Never believing both the dealer, Route 44 Toyota and Toyota itself would fail to correct a problem, our Prius C remains on the dealer's lot with NO BRAKES.
The claim, of course, is 'NO COMPUTER ERROR MESSAGE,' something announced elsewhere, a common refrain, ignoring that the error codes are not programmed or merely being denied.
After killing and injuring innocents victims, Toyota's tactics are transparent:
1. Blame the driver
2. Claim vehicle behavior is not duplicated [except I repeatedly duplicated the lack of brakes on the dealer's property]
3. Denial
4. Repeat: NO COMPUTER ERROR MESSAGE
5. Dilly, Dally, Delay and Stall with expensive law firms
6. Discredit others
Toyota routinely deceives the court and opposing counsel when it has been sued in connection with sudden acceleration and other defect cases, according to a detailed investigation by the Associated Press that was released yesterday.
Toyota has withheld requested documents, hidden test results, and refused to release data that is stored electronically in its vehicles.
From: Toyota Uses Deceptive Legal Tactics to Defend Lawsuits
7. Repeat from the beginning
Interesting article below --
From his office in Rehoboth, Sean Kane looks at auto safety
Posted: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sean Kane of Safety Research and Strategies, Rehoboth.
(Staff pphoto by Mike George.)
As an auto safety analyst whose work was instrumental in the massive Firestone Tires recalls, Rehoboth resident Sean Kane is used to being the lightning rod for controversy.
So Kane, 42, founder and president of Safety Research and Strategies, was in his element when he pointed a finger at possible electronic glitches that might be causing sudden acceleration in Toyota cars and trucks.Kane's company produced a 51-page report on the phenomenon, alleging more than 2,000 cases of sudden, unintended acceleration, including a number of fatalities.
SRS has also called into question Toyota's "fix" for the problem, which included replacing floor mats and modifying accelerator pedals.
Toyota officials have maintained there's no evidence that a fault in their vehicles' electronic throttle system causes motors to rev unpredictably.
Kane suspects otherwise.
"We're already beginning to hear complaints from car owners who received the fixes that it didn't fix the problem," said Kane, who testified before a Congressional committee last month on the unintended acceleration.
Toyota acknowledged this week it has received verifiable information from U.S. transportation officials that some vehicle owners whose cars were fixed as part of two recalls still had unintended-acceleration incidents.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Wednesday it was investigating recent complaints of sudden acceleration by Toyota owners whose vehicles have been repaired. But Toyota continues to say it has found no evidence of a failure of its electronic throttle control system and believes its accelerator pedal remedies are effective.
Regardless, Kane's advocacy drew a predictable backlash from Toyota allies and the mainstream automotive media.
U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., whose state hosts Toyota assembly plants, implied Kane was too closely tied to trial attorneys and accused him of "exaggerating" and "manipulating" data.
Well-known automotive commentator and host of TV's Autoline Detroit John McElroy compared a test showing that a voltage spike could cause a Toyota to accelerate instantly without being detected by an onboard computer to controversial and "fraudulent" tests several years ago involving alleged defects in Audis and Chevy trucks.
Kane's not surprised by the reaction, but says his company's findings are driven by facts.
"We follow the data," said Kane, who works in a cluttered office on the second floor of a brick office building overlooking an overgrown pasture in Rehoboth. "We only know what the facts tell us."
An introduction to Kane's report did extend thanks to five attorneys who he said had helped sponsor his research. But Kane says his company also does work for the government and multinational corporations, and that the lawyers' contribution was minor and did not influence his findings.
Kane is mildly amused by the charge that his research is somehow tainted by the fact it might someday be useful in a court case.
"Why is it such a bad thing that consumers might hire a lawyer to represent them?" Kane said. "Toyota uses lawyers, but that seems to be perfectly OK."
Regardless of whose opinion you credit, mysterious incidents involving Toyotas that suddenly surged ahead or backward have had tragic consequences.
One of the most cited cases is that of a California couple whose car plunged over a 70-foot cliff as they were parking to enjoy lunch at an oceanside restaurant.
On Feb. 5, 2007, says the SRS report, Bulent and Ann Ezal were parking their 2005 Camry outside the Pelican Point Restaurant in Pismo Beach when the car suddenly accelerated from a complete stop.
It then crashed through a fence, hurtled over a bluff and fell to the rocks below, overturning in the surf.
Bulent Ezal, who had been riding the brakes as he eased into a parking space, recovered from his injuries. His wife died.
Other Toyota and Lexus owners say they have experienced frightening sudden acceleration events, and lived to tell the tale.
According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Kevin Haggerty reported no fewer than five instances of sudden unintended acceleration in his 2007 Avalon. Late last year, Haggerty said he was driving on a major highway when the car began to accelerate without his foot being on the gas pedal.
Haggerty reported being unable to stop the vehicle even when pressing hard on the brake, but was able to control his speed by alternating the car between neutral and drive.
Haggerty pulled his car into a Toyota dealership, brakes smoking, while the vehicle continued to roar at full throttle in neutral.
Toyota says many of the reports given to the federal agency are either unverifiable or don't include owner information that would allow the company to do follow-up investigations.
Nevertheless, Toyota, under increasing pressure because of reports, began recalling the first of about 8 million vehicles in November and suspended the manufacture of some models.
To fix the problem, Toyota recommended removal of all-weather floor mats that could keep gas pedals from returning properly and installed fixes to prevent what the company called rare instances of "sticky" pedals.
But Kane and his researchers said so many instances of cars suddenly taking off, even without the driver's foot on the gas pedal, or throttles suddenly roaring to life while at idle, hinted at a problem with vehicle electronics, rather than sticky pedals.
That assertion, at a time when Toyota was already facing an expensive recall and messy public relations quandary, won few friends from the auto industry or government regulators that Kane had criticized for being slow to investigate.
"A lot of people would like to kick our ass," Kane said.
Kane, testifying before a congressional panel last week, came under direct criticism from Indiana's Buyer, who assailed the safety expert's links to trial lawyers. The mainstream media, including McElroy and the Wall Street Journal, also focused questioning eyes on Kane's ethics and science.
The media, for the most part, paid far less attention to the ethical bona fides of Kane's chief detractor.
Buyer is resigning at the end of his term amid questions over the Frontier Foundation, which he founded in 2003 to provide college scholarships. The foundation reportedly hasn't helped any students, but it did hand out about $10,000 in grants, including gifts to the National Rifle Association and a cancer charity run by a lobbyist for Eli Lilly and Co., according to reports in the Indianapolis Star.
Most of the $880,000 raised by the foundation came from corporations that potentially have business before the Energy and Commerce Committee on which Buyer sits, the Star reported.
Buyer, an opponent of health care reform, has also accepted almost $1 million in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals.
Skeptics also came down hard on David Gilbert, an automotive expert who was able to induce a sudden throttle surge in a Toyota vehicle as a result of a small voltage spike. The anomaly did not create an error code in the Toyota's computer, attesting that an electronic problem could indeed cause sudden acceleration without being detected - just as posited by safety researchers.
Whether the specific scenario posed in the tests is the same as the conditions that are causing problems on consumer vehicles is another matter - and not an allegation being made by Kane or Gilbert.
Kane, who formerly worked for a safety organization founded by Ralph Nader, knows that looking behind the curtain of a multi-billion-dollar industry for evidence of technical or ethical lapses doesn't win popularity contests.
The Rehoboth resident was also in the forefront of the investigation concerning failures of Firestone Tires on the Ford Explorer in 2000-2001, whose resulting revelations prompted a national scandal and the recall of millions of tires.
Kane's influence didn't go unnoticed.
Jason Vines, Ford vice president for public affairs during the Explorer fiasco, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as grouping Kane with what he called "supposed safety advocates who are actually just shills for trial attorneys."
Kane, who has also campaigned for clear date-of-manufacture codes on tires and allowing public access to federal defect early warning data, says his company does not provide expert witnesses or give testimony during litigation.
The company, he says, only collects and analyzes facts.
Paid research the company does for clients also allows SRS to pursue a number of public interest initatives, Kane says.
While Kane's tenacity in hunting flaws or problems in automotive products might suggest someone not exactly in love with the automobile, Kane has been a "car guy" since before he could drive.
"I've always been fascinated with cars," said Kane, who started reading Car and Driver regularly when he was 11 or 12.
Falling under the spell of the British sportscars of the day, Kane bought his first car at 15 - a sporty MGB GT.
These days, Kane, a married father of three, drives a Volvo wagon.
During time off, he works a piece of old farmland he and his wife bought for their home years ago.
He can often be found bouncing about the property in a tractor-front end loader.
After news of Toyota's acceleration problems gained widespread notariety last fall, journalists and others began seeking Kane out on a daily basis.
"People would literally be waiting at the door in the morning," he said.
While the Toyota hubub has scarcely subsided, Kane and his small staff are back to working full bore on the 40 to 50 research projects his company manages at any one time.
He also continues to shuttle periodically between his home and Washington for meetings with regulators and others.
Kane, a blooded veteran of Washington's hothouse atmosphere, the auto industry spin machine and the media's sharpshooting columnists, says he's not uncomfortable playing Roadrunner to the establishment's Wile-E-Coyotes.
"It doesn't bother us being a David," Kane says. "Even if all you have is a slingshot, if you have the truth for ammunition, you'll be fine."
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/the-man-who-took-on-toyota/article_fa583a01-e91a-5148-be6d-7fab8883034f.html
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