happened to one of the guys at my shop today, after the alignment on the car he took it out on a road test (came from a body shop) and he said the car just kept accelerating and almost rear ended someone. Luckily he was able to move the mat quite easily he said.

some people really dont know anything about cars are what to do in an unordianry situation. when i worked at a part store i had to show one person how to add windshield wiper fluid and another one how to put air in the tires. Now i couldnt even begin to imagine trying to explain but the car in neutral when the pedal is stuck

Here's another good one....

http://jalopnik.com/5453990/oh-toyota-you-try-so-hard


I hope the pedals in those don't get stuck...

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...celeration.jpg

:kneeslap:

Excellent excuse.

This looks like the real deal:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/...18954

Cliff Notes:

Guys Avalon has several unintended acceleration problems. Dealer can't figure it out. Then it happens again as he was driving, guy remember to put it into neutral, and he coaxes the car back to dealership. Car is revving uncontrollably in Neutral in front of Service Manager.

It wasn't the floor mats.

Guy said stepping on brakes had no effect.........

Uh...a problem is not having a window motor go oup
A problem is an engineer's great idea for a distrubutor system that didnt take up space but had problems with water.

When it effects nearly 7 million cars, and counting, and has hurt or killed several people, it stops being a problem and it starts being a serious liability.
Toyota should be dragged throught the mud.

Frankly, I don't care why. I didn't feel like paying for the replacement over and over again. Either don't come up with crappy designs or pay for it to fix it. Neither were done.

So glad you brought up millions of people who might be affected. So how do you feel about GM Side Saddle gas tank issue? Over 10 million were installed, over 1800 people were killed in fiery crashes, and GM payed millions of dollars to shut them up, besides Mosley vs GM that is.

Transportation secretary pretty much said (clicky for a long pdf) that GM is at fault for it, because of the design, and it should have never existed in the first place. In addition to the fact that NHTSA has urged GM to issue a voluntary recall (clicky), what did GM do? Pretty sure it was NOTHING :lol:


Like I said before, at least Toyota is doing something.

Cheers,

P.S. In before you try to put a positive spin on all those deaths. :lol:

Oh, and as always GM is number 1!!

Every car owner makes bonehead decisions and tries to spin it. A bad design does not necessitate a recall. GM proved that with the window motors, LS1 piston slap, Dex cool issues, SS Silverado steering columns (shout out to you, Phil!) and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff. Hell, I love my GTP and have owned it for 10 years now. But one of the dumbest designes I've ever seen is having pressurized fuel flow over top of the supercharger (with a coupling on top) pointed straight at the front exhaust manifold. And don't forget about 12-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader and his book.



But they are not alone in the least. Honda Civic Si owners have an issue with their transmissions jumping out of 3rd gear- and even after a "recall" the issue isn't solved, and the "street solution" is to install non-Honda spec fluid. Or how about Nissan's spec'ing of special magical transmission fluid for their cars, so you have to spend the $9 a bottle to buy it from them (not counting the GT-R's special stuff)? Or the Toyota pickup bed flex issues? Ford Crown Victoria firey rear end collisions? Or the BMW iDrive system? Or the EGR filter in a $100,000+ Porsche that's behind the engine, under the rear seat, only accessible if you remove the top end induction system- and carries a sticker that says "service bi-weekly"?

There are bad designs ALL OVER the auto industry. I do not think it's asking much of every automaker to request that user input to the car should always be reliable. That's a basic need, and one that Toyota screwed up in this case.

The reason why I think a lot of people are making such a big deal is because most people think Japanese or German cars are the only cars worth owning. And this is a case where Toyota made a mistake on a very basic system on most of their cars. Kind of like people having to face a situation like the clean cut valedictorian of a high school ending up knocked up at graduation.

Um...I wasn't arguing that other car manufacturers don't make mistakes. I simply gave Toyota props for fixing an issue they manufactured before too many people die (has anyone died? I really don't know). I don't see harm in that. I like when companies admit fault and try to solve a problem.

I also said that I wish GM was like that. That's when you and Bi Gal decided that GM is holy and doesn't have to fix mistakes they make, UNLESS people die. I simply provided some information when A LOT of people died, GM paid a ton of money to settle their cases, and still issued no recall. That's irresponsible. The fact is, 9 years PRIOR to installment of the FIRST side saddle gas tank GM already has done research on it, and determined that it shouldn't be there (I can post up another memo). But hey, profits are more important!

But yea, everybody makes mistakes, it's how you handle them (mistakes) that shapes your image in the eyes of the public, and to me, GM has failed, miserably.


Before someone points me to some other recall by some other company - don't bother, I know they exist, and it is not what I'm arguing about here.

Yeah, a few people died (I think). I know of at least one.

I certainly do not think GM is holy. I am still very skeptical about purchasing from them. I just think that they get a raw deal based on past history. It's obvious that their previous business practices failed completely and I'd like to see them have a real shot at becoming a great automaker again. That can't happen unless their image is repaired. One way for that to happen is if some of the other automakers don't look as great.

Regarding the no deaths/no recall- I did not mean that there should not be a recall unless somebody dies. I meant that it's unfortunate that bean counters keep recalls from being issued unless people are hurt.

Admittedly I know very little about the side saddle gas tank deal. It certainly sounds like GM dropped the ball. What I find a little hard to believe is that 1800 people died and a bigger deal was not made of this. The engineers should have been found guilty of criminal negligence or something like that. I'll have to read up more on it for sure.

Man, Tsar have you never seen the beginning of Fight Club? :lol:

I think it's just. Plus as a society, we always do that anyways. Think of a child molester; do you want him to babysit your kids after he has done his time? What if he promises that he will be good? I little extreme, but past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. If you take a polygraph, they really try to reinforce this fact :lol:
To be fair, from what I've read the deaths ranged from 1973 until 2000. So it's not like they were all killed in one year. Although that does not diminish their deaths in anyway, imo. If I remember correctly, they also paid over 500 mil to settle all the cases resulting from this issue, although I do not have a handy-dandy PDF file for that number :mrgreen:

I've seen Fight Club a few times, but I don't remember now. Refresh my memory.

Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.

Ahh, now I remember :lol:

Very valid points. Hard to argue if a leopard can really change its spots or not. Different political and economic context now, though.

But we as a society give people second chances all of the time. One of the most terrifying things some of our grandfathers had to face in their youth was a Mitsubishi. Now we have Mistu and Evo fanboiis that trash anything American. Ain't that a bitch.

I can't argue against that. It's up to each individual to make their own determination on the matter.

question- isn't Recalls only for safety issues? There would be no reason to recall an issue unless it is safety related.

Off of the top of my head- wasn't the 2000 Cobra engine issue a recall that was not a safety issue?

Granted, most are safety related, but not all of them.

I'm not sure. Are cats considered part of "safety issue"? They were recalled on my mothers Caddy, some time ago. At least I believe they were.

Not safety. But they do fall under a labyrinth of EPA regs.

So collectively, we answered Jake's question. Go us!

:w00t:

Toyota is doing something? They pinned it on "floor mats" when its obviously not floor mats. They are just throwing out ******** recalls because they are scrambling to regain thier image.
Are you watching either of the football games? Toyota has bought more air time talking about its quality and other ********.

GM has had its problems, and it made ****** cars and ****** calls. That still doesnt mean that what Toyota is doing is better? How about the sludge engines? No recall notice, just millions of dollars of covering it up and telling people to shut it. How about teh Sienna doors delaminating? How about the new Tundra's laundry list of problems, NONE of which were recalled, just "enhanced warrantied" to death.

Toyota is covering it up as of thier mistakes as possible. They fired the CEO and put in a family member because of all the major short falls and damage done to the image.

And as for Mr.Green Nader's book that came out after that generation of Corvairs were being replaced with redesigned and better driving 2nd generations. But GM's pursuit of Nader made GM look evil. And that damaged the image of the Corvair, not to mention opeing the door for the Mustang to take over in 64.



I have never said that GM is flawless, I never said that GM is without blame. GM has done a lot of bad things and has ****ed people over for years.
In the end, the past is the past. Toyota is not covering ****, just putting the blame on the drivers and not on faulty cars.

You mad? :lol:

Way to not address what I said, and just go blab around about something else. I can toss all of those things aside due to a "bad design" just like you tossed aside the optispark and window motor deal. After all they weren't "safety" enough for you.

Take a deep breath next time :lol: