The Accelerator Recall

They only tested 75 cars out of how many millions produced.

 

I still believe it was a firmware flaw and happened on less than 50 vehicles of the 3000 complaints. I think the cruise control locked on.

Why else were Toyota technicians doing firmware updates on cars with no problems.

I stood in the service bay next to the technician and watched the entire time the "recall" was preformed on my 2008 Camry XLE, and when it was preformed on my 2010 Corolla. The technicians never hooked anything up to the ECU or any diagnostic port in my car.

On the Camry they did the trim and shim and on the Corolla they raised the pedal assembly to provide additional clearance for the floor mats.

The trim and shim was a super ugly operation and fix. The raised accelerator isn't as easy to hold in place as it was before the recall work was preformed.

I honestly don't believe there is anything wrong with any of these cars, I believe it became an easy way to blame the car after the Lexus with improper floor mats incident. Every year some 300 incidents of unintended acceleration are reported to NHTSA and most all of them are dismissed as driver error. Let's face it, no one wants to admit that they don't know how to operate their car. Toyota sells a lot of cars and so when 1 Lexus has a reported issue, you're surely going to find 50 Camry owners who will blame their car for rear ending someone.

Now Toyota is going to be stuck installing brake override on every car they sell in the US, just like Audi got stuck with brake shift interlock in the 80s because people were too embarrassed to admit that they made a mistake and couldn't operate their cars correctly.

Totally blown out of proportion. Was just a media feeding frenzy fueled by the perfect set of circumstances. Given that a foreign "company", Toyota, pushed out the domestic brands for total sales, failing economy, and strong patriotism - was a recipe for a "perfect storm" to dump all over onto Toyota. People were desperate and Toyota just happened to be a juice target. Looking back, think of the media firestorm. Then look at hard numbers. The number of reported SUA events prior to the media getting wind of this were generally less than 500 vehicles per calendar year, after the media presence, that jumped up almost 10-fold overnight, more than all the previous SUA events in the previous 10 years combined. Even reports of non-DBW Toyotas skyrocketed during this period of time. After the media firestorm died down and all those emergency floormat and gas pedal recalls were done, the number of SUA per calendar year returned to parity with the previous 10 years for both DBW and non-DBW Toyotas.

Myself, still waiting to do the accelerator pedal on my 2009 Matrix XRS - got the recall letter awhile ago, just haven't been compelled to rush it into the shop, as the car is running pretty well. Granted, with the DBW system in the 2009 Matrix compared to the 2003 Matrix we had before, there was a marked difference in pedal feel and how speed relates to that input. Can be "weird" for some drivers, but nothing that cannot be adjusted to. Compared to other DBW systems from other manufacturers and even within Toyota brands, each system has their own "feel". Just like cable actuated throttles, takes some time getting used to it.

On the firmware issue, to say that it was 100% perfect, can't say that about any code - if it was clean code, well according to the investigation by the Department of Transportation and having Toyota source code available, control electronics, and extensive EMI/RFI testing - results say it is clean. Now something did come out of it, adding additional logic that will cut accelerator input when you press the brake pedal, to follow the logic that other manufacturer's have done with their DBW systems. If this is significant or just Toyota following everyone else, hard to say.

Good point, makes me think of this old adage, "Pointing fingers is easier than looking in the mirror".