I seem to remember when Toyota first announced their recall.
Immediately, the first thought that came to my mind was “must be the electric throttle. A sensor or something sending out false readings”. It makes perfect sense. Electronic sensors fail like this all the time. Throttle position sensors, etc.
So then when they said “sticky pedal” it made no sense. So the pedals are magically pushing themselves down and getting stuck?
Reports from drivers were “sudden acceleration”, not “I was accelerating, and when I took my foot off the gas, the car kept going”.
It made no sense.
So they continued to insist, knowing very well the real problem could put them out of business, despite continued customers trying to explain it to them.
They implemented their half-assed “repair” and low-and-behold, the problem still exists!
Well Toyota, you obviously have bigger problems here. You need to stop denying it, and get to the root of the problem.
Maybe if you dealt with this 10 years ago when you found out, you wouldn’t have 10 years worth of cars to fix now. Does it still feel like a good money saving tactic now?
Here’s the real problem….Electronic throttles are DUMB.
They are literally pointless. They offer no advantages, and only serve to make things unnecessarily complicated, and expensive.
Real cars have a throttle cable. When you push on the gas, it pulls a throttle cable, which then opens a butterfly plate on the throttle body letting air in.
YOU are in control of it. The car can’t do anything about it. No computer in your car can override it (with the exception of cars with cruise control).
You keep that throttle plate clean, and it will never even stick on you either.
So instead of step on pedal -> physically open throttle plate -> air enters, you go faster
Toyota has step on pedal (more like step on button designed to feel like a pedal) -> some kind of sensor senses how much pressure you are applying, and provides that information to the computer -> computer signals some kind of motor/solenoid to open throttle plate to detected amount.
How does that make any sense?
There was absolutely nothing wrong with traditional systems. In fact most cars still use it. It’s simpler, safer, cheaper, and works just the same.
“ask someone you know who drives one” I always laugh now when I hear that ad.
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