<VV> Toyota - some Corvair

Sun Aug 15 15:43:06 EDT 2010

All of this could be true and even likely.

After dealing with all the complexities of OBD-II on my Fords, victims of 
'vehicular car-slaughter', I realize the value of all those devices, and 
wonder how they could be applied to Corvairs ?

Corvairs, are luckily, not subject to smog controls (yet), but what if they 
change that ?

All this talk about electronic ignition etc not being worth the perceived 
benefit (depending on who's talking) makes me wonder if it wouldn't be an 
interesting project to control a Corvair engine as precisely as modern 
engines ?

Let's hope we don't get any 'runaway Corvairs' in the process, which, the 
complexities involved, is not a trivial matter.

An interesting idea nonetheless - any takers ?
Charlie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Underwood" <tony.underwood at cox.net>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> Toyota - no Vair

> At 04:21 PM 8/11/2010, kenpepke at juno.com wrote:
>
>>Uh, yes ... there are a lot of dumb drivers. However, the article
>>indicates of the reported incidences more than half might be driver
>>error.  That would lead one to realize something less than half were
>>NOT driver error.  That is a lot of vehicle errors, even for
>>Toyota.  Years of junkyard experience tells me that Toyota quality
>>has been add by their advertising department from the beginning.
>>Ken P
>>
>> >From the attached article:
>>And in more than half of the crashes blamed on sudden acceleration
>>analyzed by the government, data from the vehicles&#65533;
>>&#65533;black boxes&#65533; show the driver was not stepping on the
>>brake at the time of the accident&#65533;indicating that driver
>>error may have been at fault.
>
>
> I keep recalling the Toyota pilot whose car ran away, cop car got
> after him, followed, figured what was happening and managed to get
> ahead of the Toyota and use the cruiser's brakes to stop both
> vehicles, Toyota driver got out and refused to get back in, saying he
> was never driving a Toyota again.
>
> Went to court, Toyota said their black box in the car indicated the
> driver was stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake...
>
>
> Cop countered with testimony that he watched the brake lights of the
> car flashing continuously in a manner that suggested the driver was
> pumping the brake pedal.    It also brought back some reflections of
> a previous crash of a Lexus that killed a police officer and several
> of his family members after his car ran away and crashed.   This was
> the cop who phoned 911 telling them to try and clear a path ahead of
> him, in the headlong dash through traffic for over a mile before his
> car left the road at appx 100 mph and crashed.
>
> Toyota suggested that the cop's crash was also caused by the officer
> accidentally stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake... for
> over a mile.   That driver was, in several hundred postings in
> various automotive forums among bloggers, nominated for a "Darwin
> Award" following Toyota's announcement regarding "accidentally"
> pressing the gas instead of brake.    Yeahright.   This was a police
> officer who I suspect knew the difference between a gas pedal and a
> brake pedal.
>
>
>
>
> Maybe there are NOT so many dumb drivers out there.   Maybe Toyota
> techs were lying their asses off or the "black box" was reading the
> wrong data or misinterpreting it.   Meanwhile, Toyota countered each
> incident with an excuse from floor mats to gas pedals to driver
> error...  yet nobody else was having these issues except
> Toyota.   Independent software experts were sending in reports of
> defects they had found in the Toyota electronics/software... and of
> course Toyota insisted * in the news reports * that there was nothing
> wrong with their electronics or software, saying the pedal was at
> fault although some Toyotas kept having issues after pedal
> replacement... and cars that came in for the gas pedal "fix" after
> those initial reports were quietly getting new electronics and
> software at the dealerships while they were repairing the pedal issue...
>
>
> The pedal is a contract part, not a Toyota part... and several other
> car makers use the same pedal assembly.   None of them had any
> runaway issues.
>
>
> Fnck Toyota and the whore they rode in on.   They brought this onto
> themselves in their mad rush to be #1, and the recalls continue to
> this day.   Like I'd said several times along the way, for some years
> now, if I won a free Toyota in a contest I'd sell it and buy a
> Ford.    Toyota's underhanded business practices for the last 20
> years are coming back to haunt them and it's about time.
>
> Karma's a bitch.
>
> I'll keep my 'Vairs thanks.   I TRUST them.    I'd been watching
> Toyota for some years now, after reading up ( and viewing documentary
> research films and interviews) on some underhanded stunts they did
> that caused a lot of trouble for domestic industry... up to and
> including the sneaky Prius subsidies that a lot of people never found
> out about to this day, although they sure as HELL should know about it.
>
> Toyota's got a lot of damage control to do, and I don't feel sorry
> for them one damned bit.
>
>
>
>
> tony..
>
> PS:   a driver who had been convicted of reckless driving and
> manslaughter was recently released from prison where he'd been
> serving time for striking and killing pedestrians when his Toyota had
> run away and could not be stopped, yet the court didn't believe his
> story when he testified in court that the throttle had stuck wide
> open and the brakes wouldn't work...  before all the rest of the
> runaway Toyota reports had begun surfacing in media.
>
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