as much as 97 mph -- when he used cruise control to increase the vehicle's speed. He said he had to tap the brakes to stop the car from accelerating. Wozniak, 59, wanted to alert Toyota Motor Corp. and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to the possible safety issue, but he grew frustrated when he was unable to reach someone who would listen. A local dealership did not respond to his concerns, he said." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-wozniak3-2010feb03,0,3057333.story On Feb 2, 5:10 pm, Not Me <Not...(a)Home.Base> wrote: > > On this evening's network news, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reported > the same misbehavior in his 2010 Prius.
From: fred on 2 Feb 2010 20:59 "Mike Hunter" <Mikehunt2(a)lycos,com> wrote in news:4b68d26b$0$19364$ce5e7886(a)news-radius.ptd.net: > "Wozniak is famous for collecting technology he likes, including > Segways, iPhones and Priuses. "No product is perfect," he said. "I > would buy another one." > > He should know, he is an Apple co-founder ;) > > He's more than that, He *invented* the apple computer single-handedly. Both of their first products I think. The Apple 1 and II.Look up his name and Captain Crunch if you want to see what he did for fun before that.
From: nm5k on 2 Feb 2010 21:05
On Feb 2, 7:00 pm, john <johngd...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Chuck Eaton, a retired industrial engineer in Greer, S.C., said he has > experienced a surge in his 2006 Toyota Tacoma three or four times, > usually in warmer weather, when he deactivates the cruise control at > between 65 and 70 m.p.h., then quickly resets it. But it has never > happened in his wife's 2004 Toyota Camry. > > Full article at:http://www.freep.com/article/20100201/BUSINESS01/2010368/1331/ Dunno.. Unless the cruise is drastically increasing the speed to a level over what the cruise is set at, sounds fairly normal. I don't know about the new versions, but I know my 05 Corolla is very aggressive at regaining speed if it drops below the set speed. So if you had it set at say, 70mph, and then disconnected it and let the speed drop to say 60 and then reset it, it will punch the throttle pretty good to get back up to speed. In the case of the Corolla, it will often downshift. Many times two gears down. I'll see this if I'm going up a grade and the speed keeps dropping off. There is actually no need to downshift at all in most cases, but the programming tells it to do it. And this programming is coming from the aggressive cruise control, not the throttle per say. I bet the downshifting is why he saw the drastic rpm increase. If I go up a hill and it downshifts, if I disconnect the cruise, it instantly shifts back to high gear. This quirk annoys the heck out of me, but I do not consider it a defect. It's just the way they programmed it. My cure is to manually apply the gas going up steep grades and override the cruise. That way it doesn't slow down below set speed and want to punch it and downshift. So really that story means nothing to me, unless the guy can state that the speed runs way past the set speed. There is no mention of the final speed it gets up to. When normal, it will quickly up shift and throttle down quite near the set speed. It will not drastically overrun it. But with a resume like he's talking about, it's quite normal to feel like speed racer just sat in the seat on your lap. :/ Or at least I know it is on some models like mine.. It's not a defect. It's just overly aggressive at throttling up when it senses too low a speed, because it was too slow at slowly throttling up to keep the same speed on the grade like it really should be doing. Now if his is taking off and wanting to do 100 mph, yep, Houston we would have a problem.. :/ |