Ping Don Foreman: ICD Alert

Man, I'm batting 1000. I have two Toyotas and a Boston Scientific ICD.

The two toys are among the recalled models, but fortunately my ICD is a later model not known to have problems.

Given the choice, I'd have done it that way, too. :)

--Winston

The cars can stay in your driveway, call your dealer and demand they pick those up, install the fix and return them on their dime, glad your ICD is okay.

If you do drive the car to your dealer, small acceleration steps just to be careful and practice shutting down in a non panic mode.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:12:26 -0800, the infamous Winston scrawled the following:

Good one, Winnie. Give the poor guy a heart attack, whydoncha?

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:29:34 -0500, the infamous Wes scrawled the following:

Oh, please, Wes. Most of us here could deal with a WFO throttle without a problem or crash. Most of the affected vehicles have

4-wheel disc brakes, too. It's simply not a problem in the vast majority of the recalled vehicles...yet.

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

I'm not worried about the cars, and I wonder if the last penny has dropped on the fix. Politicans are now interrogating Toyota execs about whether it might be EMI affecting electronics. Like they'd know EMI from EMU, either a University in Eastern Michigan or a flightless Australian bird. This EE considers the EMI fright as extremely unlikely but it's an Obama Motors politican's dream because it's about impossible to prove what didn't cause a rare transient event that can't be duplicated in the lab.

I regard a software bug as far more plausible and still highly unlikely.

In any case, we've both been driving cars for more than three weeks. Mary's Corolla is a stick so all she need do is depress the clutch to disengage a runaway engine. The Camry has the 6-speed tranny that can be manually overridden to select a gear manually, it is possible to shift to neutral, and I've shown mathematically that the brakes are more than sufficient to stop the car even if the engine is delivering full rated power which it can only do over a limited range of RPM's. Turning off the ignition is also possible without locking up the steering, but one does then lose power steering. I haven't tried steering the Camry with engine off. I'll try that next time I'm out. It wasn't a problem in the similarly-sized Ford Contour it replaced. It is a problem in a Chevy truck. Been there, done that.

If no more developments in the next six weeks, I'll take the cars up to the dealer one at a time. If I wait until the snow is gone, then I can do my daily 3 mile walk outdoors while they're working on a car. I found a route to walk when I go to get oil changes so I get both done in the same time that day. Part of it is woodsy gravel road, part is thru a park, some thru a residential neighborhood. Not my favorite, but not bad at all.

Were our roles reversed, I know that *I* would appreciate a heads- up on a issue as serious as that one. Don knows I wasn't trying to be mean. Quite the opposite, indeed.

--Winston

Yeah! Have a heart, Winnie! Recall Beryl's observation about conservatives being more easily startled and armed conservatives therefore more likely to shoot out the lights and who knows what else if startled. I'm more of a centrist than a conservative but may still be easily startled and that could result in either cardiac defib or trigger finger fibrillation. Wouldn't be my fault, it's a medical condition of a senior citizen hoooaahhh.

Gently, Winnie, easy does it, like walking on eggshells barely restraining tripwires to Claymores. Tippytoes. Think Robert Frost. Be the fog. If you're foggy enough you could be a ... no, I'm not going there, nevermind.

(...)

Almost certainly not.

The good news is that we Toyota drivers gather more data with every trip:

Sounds quite likely to me. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that a specific combination of sensor inputs can cause the cruise control circuit to go into "Delinquent Orca" mode. I often disengage the cruise control when I'm traveling downhill for an extended stretch. Reason is that my Camry Cruise Control adds up to 5 MPH to my set speed under those circumstances. My old Camrys were actually very good about holding the set speed under all circumstances. Not this one.

--Winston

Heh! Didn't remember who you were talking about, until I checked my Bozo Bin.

Yeah that tracks with your stance on personal responsibility real well. Pull the other one, it plays Jingle Bells. :)

Consider It Done!

--Winston

Which brings me to wonder now... Can you still shoot out the lights with a water gun? Are these tube lights hot enough to break that way???

Inquiring minds, you know!

You do realize that most cruise controls can only accelerate, not brake. If your vehicle is overspeeding on downhill when cruise control is on, it is because your transmission is not providing adequate engine braking, not because of any cruise control fault. Go over the same hill with no cruise control, cresting the hill at the specified speed and you will find you gain the same 5 MPH on the downhill side.

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:58:45 -0600, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Wouldn't EMI/RFI tend to cause problems with _all_ local vehicles within its broadcast area? Will O Motors decide to issue EMPs in all vehicles to counteract the "threat"?

It was a problem once with a 425hp V-8 in an AMC Javelin once for me, but once I got the thing into 4th gear, I could find the ignition key and stop without hitting anything or blowing the freshly rebuilt engine. Full mechanical linkage. Once checked and lubed, it never gave me a problem again, and WFO and I are old friends. ;)

Have fun!

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

I was under the impression that cruise controls have a somewhat linear output and can choose to: * Accelerate fairly briskly, as when traveling uphill with a 'set speed' that exceeds the current speed by a fair margin * Accelerate moderately, as when maintaining speed on a flat stretch of road * Neither accelerate or decelerate, during those times between moderate accelerations on a flat stretch * Decelerate moderately, as when returning to the set speed after having crested a very moderate hill * Decelerate completely, as when returning to the set speed after having crested a higher hill or if the set speed is adjusted downward (or the control is disengaged by tapping on the brake)

I do realize that cruise controls don't brake.

Nup. That's why I turn the control off at the crest of the hill. I have a very moderate rise between me and a little town to the west. I take this road perhaps 3-5 times a week.

On the moderate decline after the crest, without the cruise control activated and my foot completely off the pedals, I see that the speed of my car remains within about 1 MPH from the top to bottom. It's a curious conjunction of wind resistance, friction, velocity, mass, local gravitational pull that all conspire to keep the car going about the same speed, (while providing *great* gas mileage).

However if I engage the cruise control during the climb, I have to brake about halfway down the hill because the car's current speed is about 5 MPH faster than the set speed and it is *increasing*.

I've never left the cruise control on for the entire trip.

By contrast, my 2000 Camry and my 1988 Camry cruise controls would decelerate completely after the crest, maintaining my set speed

*much* more closely. My old Camrys were actually very good about holding the set speed under all circumstances. Not this '07.

--Winston

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:42:08 -0800, the infamous Winston scrawled the following:

Mcintire is a bit of a jerk, acting as if Toyota is guilty of something sinister. My thoughts there are that all the suto mfgrs have been building black boxes which keep complete databanks for each vehicle, and that they don't want the public or gov't to know. The public could consider it an invasion of privacy and the gov't could use it to retroactively ticket speeders, worst case scenario. I wonder how much they already play in warranty voids with the mfgrs.

Note to Brian: If you look at the referenced DailyFinance site, all their pictures are severely blown out except for Pallavi's. Someone seriously blew it.

My '07 Tundra's CC works well in holding downhill speeds, going as far as downshifting to do so, IIRC. I really like it. It also works as slow as 20mph for the school zones around town and on rugged dirt roads, where my foot gets bounced onto the throttle, spinning the wheels occasionally.

And when I'm home, it puts jam on my toast...well, maybe it doesn't do quite that much.

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:13:52 -0800, the infamous Winston scrawled the following:

Oops, my implied smiley didn't show up on your screen.

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:19:28 -0600, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Takin' your nitro with a bit o' grog, are ye, Donny?

-- "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

(...)

"High Inertia Smiley" accepted.

--Winston

careful and

text -

Those without reason rely on rabid reports. The brakes are quite sufficient to overcome even the V6 engine at WOT and stop the car.