Product support of Jap goods evaporates after seven years.
Minolta is a perfect example. It was beautifully made, but when
my 20 year old SLR needed a small part, the factory service
center told me I was SOL. Not so with Mercedes Benz. Need a
replacement interocetor, kranzafarber or krockenzoom for your
’47 MB Gull Wing, they have it in stock! My advice is to buy
Kraut.

The unloaded engine will race to twice the redline rpm and seize
when the rods are thrown or valves float and hole the pistons.
Then you lose the power assist to brakes and steering and crash.
If by some miracle you don’t, the engine is blown. Do you think
Toyota will cheerfully replace the engine or blame you on your
own negligence for overspeeding the engine to its destruction? I
predict all you’ll get is a Tojo grin.

  On tonight’s newscast there was footage of testimony by an older woman
whose Lexus experienced the runaway car thing.
  She testified that the car suddenly kicked down into passing gear and
took off, and to try and stop it she stood on the brake pedal with both
feet, moved the gear selector to all gears including reverse — and the
car continued to go like that for something like 6 miles.
  How is that even possible?  In the first place, the (presumably) 4
wheel disc brakes should be able to stop the car… Could it be that at
WOT and under load like that, there would suddenly be insufficient
vacuum to run the power assist brakes or something?
  And how could a car keep screaming down the freeway even with the gear
selector in reverse?  That is bizarre.
  The newscast mentioned that the throttle control is wireless, which I
thought was surprising but I have been out of the loop for some time.
  Don’t they all have that little black-box type device to divulge
details after a crash to help determine the possible cause, etc.

If one listened to the hearing on TV, when asked by a Senator if floor mates
and throttle fixes were the final answer to the unintended acceleration
problem, the Toyota spokesmen said NO.

When asked it Toyota believed the problem was not mechanical but electronic
he said we have not found anything to show that it is electronic.

That means it COULD be, but we just have not found the problem yet.  He want
on to say we are still doing research into the cause.

More and more others in the industry are suspecting that the problem will
indeed be found in the electronics

"Jim Higgins" <gordian…@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:TICdnf2mMtHIyRnWnZ2dnUVZ_gWdnZ2d@posted.eaglecomputertechnology…

- — -

> Stupid is as stupid does. Dexcool, gaskets, etc., etc. Toyota follows the
> GM example. The Feds protecting their investment.

> Toyota: Recalls Won’t Totally Fix Gas Pedal Issues
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/23/toyota-recalls-wont-total_n_…

> WASHINGTON The president of Toyota’s U.S. operations acknowledged to
> skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that the company’s recalls of millions of
> its cars may "not totally" solve the problem of sudden and dangerous
> acceleration.

> "We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential causes," Toyota’s
> James Lentz told a congressional panel. However, he repeated his company’s
> position that unexpected acceleration in some of the company’s most
> popular cars and trucks was caused by one of two problems misplaced
> floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals.

> He insisted electronic systems connected to the gas pedal and fuel line
> did not contribute to the problem, drawing sharp criticism from lawmakers
> who said such a possibility should be further explored and from a
> tearful woman driver who could not stop her runaway Lexus.

> "Shame on you, Toyota," Rhonda Smith, of Sevierville, Tenn., said at a
> congressional hearing. Then she added a second "shame on you" directed at
> federal highway safety regulators.

> Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton cautioned his colleagues early in the
> hearing against conducting a "witch hunt" and said "We don’t want to just
> assume automatically that Toyota has done something wrong and has tried to
> cover it up." But midway through Lentz’s testimony, Barton said of
> Toyota’s investigation of the problems: "In my opinion, it’s a sham."

> Lentz said the company had not completely ruled out an electronics
> malfunction and was still investigating causes of the sudden acceleration.
> Still, "We have not found a malfunction" in the electronics of any of the
> cars at issue, he said.

> As to Smith’s harrowing story, "I’m embarrassed for what happened," Lentz
> said. "I want her and her husband to feel safe about driving our
> products," Lentz said.

> Three congressional panels are investigating Toyota’s problems, which
> affect a huge number of Americans. Toyota has recalled some 8.5 million
> vehicles worldwide more than 6 million in the United States since last
> fall because of unintended acceleration problems in multiple models and
> braking issues in the Prius hybrid. It is also investigating steering
> concerns in Corollas. People with Toyotas have complained of their
> vehicles speeding out of control despite efforts to slow down, sometimes
> resulting in deadly crashes. The government has received complaints of 34
> deaths linked to sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles since 2000.

> Lentz, who choked up while discussing the death of his own brother more
> than 20 years ago in a car accident, said he understood the pain.
> Story continues below

> "I know what those families go through," he said.

> Lentz has said in the past that he was confident Toyota’s fixes on the
> recalled vehicles would correct the problems.

> But when pressed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman,
> D-Calif., on whether the two recalls Toyota put in place to deal with the
> issue would completely solve it, Lentz replied: "Not totally."

> Still, he said chances of unintended accelerations were "very, very slim"
> once the recall was complete. Lentz also said Toyota was putting in new
> brakes that can override the gas pedal on almost all of its new vehicles
> and a majority of its vehicles already on the road.

> Meanwhile, Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who will testify before a
> separate panel on Wednesday, said he took "full responsibility" for the
> uncertainty felt by Toyota owners and offered his condolences to a San
> Diego, Calif., family who were killed in late August, reigniting interest
> in the problems.

> "I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a tragedy never
> happens again," Toyoda said in prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing
> to the House Government Oversight Committee. "My name is on every car. You
> have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and
> unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers."

> Lawmakers heard a brief, but riveting, description from Smith, the
> Tennessee woman whose Toyota-made Lexus suddenly zoomed to 100 miles per
> hour as she tried to get it to stop shifting to neutral, trying to throw
> the car into reverse and hitting the emergency brake. Finally, her car
> slowed enough that she was able to pull it off the road onto the median
> and turn off the engine.

> Fighting back tears, she described her nightmare ride of October 2006,
> calling it "a near death experience."

> "After six miles, God intervened" and slowed the car, she said. She added
> that it took a long time for Toyota to respond to her complaints.

> In an often contentious full day of testimony, lawmakers returned again
> and again to the question of whether electronic malfunctions may have
> contributed to the speeding cars.

> "We are confident that no problems exist with the electric throttle
> control system in our vehicles," Lentz said. He cited "fail-safe
> mechanisms" in the cars that were designed to shut off or reduce engine
> power "in the event of a system failure."

> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the panel in prepared testimony
> that possible electronics problems were being looked into by his agency.
> He said the company’s recalls were important steps but "we don’t maintain
> that they answer every question."

> Toyota hired a consulting firm to analyze whether electronic problems
> could cause unintended acceleration. The firm, Exponent Inc., found no
> link between the two. But committee investigators said the testing studied
> only a small number of vehicles

> Tracking down an electrical problem can be far more difficult, expensive
> and time-consuming than finding a mechanical problem. Electrical problems
> can have more than one source, and they can come from inside or outside
> the car. Mechanical problems often leave clues such as physical damage,
> where electronic troubles can be hidden in software or leave no trace at
> all.

> House investigators who reviewed Toyota’s customer call database found
> that 70 percent of the complaints of sudden acceleration were for vehicles
> that are not subject to the recalls over floor mats or sticky pedals.

> Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee, said Toyota
> "misled the American public by saying that they and other independent
> sources had thoroughly analyzed the electronics systems and eliminated
> electronics as a possible cause of sudden unintended acceleration when, in
> fact, the only such review was a flawed study conducted by a company
> retained by Toyota’s lawyers."

> Lentz apologized anew for the company’s slow handling of problems. "We
> have not lived up to the high standards our customers and the public have
> come to expect from Toyota," he said.

> "Put simply, it has taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but
> serious set of safety issues, despite all of our good faith efforts," said
> Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA.
> Inc.

> Separately, among hundreds of Toyota dealers lobbying members of Congress
> Tuesday, there seemed to be widespread rancor toward a federal government
> they view as picking on the automaker, at least in part because of the
> government’s investment of billions of dollars in General Motors and
> Chrysler.

> "That’s hard for me as a citizen to understand why my tax dollars are
> going in that direction," Paul Atkinson, a Houston-area Toyota dealer,
> said at a news conference that also served as a pep rally for the visiting
> dealers. "To compete with the government as an individual entrepreneur is
> pretty tough."

> —
> Civis Romanus Sum

Some excellent testimony videos. Looks like Toyota USA is only a sales
front, no engineering know-how, manufacturing or safety recall
decisions (all done in Japan). And that Lentz guy doesn’t seem to know
anything but sales. What a shame.

Videos on: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35538073#35549366
Under Business -> Autos

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20100223/AUTO01/2230402/1148/auto0…

So the recent recalls still don’t fix 70% of problems out there! The
electronic throttle’s engineering seems far inferior to those of GM
and Ford. Looking forward to see what Akio Toyoda says.

Under "Live Video: Watch the Toyota Hearing"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35538073#35538073

From the web site:
http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=AUTO01

The floor mats and sticking pedal accounts for only 30% of the
problems. The true cause of sudden acceleration is still not known so
no real solution is possible. IMO it’s the electronics.

"In earlier testimony, David Gilbert, a Southern Illinois University
professor, tells the panel he was able to produce in a lab environment
a sudden-acceleration incident using a Toyota vehicle, in essence by
introducing a short between two circuits.

Gilbert, whose research was sponsored by consumer advocacy firm Safety
Research & Strategies, says it was fairly simple to confuse the Toyota
electronics, but he has so far been unable to introduce a similar
failure in the electronic controls for a Buick Lucerne."

http://wardsauto.com/home/toyota_still_looking_100223/

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Or slightly above.  Forrest Gump is running every evening this week on AMC.
Maybe if Joey watches it enough, he’ll get it.

Actually probably not.  The chance of him joining the Lt Dan Band is
probably greater, provided they need someone that can play their armpit.

Charles Grozny

Let me tell you how it will be,
It’s 1 for you, 19 for me.
Cause I’m the TAXMAN.

Charles Grozny
The man without a country.