Will NHTSA go after BMW?
 

I was just reading in the paper this morning about Prius ABS issues that have NHTSA piling it on Toyota. It seems people report that under braking over bumpy roads, the brakes feel like they let off completely :eek:
I've experienced this many times on my R12S and once it nearly put me into the back of a truck I was passing on Hwy 33 when I decided not to pass at the last moment and had to break quite hard, but not a panic-type situation (until the brakes let off). I have always assumed it's just a design "feature" of the ABS on our bikes, but does everybody experience this or is my ABS problematic? If this is the way it's supposed to work, I'm a little surprised more people don't complain about it. Maybe that's why BMW thought to fit a disable switch rather than the race-track reasoning? Tracks are always smoother than most CA roads, so I've never experienced it at the track.

It's like floating on air sometimes, isn't it?

Funny thing is I have experienced it in my old Toyota Land Cruiser, in the seven years I had it that happened maybe two dozen times, always down hill on bad surfaces, very scary in such a heavy car, but happily it never caused me to have an accident.

So far I've not noticed it on the R12S.

It's an inherent problem with the very principle by which the ABS systems work... measuring the speed differential between the wheels (as an easy explanation). Bumps, at times will cause the wheel to loose contact and cause a measurable difference...

Easy fix:

LEARN HOW TO BUILD PROPER ROAD SURFACES!

If they "go after BMW" they'd have to go after about every ABS system out there right now. You can't engineer an ABS system that works perfectly in every possible situation.

This "sky is falling" hysteria over vehicle safety systems right now is ridiculous. None are foolproof, but somehow the tradeoffs aren't something you can communicate very well to John Q. Public. When you have moms holding their kids and crying into the TV that "I thought my car was safe, but now I don't know", the politicians get involved and then katy bar the door.

I also think that the fact the US government is a 51% owner in GM puts the NHTSA in a unique conflict of interest position. There have been many reports of undue pressure being exerted on Toyota and that their waffling has been, at least in part, in reaction to threats from the NHTSA. There are a lot of people benefiting from Toyota's problems.

Let the engineers work the problem. Let Toyota fix it. In the meantime, keep driving the car, but review the engine shutoff procedure in the OM in case the 1-million chance bites you. Somehow this sort of reasonable approach isn't possible in today's world.

- Mark

NHTSA might want to look into how ridiculously easily it is to tip over these BMW motorcycles, or even how easy it is to fall off!


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With all the raving about the S1000RR DTC/ABS, I'll be curious how it handles such braking over bumpy road situations? Race bikes monitor suspension movement, which if tied into ABS would allow them to be much smarter about not confusing bumpy roads with loss of traction. And the new bike even has an IMU of sorts which could make it smarter still by comparing actual velocity to wheel-derived velocity. But of course with added complexity comes added room for mistakes in software, sensors, etc.

I find it a bit infuriating listening to all the politicians jumping on this anti-Toyota bandwagon. Aren't there better things for those folks to be worrying about right now? I'm talking to you Henry Waxman! :rolleyes:

Keep in mind Toyota has killed over 19 people with some of these issues. If one of your family members were killed you be happy Mr. Waxman is beating up on Toyota. I have never seen a large well respected manufacture drop the ball like Toyota has. Say what you want to about BMW but they would have a done more faster that Toyota has done. Heck I remember 1996 0r 1997 my dad bought a new 740i and he got a phone call from bmw a couple of years later about a possible engine problem...losing compression and burning oil. My dad says no...everything seems fine...thanks for calling. BMW- Well Mr. XXXXXX we are not sure whether you can detect the problem...we can come get the car and drop of a loaner. Gets a call a few days later....we are putting in a new engine. Dad- well I think the warranty is up. Don`t worry Mr.XXXXX we will take care it.

And this was not a safety issue.

Lane

Waxman blows.

I hope for Toyota sake its not some of the same gas pedal problems Volvo has had. ETM "aka" fly by wire. I was part of a class action lawsuit...not for damages buy to fix a problem they did not want to take blame for. Mine failed....in traffic no warning just engine off. $900 dollar fix. These things were failing everywhere. Volvo said not not our problem. They dropped the ball. I have owned 4 volvo`s for business travel, great for business... customers don`t give you crap about them. No More, never. Dumped the s80 licked my wounds and bought a 530i, its a 2005 now with 127,000 miles and the only problem( I have all records from day one)...the seat memory needed to re-flashed. Not bad.

Lane

Mark, you been listening to Flush Rimbaugh??;)

Cage...everyone blows but you dude! lol

If you listen to cage, anybody to the left of Hitler blows....

jduke, ha ha!!!!

mark, NHTSA is not gubmint owned. Its funded by a collective fund from Insurance companys.

Lane

I am not sure this is true yet, the jury is still out. Audi was suppose to have killed a bunch in the 80's with their "unintended acceleration", but have since been totally vindicated, and the blame was put where it belonged, on inept drivers.

I can remember the public and political uproar when Audi came up with their fix and it was approved by the proper agencies, there was outrage that Audi was getting away with murder!! But guess what, that shift interlock they developed and is now standard on all automatic cars fixed the problem, by preventing driver ineptness.

Well, it's a government agency, a part of the Department of Transportation just like the FAA. I think you're confusing NHTSA with Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

- Mark

Completely anecdotal. For every story like this we have stories where BMW screwed someone and they had a great experience with Volvo. And the horror stories of BMW sweeping problems under the rug are legendary. If you think BMW is above the kind of problems that are plaguing Toyota right now, you're very mistaken.

- Mark

No, and I have no idea if he has a position on this issue. But I pride myself on keeping an open mind and there are some things I think Rush is exactly right on, in the same vein that occasionally a blind squirrel finds a nut. Even a blind squirrel who is a flaming asshat.

- Mark

I stand corrected...confussified my acronyms .

Maybe so....however I have a lot of family members and friends that drive them and don`t seem to have many problems. Of course I don`t know anyone driving BMW of economic reasons..myself included. They just drive good/solid. My opinion only.

Have a good weekend,
Lane

Hey Pfog... I heard this from the news..NBC?. There was one accident in which 3 people were killed. Recalls don`t bother me too much because most of them are insignificant and they happen to all brands. But this is huge. I would hate to be sitting at a red light, first to go, with my family in the car and it jumps out in front of a semi. Toyoata is a great company with a lot of happy customers....and they make a lot of cars here in the US....so I like them and wish they well.

Lane

Actually, my friend and co-worker's mom and dad went off a cliff in Morro Bay (or somewhere thereabouts) because of this same acceleration issue and his mom was killed. So it's a bit personal and I am sensitive to it. I think it's appropriate that Toyota feel the heat. I just can't stand the fact that Waxman sticks his pug nose into EVERYTHING except what I think matters. Believe me, I'm well left of Cageyar on virtually everything political. But I guess we do agree on something. :D

I didn't say anything bad about BMW and I'm also highly surprised that Toyota has ignored it for so long. But it's not that unusual for companies at the top to get way too arrogant and think nothing can be wrong with their products whether cars, software, or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised to see some heads roll at Toyota.

Anyhow, I'm happy to hear my ABS is performing normally even if I don't like it at all under certain circumstances. And I'd like to hope ABS is getting much better on the newer machines.

Unfortunately, this is just the type of incident I question and by looking at the repair, there is NO WAY this could be addressed by the Toyota fix. It just reduces friction and prevents sticking of the pedal AFTER it is depressed. If indeed they are accelerating on their own at stop lights, this fix does nothing.

There is a possibility, with drive by wire, this could happen, but again I am skeptical. I truely believe every accident with a Toyota for the last 3 years will be blamed on them.

I have always liked most of the Toyota products.........now might be a good time to buy a new one?
There might be some good incentives soon?
Cheers

Remember the Audi 5000...

If you ever held the "drive by wire" gas pedal assembly in your hand and I have just today at Mitsubishi, it is very possible that the spring loaded piston can stick.
The original styles look like the bottom assembly in this picture. Basically a spring loaded rod with a sensor that measure rod movement that sends a signal to the EFI control module.
The one I examined today at Mitsu has a spring attached to the end of the rod and the spring rides on a nylon piston. This nylon piston slides in a stamped steel cylinder. A similar sensor measures rod stroke. It's quite possible the some contamination, sand, dirt, etc. could enter the stamped steel bore and impede or jam the spring's stroke.
My point is this Toyota issue is quite possibly mechanical and not a function of an ECU/EFI system fault.

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Why doesn't someone do somerthing about child drivers....huh? You'd think Nader would know better.

AFAIK, the current problem can still be managed by the driver, by braking the car to a stop and then shutting down the ignition as in any throttle runaway situation. Of course, the surprise/disbelief factor along with drivers who have never been trained in this failure scenario makes any accelerator issue potentially dangerous.

- Mark

It has long been comfirmed that it is a mechanical issue... the fix is equally interesting as the problem... I'll see if I can find some pictures.

Trouble is the there are more manufacturers that use CTS gas pedal assemblies... Honda now has admitted to issues as well. Wonder who's next.

Ah yes, the good old American system of "buying" a driver license without proper training... after all, if you can park and run red lights and stop signs that should be good enough, right?

i believe you have underestimated the magnificently boundless ineptitude of the average American driver.

It's a states rights issue....long standing since the founding of the republic for this and many issues. In Georgia I got a pretty hefty insurance discount for my daughter when she went through the public school drivers training. It wasn't as vigorous as the one in Germany, but it kept her out of trouble and saved me money and maybe pain. That said....we generally don't drive as well as those in Germany especially when it comes to lane usage, a thing I had frustration over after three years at Bitburg.

Sounds like they are now doing repairs. Todays paper, the charlotte observer....a story about scott clark toyota one of handful of toyota dealers in charlotte has repaired 100 so far. I believe this is a intermiting problem, and dificult to duplicate. I also wonder what system BMW uses. I know it was different that most. I know on my 850 its a very complex sys. its like a small elec. motor on the end both heads thats spin and read the imputs from the gas pedal. Looks like something on a airplane. My 530 and my wifes x3 uses something a lot smaller they they did years ago....prolly cheaper to mfg. and maintain. I do not one our partners put about 325k on a his 528 with no problems.

Lane

They are the standard that we all deal with. I haven't heard anyone say that they ever made a mistake with the controls of either a car or bike yet. It can happen.

geo

There are legitimate issues with fly-by-wire control input devices.
In fairness, all mfg'rs go to great lengths to guard against spurious input signals ('uncommanded control input') that can and do affect the electronics in question.
It IS really uncharted territory, still, as the transition from purely mechanical to 'interpreted' control of one's surroundings is made a reality.
With a purely mechanical control input systems, the variables are relatively few and simple to understand. Add an 'interpreter' or 'decision maker' into the control between man and machine and you have a universe's level increase in complexity and potential variables. Which requires a whole new way of looking at, identifying, and fixing issues.
We are now in the middle of a fundamental transition in the way we interface with our world on every level.
Your life is increasingly run, in detail, by something that only exists when the electricity is on and I personally feel this has not been examined or debated enough.
Wait til the first vehicle-specific-CPU virus hits after the OEM tech flashes the CPU with the latest update. (now THERE'S and industrial-espeonage scenario for you) I can't tell you WHEN that will happen but I'm sure it WILL happen.
Wait till you have a cpu chip buried in you that tell all the nanobots floating in your bloodstream chewing up the plaque in your arteries how to function.
wait till the virus that's xmited to that cpu as part of it's monitoring process gets written. the bots just chew thru an artery instead of the plaque.
onstar already tracks you everywhere you go.
airbag data records the last 30 seconds of many vehicle parameters...available to the prosecution.
my point is it's a new world...again, with new and evolving hazards. Better..worse...who knows. The dangers do not lessen, they just change..

If you folks are fearful of 'fly-by-wire' control you may want to consider where the term originated and apply that to your next airline ticket reservation.

At a shop I worked many years back, the AAA gave us one of those Audi's with the suspected throttle control problem to play with for about a month. The owner claimed that the car just drove itself through his garage door, and of course, the AAA disputed this. We looked it over in detail along with some engineering types we had available to us. We didn't find anything. Eventually, they chalked it up to some kind of vacuum leak (not likely), and that was that.

Cageyar could be right about the mechanical aspect on the Toyotas, and I think this would be the easiest diagnosis and fix. On the other hand, some combination of inputs that introduce an intermittent glitch in the ECU hardware or programming might be impossible to diagnose, duplicate and correct.

I talked with buddy of mine that is in the know. He is the a VP and has a lot of mech. background at the largest family owned dealer network in the US about 80 dealers. Can`t give his name for privaticy resaons....but he described to me the problem and the fix....we know the problem. The fix is a very small shim they are installing in the pedal assy. to allow a better return. He said it has not been a big deal and that most people are handling it well. One thing that surprised me is that Toyota is going to change their software to be more like BMW in that when you depress the brake it retards engine rpm....It does not do that now, I did not know that bmw did this either. Its hard to stop a car under power. He is the dude I was talking about buying a corsa ducati just for the track....a $40,000 play bike. He is a bike nut and a great guy.

Lane

Toyota pedal recall here.

Toyota Sticking Accelerator Pedal Recall

Not sure if I will have it done, i usually have my pedal in the Super Tundra to the floor anyway. :)

http://www.swartzwelder.net/ppb/speedometer.JPG

I'd like to be the first to welcome Toyota to the world of US manufacturing. Build for Form-Shim to Fit.

I have experienced this as well, many times on my R12S. Sometimes it's simply because the road is bad, but more often then not it's because I'm very used to using engine braking, so in situations when I need to brake suddenly I usually let the throttle off and use front brakes at the same time. As R12S has a very strong engine braking (relative to 600cc inline 4 for instance) I assume it can lead to slight rear wheel hopping, especially if the road surface is bad. AFAIK, as soon as the front and rear wheel get out of sync the ABS activates. I think this "feature" has caused multiple scares for me over this couple of years on my R12S, though it never made me stop too late and crash, to be fair. I still keep the ABS on at all times, just to be on the safe side.