<VV> Where's Ralph?

[Tony Underwood]

At 10:04 AM 1/27/2010, airvair at earthlink.net wrote:
>Ought to. Toyota just took ANOTHER hit to their vaunted "quality"
>reputation, by having to recall 2.3 million Toyotas.



The question here is WHY Toyota didn't take a hint from Chrysler and 
THEIR moronic "drive-by-wire" throttle systems which have gotten a 
lot of flak from owners who HATE the crappy throttle.


Why the HELL does a car maker take a very simple piece of engineering 
and turn it into something requiring yet ANOTHER 
microprocessor-controlled decision-making process that removes the 
driver from the equation?   A "sticking gas pedal" becomes an 
electronic throttle malfunction...



Chrysler's camp has reports of some ingenuity among owners of the 
Dodge trucks etc who dismantled parts of the "drive by wire" 
electronic throttles and replaced them with a cable and a 
spring.    Seems they simply did not trust the throttle to work the 
way they wanted it to work, lag and hesitation and a general feeling 
of mis-trust...


Makes one wonder how such a system managed to make it to the dealer 
showroom floor.



...one of the hardcore die-hard Mopar guys on another list first was 
gonna buy a new Ram PU but bought a used Ford F-150 because he 
refused to deal with an electric gas pedal.   His comment:   "It's a 
pickup truck, not a f**king airliner.  What the Hell were they thinking?"


The throttle linkage on my 700 4-door is 50 years old and still works 
just fine... and is all original including the bushings and 
boots.   Nary a problem, ever.    I'm not a Luddite... but I sure can 
see the merit in simplicity.




tony..

PS:   "With the electronic throttle, the driver is not really in 
control of the engine," said Antony Anderson, a U.K.-based electrical 
engineering consultant who investigates electrical failures and has 
testified in sudden-acceleration lawsuits. "You are telling the 
computer, 'Will you please move the throttle to a certain level?' And 
the computer decides if it will obey you."