[urq] Toyota UA debacle

[qshipq at aol.com]

 Mike
I did 'hit' the brakes, but not with full to the floor force, as my brain was still assessing the circumstances of 'what' was going on at the time.  I know that my 4.2 v8 at WFO throttle didn't give two craps that I did a 2/3 brake engagement at the time.  As I started to realize this was a serious problem, I was into avoidance and evade mode, while going after shutdown mode.  It wasn't until I restarted the car fully stopped that I came quickly to the diagnosis that I had a failed cruise rod bushing.  Could I have absolutely stood on the brakes immediately and 'likely' had a safe outcome?  Possibly.  Could I have put it in neutral and blown my car up had I been looking at an impending catastrophic event?  Sure.  What I *chose* to do, was not rely soley on braking to save my sorry ass, whatever C&D says in their tests.  The last thing I was thinking was that I was safer standing on the brakes, than taking other action.  In the moment of truth, with a lot of training, and without panic, I was able to save the engine, not hurt myself or others, and bring my car safely to the side of the road with the engine off.  Without that training, and with panic, I could see catastrophic events in a matter of seconds.

In the case of the Toyota, I look at redundancies to the philosophy that electronics are mutually exclusive, and I think it's a no brainer given the circumstances of some of these incidents.  I dare anyone to try taking a 4.2 v8 at 5500rpm and stand on the brakes.  This is where the C/D test fails IMO.  For an expected set of circumstances and given variables, absolutely fine.  When the brain is processing a lot more than a cone>distance tests, a lot of variables come into play.  

My .02

Scott J

 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Del Tergo <mdeltergo at hotmail.com>
To: urq at audifans.com; Scott Justusson <qshipq at aol.com>
Sent: Sat, Feb 27, 2010 11:26 am
Subject: re: [urq] Toyota UA debacle


Scott,
nowhere did I read that part of your reaction was to hit the brakes. If you did, are you saying the car still marched to 90 from 60MPH? That would certainly throw cold water on my belief of brakes being "stronger" than the engine at full tilt.  I had my throttle stick on the V8 last spring, but not at WFO.  It stuck at the speed I was driving about 45 in moderate 2 lane divided hwy traffic.  In that scenario the UFOs did a fine job of modulating my speed till I could pull off in a mile or so and negotiate a small bit of surface roads to pull over and investigate.  Lucky for me the situation never escalated to a need to kill the engine, neutral and brakes got me through.
I'll try and reserve my opinions on what happened with the majority of the Toyota incidents until I see more info.  What I will opine on is the Lady Lexus owners testimony before congress from her incident 3? years ago.  She recounted how she put both feet on the brake pedal to no effect, (I'll have to give her that one given your report) she mentioned shifting into other gears ,N, R (se did not mention P) with no effect, (that surprises me quite a bit and points to multiple system failures), but she also tearfully recounts how she had the time or presence of mind and bluetoothed her husband, but nowhere did she mention turning the car off.  While I have little doubt that she is being truthful as she recalls events, my experiences with dozens of motor vehicles that drive on the road, and more that a few that fly and pilot waterways I have never experienced  a mulitple system failure (thankfully) as she described, from a "consumer" oriented vehicle.
 

From: qshipq at aol.com
Subject: Re: [urq] Toyota UA debacle
To: benswann at verizon.net, quattro at audifans.com, urq at audifans.com
Cc: rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com

 
I don't believe for a second that braking can 'overcome' an engine at WOT, and certainly that would require a 'speed' parameter (including the fade variable spoken to here). And, having experienced a WOT stick in a 4.2 v8 (stuck cruise control rod) 2 years ago, blaming a driver for not being able to react is premature. In my case, the almost WOT to 60, lifting to find none... The next few seconds to 'react' took me to 90+ before I was able to shift to neutral and cut the power. Processing all that, and taking the risk that the ignition cut too far might lock up the wheel, was quite high stress for me. And one of the scariest 20 total seconds of my life. Doing that in traffic? I back up from the driver....
 
 
                    

Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now.=