Ping Don Foreman: ICD Alert

A lot more than several reports indicate that Elvis is still alive. If we're to go by such reports, then they're proof of the mother of all conspiracies. Will you demand that Congress look into it?

Here's a reasonable article describing the reality of the Toyota situation.

Sample incident report: "Several times I have noticed that the acceleration will drop off the second I take my foot off the pedal. Please advise ASAP!!!!!!!!!"?NHTSA Toyota Complaint #10302477

Toyota has to humor such reports. The rest of us do not, although apparently some can't help themselves, and some more seem to live for such things. Next time you want to know how it's possible for people to be so damned whiney and helpless, and so prone to believe every silly thing they hear, take a look in the mirror to see the face of an enthusiastic offender and enabler. And should you ever wonder why government costs so much, think of the proportion of it that's dedicated to dealing with every nitwit who can operate a phone or a keyboard, which out of necessity have been designed to operate even while drool-covered.

And here's something else for you to pretend away - every person who jumps on this latest hysteria bandwagon is advertising their unfamiliarity with automotive mechanicals, and their inability to think logically.

Wayne

Halogens, yoo betcha. Tube lights, probably not. LEDs, no way Jose they'll just appreciate the cooling. LED's aren't mainstream for general illumination quite yet but I think they will be within a decade.

That was the point. Thanks JR!

--Winston

No issues with the cruise in our 09 Corolla or 10 Camry thus far.

If you have a Sam's Club card, you'll see they have a wider variety of LED than CFL (the closest one to us does, anyway).

LED has come a long way in a very short time. Depending on exact definition of "mainstream" I might be tempted to consider it already there given Sam's inventory. I predict LED will be outselling CFL within two years (considering the mercury boogeyman).

Some passenger aircraft (one of the Airbus models, IIRC) are already using it for general cabin lighting, and several RV models have OEM LED lighting.

No real issues with the '07 either. It just requires more attention on descents to avoid a ticket.

--Winston

I wonder what the increased stopping distance is if the engine is WOT and the car is already traveling at say, 70 mph? How much heat can you dump into the rotors before serious brake fade occurs?

Back to the throttle pedal. Would it be reasonable to depress it by hand and let up at points feeling for a very weak return force indicating a lot of friction?

Wes

I caught part of the Congressional Hearing one one of the C-SPANx channels the other day. The testimony of one of the witnesses, a woman who described in great detail her experience with a "runaway" Lexus, left me puzzled.

She clearly stated that she was able to shift into each of the car's gears and that doing so had no effect on the problem. She also said that she had been unable to slow the car down using her brakes.

Since she had time to call her husband on her cell phone (presumably a hands-free setup), whatever she was experiencing evidently lasted for a while.

Here's my question: With a Lexus transmission, presumably an automatic, how are you able to shift into Reverse at highway speeds? I'm fairly certain that if I ever succeeded in doing this in a manual shifter I'd have left evidence all over the highway in the form of fluid and little gears.

Is this an "electric" shift of some kind that would have allowed the driver to request/demand the shift into Reverse but refused to do so?

Similarly, how would one expect a successful shift into First/Low to affect a "runaway" engine? Wouldn't it at least have slowed down?

Frank McKenney

-- If you are not being criticized, you may not be doing much. -- Donald Rumsfeld

-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut mined spring dawt cahm (y'all)

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:34:40 -0600, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

A wrist rocket with steel shot, no doubt. Not a bad choice.

-- "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 calculated that in a previous post, not accounting for fade from heat. I don't know how quickly the brakes would fade from heat.

Seems reasonable, but it would also seem that the onset of this sticking is fairly sudden or it would have been discovered before out on the freeway.

Same thing can be down with most current transmissions. Been that way for at least 9 years on some makes.

Pretty much all of the electronic controlled transmissions have this function. The idea behind it is to prevent damage to the engine and transmission. You can shift into any gear BUT if the ECN decides that your manual shifting of the quadrant will damage the engine/trans it will not shift the gears.

Not if it was equipped as above. I know that in my wifes 02 Blazer with the automatic you can be doing 65 mph, Shift down into 3rd (out of OD) and the engine will pick up 1k revs. If you try to shift down into 2nd the trans will not shift if you are stepping on the gas OR if the current speed means that engine damage would result if the trans shifts.

Had my quarterly ICD check yesterday. Those things are amazing. Her machine spit out dang near a paperback novel worth of printout and graphs. The nurse told me that I'd had a 30-second period of arrhythmia at 11:15 on November (some date) but most people have those occasionally and don't know it. Otherwise, all looked hunky dory. Projected battery life from this point forward is 8.5 years. If it reported that I'd had an evil thought on January 10th, she didn't mention it.

I don't do a lot of descending around here, since the nearest hill is probably in Duluth.

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And if your tailwind is *that* strong, you have more pressing issues than a possible speeding ticket. :)

--Winston

Can you shoot one of the capsules hard enough for make it detonate? :)

I wonder that too. If I had any nitro capsules that mystery would soon be resolved. I have a wrist rocket and I'm not half bad with it.

Steve,

Thanks for responding.

Your first sentence left me a bit puzzled. Does "same thing" refer to a result leaving "li'l tiny gears all over the highway"?

Okay. So the shift lever moves, giving the driver -- presumably busy watching the highway and worrying about traffic and the @&^$* "stuck accelerator" -- the kinesthetic feedback that he/she/it _has_ shifted gears, but there is no effect -- the transmission stays in whatever gear it was previously in?

Okay. That would explain the part of the woman's testimony that was puzzling me.

I normally drive stick, and when I drive (e.g.) a rental with an automatic transmission I don't spend a lot of time trying to force it to shift into 1st or Low at highway speeds. The last time I remember trying to "force" an automatic (probably by accident), what I recall is a _mechanical_ "interlock" that simply wouldn't let me pull the lever back into that gear. Or maybe I just didn't pull that hard; I tend not to try forcing mechanical things, at least until I've built up a _lot_ of frustration.

So _next_ year's model will not only refuse to actually shift into a gear that might cause engine or transmission damage, it will be required to recognize a runaway accelerator and slow the car down?

And the following year's software patch will override _that_ feature if the car happens to be stuck on a railroad track and the driver is busy trying to get off the tracks with his wheels spinning...

Anyway, thank you for the explanation. I may have to keep my current car for a couple' more decades just to retain my sanity.

Frank

-- Youth is much more capable of amusing itself than is now supposed, and in much less mortal need of being amused. The only real warning against solitude and stagnation which needs to be uttered is that you really need to be rather young and strong in order to get the fun out of them. -- G.K. Chesterton: On the Thrills of Boredom (1932)

-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut mined spring dawt cahm (y'all)