The Professor Who Battled Toyota And Survived

You said "boffin"

"All boffins are a little crackers". from No Highway IN The Sky

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B
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Except NASA and the government concur.

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

You mean the government that we trust? And the same NASA that occasionally creates fireworks in the sky?

Reply to
tnom

And I suppose this Professor Woebegone Numbnuts is more dependable than NASA and the NTSB?

You so badly want Toyota to be at fault??

Reply to
hls

Even NASA is NOT immune from unexpected events. Look at Challenger. There "Experts" said that there was NO problem launching the shuttle at the colder temperature they did. Others where yelling chicken little the sky is falling End result: loss of life and space craft.

What happened after that? Redesign of solid rocket booster joints Thats what happens after an event. Design review and re evaluation. then modify product as needed.

I will ask again, were Toyota's PCM's flashed with updated software in the suspected cars after these events happened?

bob

Reply to
bob urz

Great point. I'd bet a weeks pay that Toyota addressed this via reprogramming during the recall. Ben

Reply to
ben91932

When our Avalon was recalled to replace the accelerator pedal, I found that the transmission did not shift properly after the work was accomplished. I suspected that this was due to the battery having been disconnected and the PCM got wiped. The dealership confirmed that mine was the second case of this happening, and Toyota sent them the software to correct this.

Now, this car never gave any indication of runaway acceleration, nor of a sticky accelerator pedal.

The software reinitiation of the PCM cured the shift problem and there have been no recurring issues of any kind.

The above leads me to believe that there was no routine reflash on these units, but I dont know why only two showed the transmission corruption.

Reply to
hls

He is far more dependable than your misbegotten analysis.

I never heard any claim that he found the cause of any accident. He only claimed he found a fault in the system that would cause runaway acceleration if there was a certain short circuit. He never claimed he had any evidence that such a short had actually occurred in any vehicle on the road.

Toyota has never disputed that the fault the professor discovered doesn't exist. Toyota's position is there is no evidence that this fault caused any of the accidents. Toyota also took steps to change the design to eliminate the fault.

Reply to
jim

I remember this professor's demonstration. It was through-and-through crap. First he used a typical consumer aftermarket OBD2 controller to find fault codes one can buy from amazon.com. These will not return manufacturer specific codes in a throttle by wire system. He would need a dealership's code reading equipment to pull those fault codes out if they did exist.

Second he did something to rewire the system to create the fault. If I remember correctly he essentially created a condition that deliberately mimiced the sensor output for full throttle. He made a few other errors but I cannot remember them now. Those were the two big ones.

Basically his great discovery was the equal to touching the positive battery cable to the starter's lug and complaining the starter motor turned without moving the ignition key from 'off'.

Reply to
Brent

That's authoritative proof but not definitive.

Authoritative proof cleared O.J. Simpson also.

Reply to
tnom

Except that neither of those are errors. Toyota admitted that the short would set no codes so it matters little whether you think he was reading the codes incorrectly. And the positive battery cables have been known to accidentally contact the starter terminal. Shit happens.

I heard him interviewed on the radio and he explained that he simply posed the question what wires would need to be crossed to make it go WOT. And if those wires were crossed would it set a fault code so that the brake could override the throttle. That seemed like perfectly reasonable way to approach the problem.

-jim

Reply to
jim

No doubt there could be some problem with the software but it seems that these days, folks will diddle with software for even the most trivial of things and it doesn't have to even be related to unintended acceleration problems.

No matter, there's a separate failsafe system for some scary bug that may or may not exist in the software called "the brake system."

Reply to
dsi1

That is not what cleared O.J. A panel of prejudiced jurors saw him as innocent although he dripped with Nicole's blood.

Reply to
hls

After seeing a report of a private investigator I find it's likely OJ didn't do it, but he knows who did and worked to cover up who did.

That aside, NASA's report is what is politically viable first, what is engineering wise true second. That's how institutions, especially those of the state, function.

Reply to
Brent

Yep. Dealers will 'fix' all sorts of things just because your car is the dealership.

Reply to
Brent

Hearing aids these days are software controlled devices. Sometimes just hooking them up to a computer will initiate a software update. Personally, I have no idea what the heck is being done when these updates occur. Hopefully, a software bug will not cause the hearing aid to explode in the users ear. :-)

Reply to
dsi1

dsi1 wrote in news:4d5343a5$0$20692$ snipped-for-privacy@usenet-news.net:

Only the digital ones. Analog ones are still adusted using tiny switches in the back.

Proof of that assertion?

Or /both/ of mine...

Reply to
Tegger

It is true that there are some analog aids being made today but mostly they're old designs that the manufacturers want to phase out. As it goes, most hearing aids made these days will be digital - even the ones that you adjust using trimpots. The trimpots aren't analog either.

I've had it happen to me. The software that programs the aid will tell me that it's updating the software. My guess is that it does this because I opted for automatic updates in the program.

Reply to
dsi1

In message , hls writes

What got O.J. Simpson off, was a smart lawyer who when presented with solid DNA evidence got some "Expert" to say that DNA kept for more than

48 hours unchilled might well disintegrate causing errors, Which put doubt into the minds of the jurors.
Reply to
Clive

NASA and the NTHSA have been studying the problem for months.

I would tend to believe a NASA scientist over a newsgroup naysayer. Sorry. Just sayin'.

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

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