I think the "cruise control" setup in Toyota's is the culprit.

[peggygirl]

What else can press the gas pedal to the floor? Enlighten me.

[havocmom]

1. One might suspect cruise control on anything but good DRY pavement would be risky

the least bit of hydro-planing and the car might not 'feel the road/speed' and go into acceleration is how one engineer explained it to me. Don't use cruise control on ANY vehicle if the pavement is not clean, dry, and your tires good.

Anybody know if the engineer was correct? It made sense to me but I didn't stay at the Holiday Inn recently :shrug:

[no limit]

2. I think if cruise control was as dangerous as that implies we wouldnt have it in cars

[havocmom]

4. Engage it on a really rainy day, and get back to me

Kidding. Don't want you to get hurt.

If cars were as dangerous as the accident stats would indicate, we wouldn't have them... err, wait... Safety is NOT job one. And it is not a big selling point for such a huge industry.

[Chemisse]

5. Aww it is sweet how trusting you are.

Sorry to be sarcastic, but I couldn't resist.

:evilgrin:

[no limit]

8. You got any lawsuits in regards to cruise control?

This has nothing to do with trusting corporations. The sticking accelartor in Toyotas killed what, 7 people? And look at the headlines that made. That leads me to believe curise control never really killed anybody because of a fault with the cruise control system.

[NoNothing]

9. That doesn't make sense

The car uses the spinning of the wheels (actually the transmission) to calculate speed. If hydroplaning or other slipping is causing the wheels to spin without moving the car, then the car will think it is going faster than it is and let off the gas, which is in fact the safest action to take in such a circumstance.

The real danger is simply driving *too fast*, which is arguably easier if you are on cruise and not paying attention. I don't think uncontrolled acceleration has anything to do with it.

[zipplewrath]

10. Not for long

Most cruise controls work through the transmission these days, so if the drive wheels are hydroplaning, yeah the cruise control might get confused. I'm suspiscious that in this day and age of anti-lock brakes, there is some connection to the speedometer, at least in the sense of detecting this kind of problem. Also, most cruise controls I have won't accelerate all that strongly, so unless one is hydroplaning a very long time, it really wouldn't be that much of an issue. When you hydroplane, resistence to rotation is lost momentarily and so it will tend to speed up anyway (watch your tires on ice and snow some time). So whether you have the cruise control engaged or not, the wheel's gonna spin a bit.

And yes, I'm an engineer too.

[havocmom]

14. Thanks for the input

[Chemisse]

3. I'm not so sure the gas pedal is pressed to the floor

That was their original assertion (the stuck in the floormat theory) but I haven't seen any witness accounts that actually say the gas pedal was depressed.

[c brand]

6. Ford less than one year ago was forced to recall more than 4 million cars based on 550 vehicle FIRES

The recall concerned cruise-control deactivation switches that were installed in 16 million Fords. Part of the recall included nearly 1.1 million 1995-2003 Ford Windstar family van models.

Was there a congressional hearing?

[DainBramaged]

20. Do you possibly have any links? Did you know that the Windstar and NISSAN QUEST

were a JOINT VENTURE engineered by Nissan and manufactured by Ford from 1993 till 2002?


Ford had money to build an assembly plant, but lacked vehicle design engineering resources due to other vehicles. Nissan was lacking cash but could contribute vehicle engineering and an engine built at its Smyrna, Tennessee facility. The initial project was code named "VX54" within Ford. Ford may mean a number of things: A ford is a river crossing. ... Nissan Motor Co. ... The Ford Aerostar was Fords first attempt at building a minivan, and was introduced as a 1986 model in mid-1985. ... The Ford Windstar was a minivan produced and sold by the Ford Motor Company from 1995 to 2003. ... Smyrna is a town located in Rutherford County, Tennessee. ...


http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Mercury-Villager

I wonder why you left out that important information????

[DevonRex]

7. In Toyota's what? nt

[Schema Thing]

11. I'm not up on Cruise Control, but the recent snow/ice confused the Auto Traction Control

in my 02 Jetta.


I thought my transmission was going out, because of the vibration/chatter I was getting. Somehow the ATC system had decided to operate all the time. Nothing dangerous there particularly, because it works by rapid cycling the breaks, a la ABS. (well, I guess if it did it's work violently on one side or the other, it could be pretty dangerous).

I let the car sleep on it, and the next day it was fine.

[Schema Thing]

12. sorry, meant to reply to the thread topic

[madokie]

13. I hope you do realize the wisdom in that last statement

good advice to all on most all problems, except of course when in the midst of an emergency, such as your car deciding on its on to take the fuck off at a high rate of speed.

[Schema Thing]

15. I've had surprising success ignoring problems in cars

especially Volvos; those suckers always needed time to work out their emotional problems :) Sometimes even a week or so.

[cherokeeprogressive]

18. My AWD Chevy Tahoe has a traction control system that automatically applies brake pressure

to any wheel that is slipping on ice, thereby routing torque to the opposite wheel.

It's built in.

[Schema Thing]

19. yes. same thing.

[backscatter712]

16. It's probably one of the inputs into the ECU that triggers the firmware bug.

Toyota's trying to avoid the expense of having to do a recall that involves replacing, or even re-flashing firmware on the ECUs of their cars - that will be expensive.

They're still using The Formula. You've all seen Fight Club, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5EY8oXamoM

[Javaman]

17. Ahhh, yet another hit and run post...

by this same poster.

I will drop a turd post, then I will sit back and watch everyone go crazy.

Don't fall for the posters bait.

I've seen the OP's tactics over the last few days.

[Hannah Bell]

21. i had the same problem (unexpected acceleration - & deceleration) because of a

faulty temp sensor in a saturn. it took repeated visits to diagnose it; it didn't register on the diagnostic machine until it completely died.

until then, everyone thought i was a lying nut. or tried to tell me it was my transmission.