Toyota Recall

europachris wrote: b) slam on the brakes, or

I guess that's everyone's instinct but the engine is more powerful than the braking, once they heat up they become useless for even slowing acceleration.

SMITTY wrote:Someone told him he has to have the computer reflashed after he replaces it for $100??? WTF is that??

That's ridiculous and it's one of the reasons they add all this crap IMO, all they are doing is placing instruction on it. To put it in simple terms they are copying a file to it. You can't do it yourself because they'll add a bunch of proprietary crap with the specific purpose of making sure you can't do it.

Black_And_Blue wrote:As stated, the added redundancies needed for electronic systems don't really warrant their use in an automobile, IMO.

Once again think. How the hell can you meter air to fuel ratio accurately without electronics? Why do you think todays automotive engines get much, much better fuel economy and/or HP? It's electronics. You cannot do it with mechanical systems. Period. You want to go back to the fuel ecomomy of the 70's?

Redundancy yes, it's cheap. How much more does it cost to use a few more thousand of the millions of transistors that are already on the microprocessor? It's free, they are already there. What costs is the fixed engineering costs, the costs to have competent engineers think through all the possible failure modes and engineer a safe failure. It's the relentless American emphasis on making it cheaper that causes these problems. Something we consumers demand. Yes it's a foreign make in the current recall but where was the software written? Where was the complier written, the intellectual property that converts the programing language to the microprocessors instructions? Most likely by American companies, perhaps run by a CEO that gave into the cost cutting pressures and didn't do that final worst case failure analysis.

...and don't forget that they have an onboard computer to record every twitch you make, and a gps device to let everyone know just where you are. Kinda like the 'transpass' deal. Emissions will be the death of the used car, and who will be able or want to repair a rig with 190K that needs 5K in repairs. I still would support Toyota as being an extremely responsible company, and I'm not starting any 'Hog Tales' about any other manufactures. I owned a new Chevy Caprice Estate Diesel Wagon in 1980, and POS is not even half the truth. It was my last GM car...and I was not alone. I watched friends with electrical gremlins and transmissions troubles in Chrysler's cars and trucks for years. Brakes on Fords......
No one is perfect, but we are all better off for what the auto industry has done for our lives. If only........

Fuel economy in cars has actually declined since the peak in 1987.

Vehicle weight is the determining factor, the stoichiometric ratio of air to fuel is still 14.7 : 1.

Honestly, for a daily commuter vehicle, a tubular chassis will a small motor is all that is required.

I'd drive and open wheeled dune buggy if the government got the hell out of the way.

ETA : one of these would make the office car pool a little more interesting :

We bought used 2007 Ford Focus last year. 5 speed. Seems like the idle used to hang once you pushed in the clutch. It was an emissions thing. It would slowly return back to normal idle, deceleration causes high emissions. Gets 37 mpg though. Bought it to the dealer and he said it was normal, they all do that. I bought a new TPS and installed it, it helped some. Looking at the plastic junky TPS, you can not build a cheaper part than what they are using. Made by CTS. They used to make volume pots for almost everything probably back from the 40's to the 90's. I worked for a well known electronics manufacturer in the engineering dept. a few years back and they would use the cheapest junkiest part just to save a penny.

Usually hanging idle is due to an extremely lean A/F ratio. Gotta love emissions BS ...

Just about every piece of modern power equipment does this, until you snap that stupid anti-tampering device off the mixture screw and adjust it to where the engine actually starts easily ... and RUNS normally!

I don't buy that the higher mileage figures are due to the electronics. Take sport motorcycles. Every year they need to come up with a faster, lighter unit. Back when they had carburetors (not that long ago - 2002) they still put out crazy horsepower numbers. When they switched to FI, the numbers didn't go off the charts. I think it's more engine design than electronics. All the electronics do is solely for emissions. I'll be if you sat down the best & brightest engine designers, they could build a 400 HP carbureted engine that still got 30 mpg in a car.


As for that mileage chart, it may have decreased some, but HP & Torque are waaaay up. I'll take that trade-off anytime.

Let's see........

You can fix the hanging idle issue, and yes it is for emissions. Hardly notice it in an auto, stick you see it a lot. All my
Fords, 2005 and 2007, and a 2008 have drive by wire. No issues. There is a calibration procedure that once done, feels like
mechanical connections of yore. With liability being what it is, I am sure there is a fail safe mode for the cpu. Apparently,
Toyota did not provide one, that would explain the reflash of the cpu.
The press is all over this, but they should. They hammer all the other manufactures when they screw up. Toyota is no
different. Just a bigger deal because it is rare, and the scale of the recall, across most of there lines. Add in Prius issues,
they have a problem.

Now being reported is a failure of the power steering electric motor used in Toyota Corollas. Unfortunately, the company that makes this motor also supplies GM the same motor used in Chevy Cobalt and Pontiac G5. The motor overheats and fails, leaving the car without power steering. They say steering effort isn't too great at highway speeds, but becomes very heavy below 15mph. So far only 14 reported accident and one injury reported due to this problem. At least GM has been responsive to the problem in anouncing that there will be a recall and owners will be notified as soon as they make the replacement parts available.

I own a Cobalt, but it has a salvage titile. I am curious if the recall will still cover a free replacement for my car

As others have mentioned, cheap is the motivation in too much engineering nowadays. Power steering has been hydrolicly done for as long as I can remember. Hydrolic PS components must have been quite expensive to produce, as pumps, valves and hoses no doubt cost more than an electirc motor. Although the hydrolic components themselves are quite reliable, the belt that drives the pump does occationally break, resulting in the same kind of stiff steering experienced with a failed electric motor.

I don't necessarily oppose the use of an electric motor for steering assist. You would think, however that with all the money the manufacturers save in using an electric motor that they could at least make it with enough quality and capacity to do the job.