68/70Vette
Well-known member
Of course, they need to solve their throttle problem. But on the other hand, you can speculate they have a motive to not find the cause of the problem. The fact that the cause of their Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) is unknown does help them, and the vendors who sold them the throttle system components, avoid lawsuits. It's difficult to sue someone for negligence if you can't say what it was that they did negligently.
Boeing had an analogous problem when they introduced the 737. There were rare occurrences where the rudder would suddenly and momentarily make a full deflection. This would cause a violent roll and dive motion. For a while, the occurrences were at altitude and the pilots would regain control. Finally a 737 was on approach to land at Colorado Springs, and it happened again. This time the plane was so low to the ground, there was not sufficient time to regain control. Everyone died. I read an ariticle in Aviation Week detailing how the rudder system worked. The system was flybywire with electronics, electromechanical and hydraulic. Everything was triple redundant, majority voting. An explanation of how it worked made Boeings claim there was no known fault that would cause the problem, seem credible. Boeing solved the problem, by redesigning the entire rudder system with all new components with an entirely different implementation. The problem went away. Did someone in Boeing actually know what the cause was?
For Boeing to throw up their hands and just replace everything was possible due to the small number of aircraft that were produced. For Toyota this would be a catastropically expensive solution.
A good guess is that something inside the power control module is causing the computer to output a full throttle signal to the throttle body.
In my job, I'm involved in working with contractors to find the cause of failures in government purchased items. Often, its easy to think the contractor is working as hard as they can to NOT find the cause of the problem.
Boeing had an analogous problem when they introduced the 737. There were rare occurrences where the rudder would suddenly and momentarily make a full deflection. This would cause a violent roll and dive motion. For a while, the occurrences were at altitude and the pilots would regain control. Finally a 737 was on approach to land at Colorado Springs, and it happened again. This time the plane was so low to the ground, there was not sufficient time to regain control. Everyone died. I read an ariticle in Aviation Week detailing how the rudder system worked. The system was flybywire with electronics, electromechanical and hydraulic. Everything was triple redundant, majority voting. An explanation of how it worked made Boeings claim there was no known fault that would cause the problem, seem credible. Boeing solved the problem, by redesigning the entire rudder system with all new components with an entirely different implementation. The problem went away. Did someone in Boeing actually know what the cause was?
For Boeing to throw up their hands and just replace everything was possible due to the small number of aircraft that were produced. For Toyota this would be a catastropically expensive solution.
A good guess is that something inside the power control module is causing the computer to output a full throttle signal to the throttle body.
In my job, I'm involved in working with contractors to find the cause of failures in government purchased items. Often, its easy to think the contractor is working as hard as they can to NOT find the cause of the problem.
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