Am I going to have wait 5-10 years for a definitive answer to the mysterious toyota acceleration phenomena?
Is it a real defect or is it complete driver error? Is it mechanical? Is it the computer? Now Nasa is helping them try to figure it out!
I did hear a first hand account of a Prius acceleration from a guy her at work. He said it just took off, he shifted into neutral, and hit the break, had barely any impact on the acceleration. But, he is like 65 years old…so could it have all been a near senile delusion?
Anyone else have first hand experience or at least talked to someone with a first hand account of an incident?
Not with a Toyota, but with another car that had the carpet mats upside down upon delivery (not sure why; guessing so as not to get the carpeted side dirty). This was August, so it was before all of the Toyota stuff was ever mentioned in the news. I was leaving the entrance toll booth to my daily toll road, and dang!, the car started accelerating on me, and struggling against the brakes. I quick move into neutral, turn off the engine (just the engine, don’t lock the steering wheel), coast to the side, and dang if it wasn’t the stupid mat that had jumped up on the accelerator pedal.
When the Toyota thing did start making the news, the original attribution of the mats then seemed completely reasonable.
I had a very similar experience with a RX-8 turbo that was parked at a training center I shared with Mazda and Ford.
The Mazda instructor had turned the floor mats over to keep them clean. they had slid down and the little plastic fingers on what should be on the bottom of the mat were sticking up. Sticking up so far that if the gas pedal went to wide open they would grab it.
I pulled the car out and floor boarded it while moving it. I let off after maybe .5 seconds, but the car did not return to idle. The fingers on the floor mat were holding the throttle wide open. I hit the brakes hard but as this was a training car and had been sitting for maybe a month, the rotors were rusty, and the brakes had all the effect of dragging my feet. About that time the turbo kicked in. :eek:
Up ahead I could see the grill of an F250 4X4. As I reached for the key, I had visions of accident reports to 3 different companies taking the rest of my working life. :smack:
As I turned the key off, the brakes finally grabbed and I got stopped. With a good 50 feet to spare. Boy I have to tell you as the car was accelerating at wide open throttle, that 50 feet looked more like 5 feet.
Anyway a quick inspection found the floor mat, and I put it right.