Runaway 2009 Lexus ES fiery crash kills family of 4

john · 2009-09-17T06:41:14+00:00

So watch those mats!"Toyota said Tuesday it will order all dealers to inspect their carsfor mismatched floor mats after a mat was suspected of snagging a gaspedal on a runaway Lexus, ending with a fiery crash that killed fourfamily members in San Diego County.Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. planned to issue an order Wednesday toabout 1,400 Toyota and Lexus dealers nationwide to make sure each oftheir new, used and loaner vehicles had the proper floor mats and thatthe mats were properly secured, said Brian Lyons, a spokesman for theTorrance-based company.Customers who are concerned should also make sure they have the propermats."If there's any doubt in their mind about the security and shape oftheir mat, go ahead and visit the dealer" to have them checked, Lyonssaid.California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, 45, and three otherswere killed Aug. 28 on State Route 125 in Santee, a town near SanDiego. The runaway car was doing more than 120 mph when it hit a sportutility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times andburst into flames.The SUV driver was treated for moderate injuries.In addition to Saylor, who was a 19-year CHP veteran, the crash killedhis wife, Cleofe, 45; their daughter, Mahala, 13; and Saylor's brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella, 38.Lastrella made a 911 call about a minute before the crash to say thevehicle had no brakes and the accelerator was stuck.The call ends with someone telling people in the car to hold on andpray, followed by a woman's scream.The family was in a 2009 Lexus ES 350 that was loaned by a dealerwhile their own vehicle was being serviced.Investigators with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration havedetermined that a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckagewas a couple of inches longer than the mat that belonged in thevehicle.That could have snared or covered the accelerator pedal."We don't know if the all-weather floor mat was properly secured ornot," he said. "We do know that it was a floor mat from a...

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MasterBlaster 16 years ago

No throttle cable. It's "drive-by-wire". Pulling up would do nothing.

Anybody post this link? The boss was reading through it today. Seems there's been a lot of complaints about the same thing.

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of other sites with similar content). I also don't buy the floormat excuse, since the boss also found a post with the same symptoms, with NO floormats in the car.

Let's see... Cruise control -- computer decides how fast you want to go. Drive-by-wire -- computer decides how far to open the throttle. ABS -- computer decides if / when to allow the brakes to work, based on whether it "thinks" 1 (or 4) wheels are locked up and sliding.

Some kind of random massive computer glitch that affects all these systems, and the car takes off, disables the brakes, and you pray.

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E. Meyer 16 years ago

Every Honda I've had since '96 has had hooks to anchor the mats. As I look in the old '91 240SX it does as well (passenger side too).

The problem here has been explained that some moron in the dealership tossed a second layer of mats that were for a different model over the properly anchored ones.

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E. Meyer 16 years ago

So what's really going on is the terminator story. Only its not robot clones of Arnold S., its self-aware car computers selectively killing us off :)

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N8N 16 years ago

The E28 BMW used a hydraulic booster somewhat akin to GM's Hydroboost not a vacuum booster so the nitrogen ball was to keep the hydraulic system pressurized when the pump couldn't keep up, so you didn't suddenly lose brake pressure or steering assist. i'm assuming that that was for packaging reasons because IIRC the 528s used a conventional vacuum booster but the 535s (different, larger engine block) used the hydraulic. I actually had a 535 back in the day and just before I sold it I believe the "bomb" failed - symptoms were that you would step on the brakes and there'd be a delay of about a second or so before the boost kicked in. A little disconcerting, but I ended up selling the car (cheap) because I was moving so I never had it fixed..

Nate

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N8N 16 years ago

My '08 Impala has a hook on the driver side floor for the floor mat, but the ones that came with the car are stored away in a safe place while I'm using molded WeatherTech mats (which are great, by the way, even though their advertising seems a little cheezy. I still prefer the heavy black rubber ones that VW offers as an accessory through their dealerships, but GM apparently doesn't see fit to offer a similar product.) The thought of putting tan-colored carpeted floor mats in a car that is used for visiting construction sites seems a little silly to me.

I'm trying to remember if the '05 had a hook and now I just don't recall.

nate

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Mike Hunter 16 years ago

If one had followed the Audi case they would have discovered the NHTSA ruled the cause was DRIVER error, period.

reminds me of the runaway Audi stories...

in the Audi case the gas/brake pedals were too close together and not aligned with the seat like other cars so drivers were simply stomping on the gas when they thought they were on the brake. (Manual shift Audi drivers loved the pedal placement, of course.)

in this case the fault is said to lie with improper floor matts; not with a driver too dumb to recognize the problem and place his foot under the gas pedal and pull it up to free it from the matt. I had this happen to me years ago in some borrowed car.

My Toyota car has a nice hook to hold it's driver's side floor matt in place. That's more than I can say for my Honda or GM products.

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dsi1 16 years ago

Thanks for the info. I have never heard of the Hydroboost system before but a web search took care of that right quick. :-)

It seems like a nifty, compact system and from what I've read, provides more linear braking. From the retrofit instructions, it seems pretty easy to install, although there doesn't seem to be provisions for ABS. OTOH, these seem to be mostly retrofitted to trucks.

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