Toyota Recall - Accelerator Pedal may get stuck [merged]

[Monseratto]

kung may recall ang toyota sa china at wala dito sa pilipinas ibig bang sabihin iba ang source ng parts sa china at dito sa atin. Para yatang hirap paniwalaan na ang china unit ay galing ng canada ang ginamit na CTS pedal.

Yep. There is only one model affected by the recall in China. This is the RAV4. These are assembled in China, which may source from a local Chinese supplier. The local RAV4 are imported assembled from Japan so the parts are surely made by Denso.

Tianjin FAW Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. will recall 75,552 RAV4 sport-utility vehicles from Feb. 28 due to a potential flaw in their accelerator pedals, the Sino-Japanese joint venture announced Thursday.

[duskylim]

I can't help agreeing with lherma1988. He has a good point. There is just no decent consumer protection in the Philippines.

Anyone willing to grease the palms of the local authorities can get away with murder literally (even mass murder on occasion), the cases of Jason Ivler and the Ampatuan's come to mind.

Locally even if a large segment of the owner's complained to the relevant government authorities (ha ha ha) what would most likely happen is:

1) they would launch a sham investigation of the affair (as for the most part, they don't have the knowledge and capabilities to do a proper investigation anyway) and

2) after collecting a large bribe from Toyota,

3) whitewash the whole affair - and even threaten who originally complained with jail!

Unfortunately this is just symptomatic of the rot that has permeated the society from the very top down.

This is just another sad example of companies here operating and selling in bad faith, just like the case of our local diesel being used in some very sensitive (mainly Toyota!) diesel engines.

Perhaps the only thing the public can do is to protest by NOT Buying from the offending dealers.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim

[Monseratto]

Having 2 suppliers for parts may have its advantages. Just make sure the parts manufactured are identical or at least compatible, something Toyota forgot to do.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- When Toyota gets around to doing one of its famous "root cause" analyses of the Great Accelerator Recall, it should start by looking in the mirror.

As the company grew to become the world's largest automaker, it failed to adjust its corporate structure to accommodate its altered scale. And in its zeal to deliver profits as well as revenue, it may have overlooked fundamental principles that used to underpin its business.

Toyota, in other words, forgot what the Toyota Way was all about.

Start with the part being blamed: an accelerator pedal mechanism. It is produced for Toyota (TM) both by Denso of Japan and CTS (CTS) of Elkhart, Indiana. Toyota used to run with just one supplier for a given part, with whom it had close ties and a long relationship. But ever since a fire at a Japanese brake supplier in 1997 shut down the company's production at 20 plants for five days, it decided that it needed a second source as a backup.

With the accelerator, though, it neglected to make the parts from the two suppliers interchangeable. According to one report, the Denso and CTS mechanisms use different wiring harnesses. In other words, Toyota, the master of communization, neglected to ensure that identical parts from two suppliers were, in fact, identical. Even if they were identical in design, the fact that the CTS part apparently developed defects and the Denso part did not, suggests there were other differences.

[Monseratto]

How many Japanese-companies local cars use fly-by-wire accelerators or steering?

[duskylim]

Dear Sir:

The answer to your question is:

1) all fuel-injected gasoline engined vehicles use a Throttle Position Sensor (TPS)

2) all CRDi-type computer controlled diesel engines also use a TPS.

Breaking News - Headline of the Times of London:

February 2, 2010
Toyota knew of accelerator pedal problem in UK a year ago

Robert Lea Industrial Editor




(Photo Japan/Alamy)



Toyoda Kiichiro founded the Toyota Motor Company in Nagoya, Japan








div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited { color:#06c; } Toyota, the Japanese motor manufacturer that is recalling millions of defective cars around the world, knew in the UK a year ago that accelerator pedals in its cars were jamming.
The admission came amid reports in Canada that class-action lawsuits have been launched against Toyota, demanding compensation for injuries sustained by out-of-control cars.
The scare is threatening to spread to Renault. It has emerged that nearly 100,000 Peugeot 107 and Citroën C1 models may be affected as they share parts with Toyota and now Renault has said that it is “monitoring the situation” since it shares the same Toyota pedal supplier, CTS Corp of the US, on some models.
Toyota is putting out recall notices on eight million of its cars around the world because of incidents when the accelerator pedal in certain models has stuck — a defect that has had allegedly lethal consequences in some instances, according to statistics from a US safety agency.
Of that recall, 1.8 million of the cars are in Europe with, it is believed, more than 200,000 owners in the UK affected. The company, however, says it is still unable to quantify a UK figure. Toyota in the UK, however, has admitted that it knew of failures in accelerator pedal mechanisms at least a year ago. A spokesman for the company said: “There were cases [of jamming pedals] that were looked at in the winter of 2008-09 and where parts were subsequently modified. Very few vehicles had been reported. The situation appeared to disappear and there were no cases in the spring and summer months. However, within a few days of this winter setting in, that was no longer the case.”
When asked why the incidents last winter were not publicised by Toyota with a warning to customers, the spokesman replied: “There were very few cases. It was felt it was not a problem.” Toyota has admitted 26 accelerator pedal incidents in Europe which statistically, says Toyota, makes their occurrence “very rare.”
A spokesman for Vosa, the Department for Transport’s vehicle safety agency, was happy with Toyota’s response to the issue so far, saying: “Vosa would advise any Toyota owners who have concerns about their vehicle to contact Toyota directly.”
A spokesman for Which?, the consumer group, said: “We believe Toyota is acting responsibly.”
Toyota is not getting as comfortable a ride in the US where statistics have indicated there have been 19 Toyota accelerator pedal-related deaths in recent years.
Richard Blumenthal, the attorney-general for the state of Connecticut, has demanded that Toyota state whether recalled vehicles are safe to drive.
Toyota GB said despite the recalls it had not halted sales in the UK. The Avensis and Auris models are part of the recall and last year made up nearly a third of the company’s sales in the UK.

[oliver1013]

US carmakers are sure goin to be the beneficiaries of this fiasco...

[Type 100]

How many Japanese-companies local cars use fly-by-wire accelerators or steering?

Technically the term is "drive-by-wire" (DBW) but yeah, same difference

Can't answer for Toyotas, but there are quite a number of Hondas with DBW throttles and electric-assist steering.

Off the top of my head, not a complete list by any means:
GD-chassis Jazzes and Cities (2004-2008) - steering only
GM-chassis City (2009-present)
GE-chassis Jazz (2009-present)
FD1 Civic 1.8 (2006-present) - DBW throttle only
FD2 Civic 2.0 (2006-present)

I'm not 100% sure but I think the 2nd-generation Vios and its Yaris brother have electric-assist steering at the very least.

From what I know on the GD Jazz, if the electric steering develops a problem, the car flashes an indicator warning light and switches over to a no-assist steering mode - characterized by a heavy tiller that's harder to turn (because it's effectively pawis steering). Usually a restart of the car effectively resets the steering and returns the electric assist, although the owner's manual will tell you that you should bring the car to the dealer ASAP.

HTHs

[Monseratto]

I looked at our Innova J and saw DBW accelerator installed too.

[niky]

As noted, all CRDi engines are DBW... and most gas engines nowadays are, also.

Electric steering is technically not steering by wire, since the only thing electric is the assist motor. You can still steer when the motor dies, but it'll be heavy as hell, as Type100 notes. (I've felt this on cars with blown electric steering motors... it's not fun).

-

So... 26 instances of pedals getting stuck is "not statistically significant"?

Not statistically compared to the overall number of cars, but it points to a defect that can indicate an early failure mode for that part. Absolutely crazy of them to ignore it or not bump up the issue to the head office.

[kinyo]

baka naman loose contact lang ito

if the gnd side of a voltage divider loses contact (most likely at the connector), the wiper will send full voltage (perhaps 5V) to the computer, indicating a fully-depressed pedal

i don't know how toyota implements their tps sensor, but the circuit i described is typically found on sensors using a voltage divider, not only in cars but in other machines as well

baka naman tinipid lang yung connector, low power lang kasi yung circuit, maliit na metal lang ginamit, mahina ang contact pressure, apektado tuloy reliability