Apparently incompetenet and stupid U.S. Citizens are attrated to Toyotas. Otherwise why were there so many complaints of sudden accelertions realted to Toyota products sent to NHTSA back in 2005 (well before all the publicity)? And why are there so few sudden acceleration complaints logged against GM products? Surely incompetenet and stupid U.S. Citizens puchase GM products. As far as I can tell, Buick is still the choice of the older generation (well either that or an Avalon).
Exactly. There was a dramatic increase in the number of sudden acceleration incidents for certain Toyota models starting in the 2004/2005 time frame. Something changed then. It is likely that many of these incident were related to pedal confusion. However, the question remains why was there a dramatic increase? Maybe a lot of feeble old people bought
2004/2005/2006/2007 Camrys...but that doesn't seem likely. The shift was concurrent with the change to electronic throttle control. Maybe the new pedal assemblies were relocated and that made pedal confusion more likely. Or maybe the new pedals tended to stick, or were more likely to get caught under mats. Or maybe the new electronic control system lead to unexpected surging, that triggered a panic response, that sometime resulted in wreck becasue of pedal confusion. Even if the electronic signals are not part of the problem, the computer can't know why the pedal was depressed, only that it was. And if the sudden acceleration incident was a result of pedal confusion that itself was a result of panic becasue of a sudden surge related to an electronic fault, I doubt the computer records would indicate the actual origin of the panic (i.e., the unexpected surge). I have personal experience with the crusie control of my SO's RAV4. Under certain conditions it goes wild - racing the engine and downshifting violently. It has never paniced me, but I can see where someone might react in panic.I am willing to discount many of the post-firestorm sudden acceleration incidents as piling on, or fraud attempts, or just people looking for an excuse for their own failings. However, this does not apply to the sudden increase in incidents in the 2004/2005 time frame related to sudden accelertion complaints. Toyota managed to squash any investigation back then (and the team that squashed it, even had the poor sense to brag about it in a power point sent to executives in Japan). It was an unfortunate cover-up, but was typical of Toyota's long standing practices. And it seems to me that Toyota is using the recent NHTSA reports that many sudden acceleration are the result of pedal confusion to implement another long standing Toyota practice - deflect negative attention by any means necessary, including blaming the Customer. The Toyota excuse machine is using these "favorable" reports to create a fog that I am sure they hope will hide the fact that there was an extrodinarily high incident of sudden acceleration incidents for Toyota vehicles after the change to elecronic throttle controls.
Ed White