Toyota faces lawsuits over shrinking resale values

[originalhypa]

Breaking: ABC News Admits to Faking Part of Toyota Acceleration Video

ABC News has now admitted that a part of the video it used to illustrate the unintended acceleration of a Toyota model in a recent report was faked. The video, outlining a tactic used by professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University to cause an unintended acceleration in a Toyota product, was not an actual shot of the car’s tachometer during the sudden acceleration, but a clip of the tachometer sweeping across the screen while the car was in park. Sure, it makes for great TV, with the rpms rising suddenly, but it’s not accurate. As such, it has called into question the validity of the entire ABC News story, which could have far greater consequences.

After all, just days after the story ran, Professor Gilbert appeared before the House Committee’s investigation into Toyota’s ongoing recall crisis with his report. Toyota has since debunked Prof. Gilbert’s findings showing that his method of creating an unintended acceleration is unnatural and not likely to occur in real world circumstances. Toyota and a third-party engineering firm (funded by Toyota) also showed that using Prof. Gilbert’s method, they were able to produce unintended acceleration in many different vehicles from other automakers. Conversely, Prof. Gilbert’s research was paid for in part by safety advocate group Safety Research & Strategies, which in turn receives funding from law firms suing Toyota.

ABC News has since used a different shot and issued, not an apology, but a reason for the original footage, saying the cameraman could not get a good picture and so a different clip was used.

“This was a misjudgment made in the editing room,” said ABC News spokeswoman Emily Lenzner. “They should have left the shaky shot in. But I want to make clear that the two-second shot that was used did not change the outcome of the report in any way. It was not like ABC was trying to alter the footage. There was no staging. There was no dramatization. It was an editing mistake.”

This isn’t the first time the report’s validity has been called into question either, as automotive personality and host of Autoline Detroit, John McElroy, recently challenged the ABC News story, recalling the 1987 60 Minutes story over unintended acceleration in Audis that was later proved to be absurd as well as a 1993 Dateline NBC story over exploding Chevy pickups that was later retracted after a General Motors investigation proved it was rigged.

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2...ion-video.html

[ericthehalfbee]

^ CBS 60 Minutes did the same thing with Chevy pickups that caught fire from side impacts. They couldn't get one to catch fire on camera, so they rigged up "igniters" to make sure the fuel caught fire for their news broadcast.

Edit: NBC, not CBS. Was in a rush and got mixed up. Should have read previous post I guess.

NBC used explosives to make sure the gas tank caught fire. Slow motion films revealed smoke just before the actual impact occurred.

[no_clue]

So apparently the guy with the prius in san diego is bankrupt and in debt.
Also he missed like 3 payments on the lease.

So what good "luck" was it that his prius decided to accelerate and give him grounds for a lawsuit........

[Marco911]

^^What is fucked up about that story though is that his Prius is equipped with a brake override system, which means that he can't brake and accelerate at the same time!

He can pull the emergency brake and accelerate, that would only burn the rear brake pads, but if there is evidence that the frt brakes are smoked, his car is legitimately fucked!

[!SG]

industry looking for the next scapegoat, it was ford in the 80s, then the big 3 just last couple years.

[tofu1413]

then FOX will report something about al-qaeda having something to do with this, and all the hate will be diverted from toyota to al-qaeda AGAIN.


pft. media. mis-informing since the printing press was invented

[originalhypa]

Guess what Marco?
You may be correct when you said this...

Originally Posted by Marco911

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the...sa-complaints/

I will go on the record to say that the incident today in California with the runaway Prius will prove to be a hoax.

From the Montreal Gazette.

Runaway Prius story more fiction than fact

“On the very day Toyota was making a high-profile defence of its cars, one of them was speeding out of control,” said CBS News — and a vast number of other media outlets worldwide. The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius, James Sikes, called 911 to say his accelerator was stuck, he was zooming faster than 90 miles per hour and absolutely couldn’t slow down.

It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and “to get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius and step on the brakes.” During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC’s report, Sikes “did everything he could to try to slow down that Prius.” Others said, “Radio traffic indicated the driver was unable to turn off the engine or shift the car into neutral.”

In fact, almost none of this was true. Virtually every aspect of Sikes’s story as told to reporters makes no sense. His claim that he’d tried to yank up the accelerator could be falsified, with his help, in half a minute. And now we even have an explanation for why he’d pull such a stunt, beyond the all-American desire to have 15 minutes of fame (recall the “Balloon Boy Hoax” from October) and the aching need to be perceived as a victim.

The lack of skepticism from the beginning was stunning. I combed through haystacks of articles without producing such needles as the words “alleges” or “claims.” When Sikes said he brought his car to a Toyota dealer two weeks earlier, recall notice in hand, and they just turned him away, the media bought that, too. In Sikes We Trust. Then the pundits deluged us with a tsunami of anti-Toyota sanctimony.

Where to begin?

Well, the patrol car didn’t slow down the Prius; the bumpers never touched. The officers used a loudspeaker to tell Sikes to use the brakes and emergency brake together. He did; the car slowed to about 55 mph. Sikes turned off the engine and coasted to a halt. He stopped the car on his own.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the transmission or the Prius engine button either.

Over a 23-minute period the 911 dispatcher repeatedly pleaded with Sikes to shift into neutral. He simply refused and then essentially stopped talking to her except to say that he thought he could smell his brakes burning.

“I thought about” shifting into neutral, Sikes said at a televised news conference the day after the incident. But “I had never played with this kind of a transmission, especially when you’re driving and I was actually afraid to do that.” Sikes, who has driven the car for two years, also said “I figured if I knocked it over (the gear knob) the car might flip.”

He told CNN, “I was afraid to try to (reach) over there and put it in neutral. I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands — 94 miles an hour in a Toyota Prius is fast.” Yet for much of the ride he had a phone in one hand.

And this is especially interesting: Most gear shifts are on the console, requiring the hand to drop to shift. But in the 2008 Prius it’s located on the dash within inches of the steering wheel — precisely to allow shifting without the hand leaving the wheel. I sat in one and did it easily. Another unique feature of the shift is that it’s amazingly simple, with only forward, reverse, neutral and “B.” The express purpose of “B” is to slow the car while preserving the brakes, as in a steep descent. Sikes actually could have shifted into two different gears.

Moreover, why would Sikes describe shifting gears as somehow “playing with the transmission?” And apparently he’s never shifted while the vehicle was moving and thought somehow a gear shift could flip his car.

The dispatcher also pleaded with him repeatedly to hit the ignition button. Again, he says he was simply afraid to.

Early in the news conference he said it was because “there was too much traffic to just shut the car off. You know, turn off the vehicle and get hit in the rear.” But that’s always true when you slow down; just make sure nobody’s right behind you. Later he switched gears — pun not intended — saying he was afraid the steering wheel and wheels would lock up.

Then there are the brakes.

Sikes said his brakes had just been checked out a few weeks earlier, but during the incident he “was laying on the brakes. It was not slowing down.”

Others have made similar claims, so Car & Driver magazine recently put them to the test. They found a V-6 Camry at full throttle could be stopped at 130 metres. But to really test the claim, they used a powerful 540-horsepower supercharged Roush Stage 3 Mustang. It took 275 metres, but stop it did.

By comparison, the Prius can only muster 110 anemic ponies. Further, as Newton’s Second Law reminds us, weight is inherently a factor in slowing a moving object. The Prius weighs about two-thirds of what the Roush does.

But while these other cars were brought to full stop, Sikes says he couldn’t even reduce his speed. A video on the web also demonstrates a 2008 Prius easily slowed to a stop with the accelerator fully depressed.

An assisting officer said he saw Sikes apply the brakes and smelled them. But of course that was only when he drew close to the vehicle. The officer doesn’t know what Sikes was doing before he arrived on the scene.

Now here’s the potential smoking gun: Sikes told the reporters that “I was reaching down and trying to pull up on the gas pedal. It didn’t move at all; it was stationary.” That’s awfully daring for somebody who insisted he didn’t even want to take a hand off his steering wheel, notwithstanding that he did so to hold his phone.

I tried to imitate Sikes’ alleged effort in a 2008 Prius. From the front bottom of the steering wheel to the front bottom of the accelerator in up position, it’s 28.5 inches; while fully deployed it’s 2.5 inches farther away. I have average-length arms (33-inch shirt sleeve) and no gut. But even though the steering wheel was as flush to the dashboard as it goes, it prevented me from all but touching the accelerator in the up position.

To reach behind a deployed accelerator and get any kind of a grip you’d have to add at least three more inches. In my case, it required squashing my face against the radio and completely removing my eyes from the road. Only the tallest men could physically do what Sikes claimed he did and no press accounts refer his being exceptionally tall. But to settle this issue (albeit not the others), Sikes would simply have to sit in his Prius and show he could reach behind the pedal while it was fully depressed. Why has nobody asked him to do so? Moreover, even for an orangutan it would be an incredibly awkward move for somebody afraid to pop a car into neutral or hit the ignition button.

So why did he do it? Sleuth work at the websites Jalopnik.com and Gawker.com reveals that Sikes and his wife Patty in 2008 filed for bankruptcy and are over $700,000 in debt. Among their creditors is Toyota Financial Services for a lease on a 2008 Toyota Prius, with value at time of bankruptcy of $20,494. The Jalopnik website shows a copy of Toyota’s secured claims form, though when Jalopnik questioned Sikes by e-mail he denied being behind on his Prius payments.

Sikes also has a history of filing insurance claims for allegedly stolen items that is slowly coming to light. In 2001, he filed a police report with the Merced County Sheriff’s Department for $58,000 in stolen property, including jewelry, a prosumer mini-DV camera and gear, and $24,000 in cash, according to Fox40 in Sacramento. His bankruptcy documents show a 2008 payment of $7,400 for an allegedly stolen saxophone and clothes.

For what it’s worth, Sikes owned and operated a website called AdultSwingLife.com. More salacious material on this man will continue to pour in.

But the news conference alone makes it clear Sikes’ story didn’t wash. Journalism schools are supposed to teach that skepticism is paramount. “If your mother says it, check it out,” goes the adage. Yet comments on websites across the country reveal that practically everyone thought the Prius incident was a hoax — though they couldn’t prove it — except for the media.

They have been as determined to not investigate Sikes’ claims as Sikes was to not stop his car. It’s a Toyota media feeding frenzy and the media aren’t about to let little things like incredible stories and readily refutable claims get in the way.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...#ixzz0i58EnGYH

[ericthehalfbee]

^ Yeah, sounds pretty fishy. Just like the guy in the US who crashed his car into the dealership claiming the throttle stuck.

Regardless, just because there are going to be a lot of scammers coming out of the woodwork trying to take advantage of this situation doesn't mean that all accidents are hoaxes, not does it mean there are no problems with Toyota vehicles.

That link posted above is meaningless since it doesn't break down the types of problems. Here are some facts to consider:

- Toyota owners are less likely to report problems. A perfect example of this is the Pontiac Vibe vs Toyota Matrix, two mechanically identical vehicles, save for some cosmetic & trim options. Yet owner opinions of the Pontiac Vibe and its reliability are lower than the Toyota Matrix. This has also been used as an example of the flaws in Consumer Reports reliability ratings as these two cars often have different ratings when they should be identical.
- UA falls under two categories. Low speed accidents and high speed accidents. Low speed accidents are almost always driver error. You press the wrong pedal and hit another car or your garage before you even realize what happened. NHTSA and Transport Canada aren't concerned with these accidents. High speed are the types of accidents where the vehicle is on a highway or other road where the UA incident can last for several seconds or much longer. These are also the types of incidents where the driver has time to correct the problem. If they hit the gas by mistake, it's easy to take your foot off and try the brake again. It's intersting to note that Toyota's procedures they give to explain to drivers how to deal with UA only deal with high-speed incidents. When would you have time to put a car into neutral, switch off the key and so on when pulling into your garage?
- When NHTSA and Transport Canada investigate these incidents one of the things they do is take pedal measurements inside the vehicle. This has been done since the Audi 5000. Some vehicles have pedals that could be considered "safer" in that it's less likely a person would press the wrong pedal. Others have pedal placements that make it more likely a driver could make a pedal application mistake (FYI, the Land Rover Discovery is one of the worst and could be the modern day Audi 5000 - it's very easy to make an incorrect pedal application in these vehicles). The vehicles that Toyota is recalling would fall into the "safer" category in that they have "good" pedal positions, making driver error less likely than the average for all manufacturers.
- If you take out only UA complaints at speed and ignore the "meaningless" incidents, Toyota has a higher than average (based on incidents per number of vehicles) number of UA complaints.

You take all the above into account and it's pretty clear that Toyota has a real problem of UA that is greater than other manufacturers. They have better pedal placement (which should reduce UA complaints) and they have owners that are more likely to "own up" to their mistakes instead of questioning their car and filing a complaint. This should result in Toyota having far fewer UA complaints, but they in fact have more than their share.

The simple fact that Toyota has made 2 recalls of 8 million vehicles for 2 identifiable problems shows that this is a real problem, not something imagined by bad drivers.

Of course the media is going overboard. It happens everytime someone or some company that's put on a pedestal has a problem. Tiger Woods doesn't behave any differently than countless other celebrities. Problem is he has a clean-cut image which makes his adultery so newsworthy. Toyota is considered "perfect" and when they have a problem it's big news.

[Marco911]

I would love to see the dash cam of the police cruiser. I want to know if the brakes was being applied while the car continues to accelerate. You cannot do this with the brake override feature.

[- kT]

Originally Posted by Lomac

I haven't really read too much into this recall and the mechanics behind them, but does Toyota use drive by wire or cable?
Posted via RS Mobile

like everybody else has said, drive by wire
problem wasn't with the throttle though, just isolated to the accelerator pedal itself

still, manufacturer's should just stick with mechanical throttles

[no_clue]

I'm going to side with marco911 that this guy is a hoax. The media is comparing him
with that balloon boy in colorado? a while ago.

Look at his history. what a dirtbag lol, I hope Toyota sues him if it's possible.

[Marco911]

yeah, it's a hoax. I figured out how he can apply the brakes and gas at the same time without activating the brake override feature. In my Porsche, the brake override doesn't kick in until you depress the brake pedal quite far together with the accelerator. Thus, you can ride the brakes and still not have the brake override activate. My guess is he had the handbrake applied to smoke the rear brakes

[no_clue]

SAN DIEGO – Investigators with Toyota Motor Corp. and the federal government could not replicate the runaway speeding reported by a Prius owner who said his car's accelerator stuck as he drove on a California freeway, according to a memo for a congressional panel. The memo, obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, said the experts who examined and test drove the car could not replicate the sudden, unintended acceleration James Sikes said he encountered. A backup mechanism that shuts off the engine when the brake and gas pedals are floored also worked properly during tests.

hahaha it's starting