Toyota Runaway Cause: Electronic Throttle/Cruise Control?

"jim" <"sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net> wrote in message
.. .
>
>
> "C. E. White" wrote:
>
>> >
>> > The facts are clear - Pinto were no more likely to catch on fire
>> > than other vehicles from that era of the same size. Many cars of
>> > that era had gas tank mounted in the same location in the same
>> > manner (for instance my 280Z had a similar tank location). Even
>> > more
>> > modern vehicles have gas tanks mounted in this manner. Late 90's
>> > Jeeps are now being investigated becasue the Ditlow gang is
>> > fishing
>> > for new clients.
>
> That's all true, but mis-leading. Lots of cars rupture gas tanks on
> rear
> end collisions and some of them catch fire. The thing that made a
> relatively minor rear end collision bad with the Pinto was that the
> ruptured gas tank broke through the floor and spilled gas into the
> passenger compartment.

This is not true. Pinto's had a separate rear compartment floor. I
have never seen a claim that the rear floor ruputred. This claim is
associated with some other Fords from the 60's and 70's (Falcon,
Mustang, Fairlane) that used the top of the gas tank as the floor of
the trunk (the so called drop in gas tank design). Pintos did nto use
this design.

> Plus the rear end impact had a tendency to jam
> the doors so the passengers were trapped inside with the burning
> fuel.

Also not true - at least in the sense that this was more likely to
happen to Pinto's than other samll cars from that era. I have seenthis
claim associated with Mustangs Convertibles from the 90's, but never
for Pintos.

> It also didn't help that it came out in court that Ford had
> discovered
> all of this in crash tests and had made a cost benefit calculation
> that
> predicted that 100's of people would be burned alive and 1000's of
> cars
> would burned but the calculated cost of settling those lawsuits that
> this would produce would be less than the cost of fixing the
> problem. Of
> course this turned out to be a huge miscalculation on their part
> because that bit of information sent the jury awards through the
> roof
> and if I recall there even were homicide charges filed.

Also not true. From http://www.car-forums.com/s10/t2240.html :

"More startling, Schwartz shows that everyone's received ideas about
the fabled "smoking gun" memo are false (the one supposedly dealing
with how it was cheaper to save money on a small part and pay off
later lawsuits... and immortalized in the movie "Fight Club"). The
actual memo did not pertain to Pintos, or even Ford products, but to
American cars in general; it dealt with rollovers, not rear-end
collisions; it did not contemplate the matter of tort liability at
all, let alone accept it as cheaper than a design change; it assigned
a value to human life because federal regulators, for whose eyes it
was meant, themselves employed that concept in their deliberations;
and the value it used was one that they, the regulators, had set forth
in documents."

You have combined several alleged problems from multiple vehicles and
attriuted them all to the Pinto. How typical. I owned a Pinto at the
time of the horror stories, as did my Sister. Ours were recalled to
install extra protection for the fuel system Three things were done:

1) A polyethelyne shield was installed that wrapped under the bottom
of the gas tank. This was supposed to reduce the possibility that the
gas tank might rupture in a severe rear collision. It was claimed that
in some cases the Pinto fuel tank had ruptured when the rear end was
so severely crushed that the fuel tank was forced into contact with
the rear axle. Ford tests showed that this was no more likely with a
Pinto than was the case for many other small cars with similar gas
tank locations, but in the end they were forced to add this extra
protection.

2) A longer filler pipe. On a Pinto, the filler pipe fitted into the
gas tank from the side through a rubber grommet. It was alleged that
in the case of a severe rear impact the gas tank and rear fender could
be deformed in such a way that filler pipe would be pulled free of the
tank. The original pipe already extended into the tank by around 8
inches (I know, I removed the tank from my Pinto to get water out of
the tank). I have no idea how much longer the replacement pipe was.

3) The area where the filler pipe was attached to the rear fender was
beefed up. The recall added an extra metal flange to enusre that the
filler pipe would not be torn from the rear fender.

Instead of repeating old, bad, and misleading information, read this -
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/T...Pinto_Case.pdf
..

Here is the main conclusion from that article:

"It is now time to sum up. The strong claim that the Pinto was a
firetrap entails a misconception. To be sure, the Pinto did contain a
design problem that was non-trivial and to some extent distinctive.
Even so, the number of fatalities that resulted from that design
problem is a minor fraction of the fatality estimates relied on by
those who present the "firetrap" characterization.Moreover, when all
vehicle fire fatalities are considered, the Pinto turns out to have
been less dangerous than the average subcompact and only slightly more
dangerous than the average car. Indeed, when occupant fatalities from
all highway causes are considered, the Pinto performed respectably.
Yet even if the general portrayal of the Pinto as a firetrap. should
be rejected as false, a limited core of the firetrap myth seems fair
enough: the Pinto's record in rear-end fire fatalities was not only
much worse than the all-car average but was apparently somewhat worse
than the record of most (though not all) of its subcompact
competitors."

Ed

"C. E. White" wrote:

> You have combined several alleged problems from multiple vehicles and
> attriuted them all to the Pinto. How typical. I owned a Pinto at the
> time of the horror stories, as did my Sister. Ours were recalled to
> install extra protection for the fuel system Three things were done:
>


> 1) A polyethelyne shield was installed that wrapped under the bottom
> of the gas tank. This was supposed to reduce the possibility that the
> gas tank might rupture in a severe rear collision. It was claimed that
> in some cases the Pinto fuel tank had ruptured when the rear end was
> so severely crushed that the fuel tank was forced into contact with
> the rear axle. Ford tests showed that this was no more likely with a
> Pinto than was the case for many other small cars with similar gas
> tank locations, but in the end they were forced to add this extra
> protection.

Those are all part of the facts that came out in court or should have
come out in court (you may be a better lawyer in hindsight than Ford
could find at the time). Nevertheless the cost/benefit analysis was
seriously off the mark since Ford ended up paying out a lot more by
ignoring a problem than they would have by addressing the problems. I
personally liked the pinto and had no problem driving one myself.

>
> 2) A longer filler pipe. On a Pinto, the filler pipe fitted into the
> gas tank from the side through a rubber grommet. It was alleged that
> in the case of a severe rear impact the gas tank and rear fender could
> be deformed in such a way that filler pipe would be pulled free of the
> tank. The original pipe already extended into the tank by around 8
> inches (I know, I removed the tank from my Pinto to get water out of
> the tank). I have no idea how much longer the replacement pipe was.
>
> 3) The area where the filler pipe was attached to the rear fender was
> beefed up. The recall added an extra metal flange to enusre that the
> filler pipe would not be torn from the rear fender.
>
> Instead of repeating old, bad, and misleading information, read this -
> http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/T...Pinto_Case.pdf


The juries heard what they heard and decided based on what they heard
not based on what is published 30 years later. Trying the case again
now on Usenet is pointless.

The thing i find interesting is that it is always been my observation
the big 3 automakers in the 60's and 70's had a serious flaw with
respect to defending the image of the smallest and most fuel efficient
cars in their line. Whenever there was a quality or safety issue it
always seemed to become bigger than life for this class of cars.
Whether this was intentional sabotage or just the natural result of the
existing Detroit culture, the automakers failed to comprehend the extent
to which this was undermining their entire future.
The big 3 wanted the public to have the perception that if you bought
an econ-box you should not expect to feel as safe or as comfortable and
you should also expect a certain lack of reliability. Obviously they
would much preferred to have everybody buying the big cars that they
made and to have the public infer that absolutely everything else had to
be junk. After you have spent a lot of advertising dollars to hammer
that idea home, it definitely made it more difficult to sway a jury in
the opposite direction.
As far as Ford and GM were concerned the idea of building a pinto or a
vega was so the salesman on the lot could say to the customer, "you
don't want to buy one of those, if you want to buy something that is
really reliable and safe you want to buy one of these". That was the
pitch and it was a really **** poor marketing strategy. The customer
didn't go to the Honda or Toyota lots and think to themselves these are
just Pintos and Vegas like Detroit wanted them to.

-jim

> .
>
> Here is the main conclusion from that article:
>
> "It is now time to sum up. The strong claim that the Pinto was a
> firetrap entails a misconception. To be sure, the Pinto did contain a
> design problem that was non-trivial and to some extent distinctive.
> Even so, the number of fatalities that resulted from that design
> problem is a minor fraction of the fatality estimates relied on by
> those who present the "firetrap" characterization.Moreover, when all
> vehicle fire fatalities are considered, the Pinto turns out to have
> been less dangerous than the average subcompact and only slightly more
> dangerous than the average car. Indeed, when occupant fatalities from
> all highway causes are considered, the Pinto performed respectably.
> Yet even if the general portrayal of the Pinto as a firetrap. should
> be rejected as false, a limited core of the firetrap myth seems fair
> enough: the Pinto's record in rear-end fire fatalities was not only
> much worse than the all-car average but was apparently somewhat worse
> than the record of most (though not all) of its subcompact
> competitors."
>
> Ed

On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 9:26:39 PM UTC-6, john wrote:
> A Prius owner tried to resume her cruise control, and then the car
> accelerated out of control.
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8982147
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/

I just recently purchased a 2004 Toyota Camry and with my foot off the gas and going approx. 20 to 25 mph the engine just went full out acceleration. It did this twice within 5 minutes of driving. No floor mats involved. I love the car but this is too scary.

On 06/07/2015 11:18 AM, wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 9:26:39 PM UTC-6, john wrote:
>> A Prius owner tried to resume her cruise control, and then the car
>> accelerated out of control.
>>
>> http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8982147
>>
>> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/
>
> I just recently purchased a 2004 Toyota Camry and with my foot off
> the gas and going approx. 20 to 25 mph the engine just went full out
> acceleration. It did this twice within 5 minutes of driving. No floor
> mats involved. I love the car but this is too scary.

My 1988 Caddy does/did something like that; the mode seems to have
changed to something less malevolent (cured by shifting to neutral and
tapping the throttle back to low idle), but the cause is looseness where
the throttle piston (?) goes into the housing -- the bearings are shot.
Maybe this is the cause of your problem.

--
Cheers, Bev
---------------------------------------------
"The primary purpose of any government entity
is to employ the unemployable."

On Sun, 07 Jun 2015 12:06:56 -0700, The Real Bev
> wrote:

>On 06/07/2015 11:18 AM, wrote:
>> On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 9:26:39 PM UTC-6, john wrote:
>>> A Prius owner tried to resume her cruise control, and then the car
>>> accelerated out of control.
>>>
>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8982147
>>>
>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/
>>
>> I just recently purchased a 2004 Toyota Camry and with my foot off
>> the gas and going approx. 20 to 25 mph the engine just went full out
>> acceleration. It did this twice within 5 minutes of driving. No floor
>> mats involved. I love the car but this is too scary.
>
>My 1988 Caddy does/did something like that; the mode seems to have
>changed to something less malevolent (cured by shifting to neutral and
>tapping the throttle back to low idle), but the cause is looseness where
>the throttle piston (?) goes into the housing -- the bearings are shot.
> Maybe this is the cause of your problem.

Don't you know, Toyotas NEVER have problems. Many owner never even
need to put gas in the tank.

On 06/07/2015 06:15 PM, Ashton Crusher wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Jun 2015 12:06:56 -0700, The Real Bev
> > wrote:
>
>>On 06/07/2015 11:18 AM, wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 9:26:39 PM UTC-6, john wrote:
>>>> A Prius owner tried to resume her cruise control, and then the car
>>>> accelerated out of control.
>>>>
>>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8982147
>>>>
>>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/
>>>
>>> I just recently purchased a 2004 Toyota Camry and with my foot off
>>> the gas and going approx. 20 to 25 mph the engine just went full out
>>> acceleration. It did this twice within 5 minutes of driving. No floor
>>> mats involved. I love the car but this is too scary.
>>
>>My 1988 Caddy does/did something like that; the mode seems to have
>>changed to something less malevolent (cured by shifting to neutral and
>>tapping the throttle back to low idle), but the cause is looseness where
>>the throttle piston (?) goes into the housing -- the bearings are shot.
>> Maybe this is the cause of your problem.
>
> Don't you know, Toyotas NEVER have problems. Many owner never even
> need to put gas in the tank.

Fool, that's Volkswagen!

--
Cheers, Bev
================================================== =================
"If your mechanic claims that he stands behind his brake jobs, keep
looking. You want to find one willing to stand in front of them."

-- B. Ward

The Real Bev > wrote:
>On 06/07/2015 06:15 PM, Ashton Crusher wrote:
>> On Sun, 07 Jun 2015 12:06:56 -0700, The Real Bev
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>On 06/07/2015 11:18 AM, wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 9:26:39 PM UTC-6, john wrote:
>>>>> A Prius owner tried to resume her cruise control, and then the car
>>>>> accelerated out of control.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8982147
>>>>>
>>>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/RunawayToyotas/
>>>>
>>>> I just recently purchased a 2004 Toyota Camry and with my foot off
>>>> the gas and going approx. 20 to 25 mph the engine just went full out
>>>> acceleration. It did this twice within 5 minutes of driving. No floor
>>>> mats involved. I love the car but this is too scary.
>>>
>>>My 1988 Caddy does/did something like that; the mode seems to have
>>>changed to something less malevolent (cured by shifting to neutral and
>>>tapping the throttle back to low idle), but the cause is looseness where
>>>the throttle piston (?) goes into the housing -- the bearings are shot.
>>> Maybe this is the cause of your problem.
>>
>> Don't you know, Toyotas NEVER have problems. Many owner never even
>> need to put gas in the tank.
>
>Fool, that's Volkswagen!

It's true, my father had a bug like that. He never put gas in it, he just
filled the crankcase a couple times a day and it ran mostly on motor oil.
You could always tell when he was coming down the road, and you could tell
when he'd been there too.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."