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View Full Version : how to find and join a class action lawsuit toyota?




psi2941
02-25-2010, 10:06 PM
Does anyone know how to join and find the class action lawsuit?

my mom was in a car accident about 2 years ago and her claim was the car accelerated by it self. (i thought she was crazy).

it was a 1999 or 2001 Toyota rav4 it was totaled

noxagol
02-25-2010, 10:20 PM
All of these 'accelerate on their own' claims are total shit. The car is physically incapable of accelerating by itself until you push down the gas pedal, which in turn opens the throttle body to allow more air gas to flow in. The gas pedal is directly connected to this and it is returned to position by a spring which is incapable of coming loose unless you deliberately take the thing apart. It is also pretty strong for its size.

They accelerate on their own after people push them to floor, underneath the floor mat, which then hold the pedal to the floor. How a floor mat is able to hold a gas pedal down is beyond me.

phill4paul
02-25-2010, 10:25 PM
The time is now for a class action lawsuit against the Supreme Court. They've hurt us worse than any fender benders.

UtahApocalypse
02-25-2010, 10:26 PM
All of these 'accelerate on their own' claims are total shit. The car is physically incapable of accelerating by itself until you push down the gas pedal, which in turn opens the throttle body to allow more air gas to flow in. The gas pedal is directly connected to this and it is returned to position by a spring which is incapable of coming loose unless you deliberately take the thing apart. It is also pretty strong for its size.

They accelerate on their own after people push them to floor, underneath the floor mat, which then hold the pedal to the floor. How a floor mat is able to hold a gas pedal down is beyond me.

You obviously have no clue what your talking about. That was how it USE to be. Nowadays many cars are "drive by wire" and electronically controlled. this was the EXACT reason for the mass recalls.

brandon
02-25-2010, 10:28 PM
You obviously have no clue what your talking about. That was how it USE to be. Nowadays many cars are "drive by wire" and electronically controlled. this was the EXACT reason for the mass recalls.

Yep. A microcontroller interfaces to the gas pedal and throttle. THere is not a direct mechanical connection between the two on new cars. If the software is buggy all kinds of strange things could happen.

Danke
02-25-2010, 10:33 PM
Apply brakes. Shift to Neutral. Turn off ignition if you must.

tmosley
02-25-2010, 10:37 PM
Apply brakes. Shift to Neutral. Turn off ignition if you must.

Hard to do when you have already run over a curb and into a crowd of pedestrians.

The problem with the the accelerators was that they degraded over time, causing them to stick in the down position.

Danke
02-25-2010, 10:42 PM
Hard to do when you have already run over a curb and into a crowd of pedestrians.


If you can't preform these tasks quickly at the first sign of uncommanded/undesirable engine acceleration, don't drive.

Please, don't drive.

psi2941
02-25-2010, 10:49 PM
look guys i don't care rather if this is bs or not, i just want to know where to find the class action lawsuit. I thought it was BS too, i figured she pressed the gas instead of brakes but after this stuff on the news i think theres more too it. I just want to know where the law suit is and how to contact the lawyer.

kpitcher
02-25-2010, 10:53 PM
Except sometimes even the brakes may not work. A california patrolman died in one, I'm assuming he tried everything he could think of. Although I wonder if he turned the key off - definitely not a natural response. Or the flying through a stop sign because all of a sudden you can't stop.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100223/BUSINESS0104/2230373/1318/120-m.p.h.-no-way-to-stop


"Our accelerator is stuck. We're on 125," Lastrella says.

911 Dispatcher: "What are you passing?"

"We're going 120 at Mission Gorge. And we're in trouble. We can't ... there's no brakes. End freeway a half mile."

Lawyers for families say that by the time Chris Lastrella dialed 911, they believe, Mark Saylor had done all he could to shut down the vehicle. They don't ask dispatchers for help or how they can control the car; Mark Saylor has the vehicle's warning flashers on, and may have been trying to warn other drivers.

The call ends with the men saying "hold on" and "pray," before the sound of impact with the bank of a dry riverbed. The car went airborne and rolled twice before landing and catching fire, likely from its white-hot brakes.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100223/BUSINESS0104/2230373/1318/120-m.p.h.-no-way-to-stop

tmosley
02-25-2010, 10:58 PM
If you can't preform these tasks quickly at the first sign of uncommanded/undesirable engine acceleration, don't drive.

Please, don't drive.

Not everyone has super-human reflexes, Speed. The average human reaction time 0.7 seconds. That is more than enough to cause a crash. When something strange and unexpected happens, that requires unusual action to fix, you can count on about ten times that.

So maybe you ought to get off the high horse?

Icymudpuppy
02-25-2010, 11:16 PM
Yep. A microcontroller interfaces to the gas pedal and throttle. THere is not a direct mechanical connection between the two on new cars. If the software is buggy all kinds of strange things could happen.


Yep. Don't trust electronics. They fail suddenly for no reason. Mechanical parts slowly degrade over time usually easy to fix at regular maintenance intervals.

My 1955 pickup is more reliable than a new Toyota for that reason.

noxagol
02-26-2010, 07:45 AM
..

TonySutton
02-26-2010, 08:27 AM
Yep. Don't trust electronics. They fail suddenly for no reason. Mechanical parts slowly degrade over time usually easy to fix at regular maintenance intervals.

My 1955 pickup is more reliable than a new Toyota for that reason.

Electronics are perfectly fine when they are designed and manufactured properly.

Any critical components should either be dual or triple redundant feeding a smart device which compares the signals and uses an average of the signals if they are within specific tolerance. If they are out of specific tolerance the software should enter a fail safe shut down mode.

F-16 are fly by wire and have been performing exceptionally well except for the Kapton wiring issue many years ago.

Personally I long for the day when I can treat my car like a taxi, climb in and say take me to the store and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course I would like to have a manual override where I can drive myself when I choose but I doubt that I would ever use it.

Anti Federalist
02-26-2010, 11:56 AM
Yep. Don't trust electronics. They fail suddenly for no reason. Mechanical parts slowly degrade over time usually easy to fix at regular maintenance intervals.

My 1955 pickup is more reliable than a new Toyota for that reason.

+1776

There are now reports that Toyota's "fly by wire" steering systems have been failing as well.

I've been stuck on top of 10,000 tons of dead steel because of complete failure of the fly by wire control systems on board.

It's not a good feeling at all, knowing you can't do damn thing but take notes for the accident report.

Anti Federalist
02-26-2010, 11:58 AM
Personally I long for the day when I can treat my car like a taxi, climb in and say take me to the store and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course I would like to have a manual override where I can drive myself when I choose but I doubt that I would ever use it.

Ugh, WALL - E in real life.

MelissaWV
02-26-2010, 12:00 PM
+1776

There are now reports that Toyota's "fly by wire" steering systems have been failing as well.

I've been stuck on top of 10,000 tons of dead steel because of complete failure of the fly by wire control systems on board.

It's not a good feeling at all, knowing you can't do damn thing but take notes for the accident report.

You know that hairpin turn at the bottom of an incline, where you're going straight... straight... straight... you can see over the edge of the still-elevated terrain... see the tops of trees, houses, etc.... and now it's time to turn the wheel over to the left rather hard while applying the brakes? Yeah. Then the "power steering" goes out just before it's time to do that. It's really fun wrestling with the steering wheel in that situation!!! :( I sympathize (though in my case, a really hard turn of the wheel and I still made it, but it's still a bad feeling).

Next car I get is going to be old enough that I can do all the work on it, please.

Anti Federalist
02-26-2010, 12:10 PM
You know that hairpin turn at the bottom of an incline, where you're going straight... straight... straight... you can see over the edge of the still-elevated terrain... see the tops of trees, houses, etc.... and now it's time to turn the wheel over to the left rather hard while applying the brakes? Yeah. Then the "power steering" goes out just before it's time to do that. It's really fun wrestling with the steering wheel in that situation!!! :( I sympathize (though in my case, a really hard turn of the wheel and I still made it, but it's still a bad feeling).

Next car I get is going to be old enough that I can do all the work on it, please.

At least in your case, there was still a mechanical link to the steering gear.

These "fly by wire" systems remove that, so when they fail, you're screwed, might as well flap your arms out the windows to slow down or steer.

Old cars are the only way to go, as long as government allows us to drive them.

not.your.average.joe
02-26-2010, 12:22 PM
I just saw a commercial on TV yesterday for you exact problem.. dont remember the station though...

dannno
02-26-2010, 04:08 PM
http://www.toyota-class-action-lawsuit.com/

Fox McCloud
02-26-2010, 04:30 PM
Ugh, WALL - E in real life.

It's a movie full of a lot of economic fallacies: http://mises.org/story/3037

there's nothing wrong with cars capable of driving themselves; provided the system is reliable, the "reaction time" of a computer is much much faster than the reaction time of a person. This would allow or faster speed limits, higher capacity with little to no congestion, and far more efficient travel.

ChooseLiberty
02-26-2010, 04:50 PM
This is going to be big.


http://www.toyota-class-action-lawsuit.com/

devil21
02-26-2010, 05:07 PM
You obviously have no clue what your talking about. That was how it USE to be. Nowadays many cars are "drive by wire" and electronically controlled. this was the EXACT reason for the mass recalls.

Keep in mind the OP was about a 1999 or 2001 or something RAV4. There were no drive by wire RAV4s in 1999 or 2001. Hell, I drive a 2002 Acura (much nicer and more advanced car than a RAV4) and it's still cable actuated throttle. Drive by wire is relatively new in regular consumer level automobiles. The OPs post isn't the same issue as the Toyota "problem" in the news today.