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Wow. Toyota to continue to sell new vehicles with recall without fix

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Most cars have enough reserve vacuum, though. It seems that the Lexus in question does not, and it's brakes also fade relatively quickly. Bad combination if you happen to get a stuck throttle.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Most cars have enough reserve vacuum, though. It seems that the Lexus in question does not, and it's brakes also fade relatively quickly. Bad combination if you happen to get a stuck throttle.
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Other cars also have an electric vacuum booster to help in those situations. There was some problem's with the Sky/Soltice turbo's because they didn't ship with the vacuum booster for a few months. This normally wasn't a problem, but under sustained boost for long periods of time (like cruise control going uphill at 80mph) the brakes would be hard as a rock and you had to disengage cruise control with the button and get out of boost to make it easier to press them.
 
LTC8K6 said:
The car's brakes fade very rapidly and lose power assist at WOT. It was not clear how to shut off the engine. It was not easy for a first time driver to find neutral.

How about we knock off attacking the driver?

"Lexus ES braking system loses power-assist when the throttle is fully opened, increasing braking distance fivefold."
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The bit about losing power assist is disingenuous. Yes, at WOT the engine is not producing vacuum and therefore cannot supply additional vacuum to the brake booster. However, the brake booster is designed to contain residual vacuum and retains power assist for at least two pedal applications; it does not immediately lose power assist. For the driver to lose all power assist, he would have to hit the brakes, release the brakes, hit the brakes again, release the brakes again, and then try applying the brakes a third time. That's pretty damn stupid.

Also, having driven cars without any power assist at all, I am very strongly skeptical of the claim that braking distance increases fivefold with the loss of assist. The old cars without power brakes certainly didn't take over 500 feet to stop from 60. Pedal pressure definitely is higher (and I could understand if they said that pedal pressure increases fivefold), but braking distances are certainly not 5x longer unless the driver is a dumbass and doesn't understand that he has to push harder on the pedal.

ZV
 
crazySOB297 said:
Other cars also have an electric vacuum booster to help in those situations. There was some problem's with the Sky/Soltice turbo's because they didn't ship with the vacuum booster for a few months. This normally wasn't a problem, but under sustained boost for long periods of time (like cruise control going uphill at 80mph) the brakes would be hard as a rock and you had to disengage cruise control with the button and get out of boost to make it easier to press them.
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Turbo cars need a much stronger check-valve for the brake vacuum accumulator. My guess for the Sky/Solstice turbo is that GM used a standard check valve that couldn't stay completely closed when the car was under boost.

ZV
 
Zenmervolt said:
The bit about losing power assist is disingenuous. Yes, at WOT the engine is not producing vacuum and therefore cannot supply additional vacuum to the brake booster. However, the brake booster is designed to contain residual vacuum and retains power assist for at least two pedal applications; it does not immediately lose power assist. For the driver to lose all power assist, he would have to hit the brakes, release the brakes, hit the brakes again, release the brakes again, and then try applying the brakes a third time. That's pretty damn stupid.
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That's only pretty damn stupid if you know what to expect and you are purposefully doing this. But usually people tap the pedal to "reset" something or try to understand what is going on. It's not usual for a car to keep going despite tapping the pedal, so they let go thinking "wtf is going on" and try it again.. I know this because I encountered a stuck accelerator myself in said affect vehicles. My stuck accelerator situation ended well because I was calm and knew what to do via the process of elimination. I understand most people would not have been able to do this because all that's going through their mind is "holy fuck I'm goanna die!".
 
fleabag said:
That's only pretty damn stupid if you know what to expect and you are purposefully doing this. But usually people tap the pedal to "reset" something or try to understand what is going on. It's not usual for a car to keep going despite tapping the pedal, so they let go thinking "wtf is going on" and try it again.. I know this because I encountered a stuck accelerator myself in said affect vehicles. My stuck accelerator situation ended well because I was calm and knew what to do via the process of elimination. I understand most people would not have been able to do this because all that's going through their mind is "holy fuck I'm goanna die!".
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Have you ever actually tapped the brakes just to disengage cruise control or something similar? It certainly doesn't seem to be so since you clearly don't understand how it works.

It's quite easy to trip the brake light switch (which is what does the "resetting") without engaging the brakes enough to use any meaningful amount of the accumulated vacuum reserve. Tapping the brakes just plain doesn't expend enough accumulated vacuum to make a difference in the scenario I described.

A driver who tapped the pedal even 2-3 times in futile efforts to disengage cruise control should still have sufficient reserve vacuum in the brake booster for at least one full stroke of pedal travel.

Panic is stupid. Period. If people aren't able to understand what to do in an emergency situation while driving, they have no business driving in the first place and need to have their licenses revoked.

ZV
 
Zenmervolt said:
Turbo cars need a much stronger check-valve for the brake vacuum accumulator. My guess for the Sky/Solstice turbo is that GM used a standard check valve that couldn't stay completely closed when the car was under boost.

ZV
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They ended up adding the electric vacuum booster back.
 
IIRC, people tested the ES350, and the brakes faded almost immediately. They had one shot to stop the car before the brakes became ineffective, iirc. This matches the NHTSA report.

I tested a car myself you may remember, and deliberately pumped the brakes to try and lose vacuum assist. I did this in respone to claims that you would lose the vacuum assist at WOT. I did the test several times, and never really lost the power brakes. The car I tested had a whole lot of reserve, or a very good boost system. Braking was less effective after pumping, but only a little less effective.
 
Zenmervolt said:
That's interesting. I'm still a little curious as to why the accumulator was leaking vacuum in the first place though. Seems odd.

ZV
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My best guess is a few cars leaked enough to cause a problem and the owners made enough noise to make it easier to just reinstall the assist.
 
LTC8K6 said:
IIRC, people tested the ES350, and the brakes faded almost immediately. They had one shot to stop the car before the brakes became ineffective, iirc. This matches the NHTSA report.

I tested a car myself you may remember, and deliberately pumped the brakes to try and lose vacuum assist. I did this in respone to claims that you would lose the vacuum assist at WOT. I did the test several times, and never really lost the power brakes. The car I tested had a whole lot of reserve, or a very good boost system. Braking was less effective after pumping, but only a little less effective.
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Huh.

I am still skeptical given tests performed with Camrys (which are essentially the same as ES350s) don't show this issue. Of course, it's still possible that the ES350, for some reason, has a "perfect storm" of issues that are generally innocuous but which come together in catastrophic fashion, but going by Occam's razor, the most likely scenario still seems to be a screw loose behind the wheel.

Now, just because I think that the cause of the crashing is generally driver error doesn't mean I think that it's all the driver's fault (after all, the car is still getting stuck at WOT in the first place) and it also doesn't mean that I think the drivers' reactions (or lack thereof) are unforgivable.

Most people go through life with something of an invincibility complex and don't plan out what to do in an emergency, and in nearly all cases the modern world is safe enough that this lack of planning and preparation doesn't come back to haunt them. The biggest fault that I see here is our driver's licensing system, which doesn't emphasize emergency situations enough or involve enough practical time behind the wheel. It also doesn't re-test individuals often enough to ensure that people's skills remain up to date. We're seeing the accidents we've seen due to a lethal combination of mechanical failure, insufficient driver training, and driver error resulting from that lack of training.

ZV
 
sdifox said:
so They have fixed all their problem and can now turn their attention to Toyota?
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All of the problems? In a perfect world maybe. I'm not sure if any government at anytime had fixed all other problems before they focused on a certain issue.

IIRC, this is the same kind of hearing that was given to the Ford tire blowout and SUV rollover issue a few years back.
 
zoiks said:
All of the problems? In a perfect world maybe. I'm not sure if any government at anytime had fixed all other problems before they focused on a certain issue.

IIRC, this is the same kind of hearing that was given to the Ford tire blowout and SUV rollover issue a few years back.
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And I am not sure why there was a hearing then. Isn't there a body dedicated to these kind of things, like the National Highway Safety guys?
 
sdifox said:
And I am not sure why there was a hearing then. Isn't there a body dedicated to these kind of things, like the National Highway Safety guys?
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Yeah but by your logic, no hearing on anything would ever take place unless the homeless, abortion, healthcare etc problems were solved. Yeah, in a perfect world so keep questioning. I'm glad that you live in Canada tho.
 
zoiks said:
Yeah but by your logic, no hearing on anything would ever take place unless the homeless, abortion, healthcare etc problems were solved. Yeah, in a perfect world so keep questioning. I'm glad that you live in Canada tho.
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What I mean is these don't seem to me the issues the congress is setup to handle. All they are doing is projecting, or hoping to project, the image that they care and they are on top of things while in fact they are just slowing things down.

Want to do an inquiry, sure. But wait for the dust to settle. Then the politicians can pontify how it should never have happened etc, etc. Soap-boxing time it ain't.

And I bitch about this kind of thing north of the border too.
 
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PhoKingGuy said:
Shrug dealers are different, my VW dealer specifically mentioned they take care of all open recalls and TSBs before letting the cars hit the lot
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I bet that was bullshit. Don't believe ANYTHING a salesman tells you.

Dealerships move cars around between other dealerships all the time. Why would they bother performing recalls on vehicles they haven't even sold yet, a vehicle they may or may not ever sell, when they can be gouging customers for routine maintenance?
 
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JulesMaximus said:
I bet that was bullshit. Don't believe ANYTHING a salesman tells you.

Dealerships move cars around between other dealerships all the time. Why would they bother performing recalls on vehicles they haven't even sold yet, a vehicle they may or may not ever sell, when they can be gouging customers for routine maintenance?
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An acquantance of mine works at the Nissan service center where I bought my Z last year and I asked him about this yesturday. The owner of the dealership has a policy where all new cars sold MUST have all open recalls completed prior to a sale. Because of this, they generally perform the recall work before the car is sold to prevent making the buyer wait. There are still plenty of people who walk to the dealer and want to buy on the spot, and the dealership doesn't want to (1) sell the car with open recalls or (2) make the customer wait.

This same policy doesn't hold true for used cars, but my friend did advise me that they generally perform the recall for all certified pre-owned cars as well. It sounds like they don't have issues getting reimbursed for the open recalls, and they do use this as a selling point from time to time.

I don't know if all dealers do this, but this is the same dealership that detailed my car after it arrived on a trailer from a different state AND did a recall check (there wasn't any open recalls at the time however) before delivering it to me. Buying a car when it looks like it came from an auto show is pretty nice as a customer, and it definitely makes you feel nice driving it off the lot. They called to let me know when the car arrived, and then told me when the work would be done (later that day). I will definitely go back to this dealer, in the future, if I need another car.
 
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