Toyota stuck gas pedal - Just take it out of gear!!

Factual Questions
21

Note also that your gear shift is designed with this problem in mind. You can shift from drive into neutral without pushing the button on the shifter – and you should. That way you won’t accidentally shift into reverse.

If your shifter is on the steering column, you can go into neutral by pushing the lever forward towards the dash, but of course reverse requires you to pull it in the other direction.

Also, if you’ve downshifted to get more power on a hill or use engine braking to slow yourself down, you should also use these techniques to shift back into drive, for the same reason.

–Cliffy

22

It should be noted that the correct procedure is to shift to neutral and only press the brake ONCE. repeatedly pumping the brakes will deplete the vacuum assist and an engine that is over-revving will not provide vacuum to the brake system. Once vacuum assist is depleted the brakes become much harder to work than brakes that don’t have power assist. What might take 100 lbs of pressure may now take 600 lbs (yes I’m pulling numbers out of my ass but the difference is significant).

So again, NEVER pump the brakes if the engine is revved up. Press on them ONCE for all you’re worth.

23

Most people would have figured it out but this was a Lexus rental and they don’t use a conventional shift lever. This is what a Lexus uses.

24

Something that ummm powerful looking should require a retina scan/fingerprint with each gear shift.
Does it make a good piece of toast too?
::laughs derisively::

25

Earlier this week, I was riding with a friend in a Toyota Prius; we were discussing this, and he showed me the procedure.

First you need to understand that the Toyota Prius is a 'drive by wire’ car, like modern airplanes. The controls just send instructions to the computer to do something; there are not any mechanical connections between the components.

So the shifter is a little joystick on the dash, with a position for reverse and one for drive, and a spot in between that is neutral. But Reverse or Drive are positions, and you can push the joystick up or down to trigger them. Neutral is just a location between them, that the computer recognizes – assuming the computer isn’t busy right then with a runaway acceleration. And you can’t throw it into Reverse then; the computer won’t accept that command if the car is moving forward at more than x miles per hour. (That’s common on regular automatic transmissions in many cars.)

And the ‘key’ is not an actual key controlling an actual electrical switch. It’s a small key fob similar to a USB flash drive – you plug it into the dash and start the car. And once you’ve done that, you can take it out again and put it in your pocket; the car keeps driving on just fine. To shut off the car, you press and hold on a power button, which signals the computer to shut the car off (again, assuming the computer is not busy with a runaway acceleration). This is similar to what I have to do on my computer – hold down the power button for a few seconds to power down – unlike the my earlier computers, the front panel button does not directly control the computer power.

And reaching down to pull up the stuck accelerator pedal may not work – there seems to be some question if this is a mechanical sticking there, or a computer glitch that triggers the runaway acceleration.

And pulling the fuse? The fuses are located in 2 boxes, one under the hood, the other behind the steering column. The one under the hood is obviously inaccessible, and I think the major fuses are located there. Service instructions for the one under the steering column mention moving the drivers seat to the fully back position and laying on your back on the floor to look up under the dashboard for the fusebox – I’m not sure how accessible that would be to a driver when the car is in runaway acceleration. And pulling all the fuses in there will shut off the cigarette lighter, the interior lights, the automatic windows, etc., but I don’t know if it will stop the car.

26

Not the pedal. It is in the electronics. The accelerators are not mechanical any more.

27

Not the pedal. It is in the electronics. The accelerators are not mechanical any more. Oops just covered.

28

Shifting into neutral makes sense.

Mythbusters tried stopping cars by shifting into park. There was a safety that wouldn’t let it go into Park. They tried it on several cars.

29

If i remember correctly, that was reverse they were attempting to shift. The park pawl will not engage on any vehicle I have ever owned if the vehicle is moving at a speed above a walk. How do I know, well 30 years of responding in snow and every other condition 24-7 to the ambulance garage or fire hall I have engaged park more than a few time too soon. Never had any disastrous results, just a course ratcheting sound and then a thunk as park locked up.

I sat in a national safety counsel defensive driving class earlier today and the trooper(ret) commented on this throttle sticking problem and said he understood the rational of shifting into Neutral, however he said his personal option was to cut the ignition, knowing the steering is going to become harder and the power brakes will become stiffer, but with a level head one should be able to ride the vehicle to the shoulder.
I couldn’t argue with him on that. I do however like Ricks, pull up the pedal method.
I did have my throttle stick on my F-800 truck crane. I was able to lift the throttle pedal with the side of my foot. It takes a country mile to climb to hyway speed in that truck so there was no panic at all:D

30

Did he explain why that would be a better option than neutral?

31

Yes,
But as I stated this was his personnel opinion, because he did say the recommended way was to shift to neutral.
Because he himself did not want to loose the engine from overspeed.
He related an instance when his throttle stuck because of a pine cone that was stored under the hood by a pesky squirrel. He was able to handle his car just fine when his throttle stuck.
There were many elderly folks in the refresher class that probably should shift to neutral to better control their car. That retired trooper was a bookend like me, the kind that has never missed many meals and over 6’:wink:

32

Fly by wire makes me want to put a mechanical safety switch on the battery to cut power to everything.

33

The Lexus involved in that incident did not have a keyed ignition, it was controlled by a proximity key. As long as the “key” is within a certain distance of the “ignition module”, all the driver has to do is push the start button and the car is ready to go.

34

Methinks auto engineers may soon be revisiting the idea that there’s no obvious and immediate way to shut off the engine.

35

At speed, the extra steering effort is quite modest - unless you are doing something like maneuvering into a tight parking space, you really don’t need power-assisted steering.

The increase in brake pedal force is more significant, but certainly well within what anyone over about 90 lbs could manage, especially when highly motivated. I think it stands to reason that problems with the brake boost system would not make braking impossible.

36

Don’t most modern cars have rev limiters?

37

When I first heard about this case I felt like the OP: “holy crap, what kind of dumbassery is this!?!?” More details have since come to light. Here are some things to consider:

-The car, a Lexus ES350, reportedly had a keyless entry system. More significantly, keyless ignition: keep the key fob in your pocket, and push the button on the dashboard to start the engine. The driver had dropped his car off at the dealership for service, and this was a loaner, a car he was not necessarily familiar with. He apparently didn’t know (and neither would I, if I were in his shoes) that you need to hold the button on the dashboard for three seconds to kill the engine while you’re driving.

-The car had an automatic transmission with sequential shifting capability. Look at the shift tree in this photo: if you’re in seq-shifting mode, pushing the shifter toward “N” functions as an upshift. Again, not being familiar with the particulars of this car (since it was a loaner), the driver may not have known how to get it out of seq-shift mode and into standard mode, making it impossible to find neutral.
-Brakes? What brakes? I can think of a few reasons the brakes might not have worked properly:

• If you’ve got a functional vacuum assist, sure, the brakes can overpower the engine. But if the engine is running WOT, you’ve got virtually ZERO vacuum assist. Without that assist, you might be able to bring the car to a reasonably quick stop if the throttle isn’t pinned. But if you’re fighting a 272-horsepower engine putting out all it’s got? It’s anybody’s guess as to who is going to win.

• OK, suppose you DO have enough vacuum assist to get the car slowed down. Maybe once the car gets up to 100 you slam on the brakes and get it down to 40 or 50, then release, hoping the problem has resolved. Nope - and while you were trying to figure out how to get it into neutral or kill the engine, you got back up to 100 again 15 seconds later. So you throw out the anchor again. In fairly short order your brakes look like those of a Boeing 777 after an aborted takeoff. Maybe the rotors are melted, the pads cracked off of their backing, the fluid’s boiled. Pretty soon you you really do have no brakes whatsoever, at which point you are well and truly F’d.

• Well crap, how about that parking/E-brake? Assuming the brakes aren’t melted (see above), we’re still doing 100+ MPH, do you really want to lock up the rear wheels at that speed? They didn’t know for certain at this point that they were headed for a fiery off-road crash, but locking up the rear wheels at those speeds would seem to be a sure way to cause one. Moreover, if you pull hard on the handle but don’t lock them up, I bet those 272 horses will still maintain pretty good speed.

38

I agree that you should never underestimate the power of stupid…but.

When you drive, or perform any repeating action you get stuck into what is called an “auto-sequence”.
This means that you do things without conscious thought thus freeing up brain space to deal with other things, like avoiding sabre-toothed tigers etc.
The problem comes when this previously predictable system starts behaving in an unexpected way. Jumping out of that auto-sequence is not easy. You get confused and panic. You lose the ability to think rationally and would not necessarily find it easy to perform a “check-list” of solutions.

Sure we can laugh at the funny dead people now but I honestly think that the general tone here is rather mean-spirited and unnecessarily cruel.

Ever woken in a dark, strange bedroom and walked into the wall? Ever swapped from left hand to right hand drive car and wound the window down instead of changing gear? Ever switched from manual to auto and still jabbed down on the clutch? well, ha! there but for the grace of God etc. etc.
You were just lucky that the situation allowed you enough time to recover your composure without disaster.

Lets face it, we are all slaves to our reptilian brain and what we think we would do is a whole different ball game to what we actually would do.

39

As noted above, your braking capability isn’t lost without vacuum assist - it simply requires more pedal force.

There’s also the point that the brake assist system includes an accumulator, so boost is available even when the engine manifold is not at low pressure. (You can typically get several boosted brake applications even after a car’s engine is turned off.)

40

Is neutral used for anything in a modern automatic car? Most people only use Park and Drive. I’m not surprised at all that people wouldn’t be familiar with neutral.