That almost decimated Audi in the US from what I remember....The Quatro went from being king to pauper in 5 seconds flat.

Toyota seem to be doing pretty good damage control. Their apologetic commercials airing and 'admitting mistakes' seems like a good play. I think this whole episode WILL definitely impact them for the foreseeable future, and let them realize they are just as vulnerable - if not more, than any other car company out there...

I unfortunately think Toyota is being skewered for this unnecessarily. The govt are using them to set 'an example' whilst in bed with GM (sorry, I don't normally feed into this kind of stuff, but in this situation...)

Toyota have made some mistakes. Their recent media fiasco with the "saving $100M by not recalling..." is definitely not helping the situation, but they are indeed trying to run a business.

The question to me is - is it really a mat issue, or is it really a 'sticky throttle/ECU' issue?


The scenarios above are interesting, but although I do put a lot of stress on my car, i'm not willing to destroy the transmission flat out. I know in my case the brembo's > engine.

Another issue with this is - you have to be in manual/sport shift mode in order to stay in a higher gear at WOT (otherwise the auto transmission is obviously going to downshift into a low-ish gear). The next problem would be - even if I do this in 8th, in manual shift mode, the car is going to drop down into 5/6/7th at < 41MPH (which I dont consider to be 'runaway speeds' personally.. but)

I could test this on the GS and the LS as well, but alas...... my wallet is already empty enough.

Okay I just did some testing on the Sequoia.  Some very interesting results.

1. I could select neutral from any gear no problem at regular throttle.

2. I did select neutral from WOT (wide open throttle) position in second, 4th and 6th gears, no problem.  I angrily stuck my foot to the throttle with as much force as I could (if it's going to happen, better now, as I'm alone here, straight line, etc), rev raises from say 2000 rpm to 4 or 6 thousand (it depended on the gear, I never went past 60mph), then I selected Neutral (just a nudge up with the lever), what happens is, the car goes to neutral, engines goes crazy free and quickly revs all the way up to the top bouncing off the rev limit @7000+ rpm. 

Actually it didn't feel like bouncing (like on a bike, the engine cuts on/off), so it felt strange, like it was just on an upper artificial rev limit, I then release the throttle and after a while select drive no problem.  Of course I never tried reengaging any gear with the car revving that high.

3. Now I tried to shift to neutral when revving AT the redline, but I couldn't do it because I never reached that point at safe speeds (or the car would simply change gears).  The closest I got was revving @6000 in 2nd gear up to 60mph (I think 1st has too low to try), it did required a fair pull (or I was scared the transmission was going to go kaput right then and there and missed something), but it did went to neutral.  I wonder if you can't go past 6000 in 2nd?  It took a while to get there (but it's a truck, so take that into account), so in a real recall scenario, I would have 3-4 seconds to shift into neutral comfortably, provided that's the first thing I'd try.

4. Now I also tried to shift to Neutral from the same auto position (sport shift mode).  It's much harder to get to neutral, what happens is that it kind of stops into drive, engages the next gear (because your redlining say 2nd), and the car gets speed like I've never seen it doing before (cos' it's not exactly a track car, and I don't high revs at highway speed), I went to like 75mph in an instant (since I got my eyes back on the road to drive the car), then shift to neutral no problem.  Of course, a second time didn't caught me by surprise, and then as soon as it changed up when in drive I also engaged neutral immediately.

5. While practicing shifting to neutral from upshifting in sport mode then simulating being stuck WOT, I accidentally put the transmission into Reverse...

OMG.




I then realized that was just like being in neutral.  Only the car displays reverse on the dash, the rearview camera kicks in (probably the reverse lights too), etc.  This is a very WTF situation if you're not expecting it.  I searched the manual and couldn't find any info on this, so very cool they have this.  CAR&Driver should do their homework better and try this with all recalled cars.  People would stop trying to find neutral and would just go for parking/reverse without looking and be done with it.  Less explaining the better.

I tried that a second time and took this picture:



Watch the speedo and the shift gear...check the display too.  Funny, huh?  Well, it turns out that, on second testing, I let the car slow down to crawling speed and that's when the reverse kicks in and you start moving backwards.  Of course if you try to go all the way to the Parking position, you'll rear a grinding noise and it won't go further, but that's actually more difficult than just hitting reverse.  So my conclusion is, if your Toyota or Lexus gets stuck in WOT, just move the gear lever to the right and to the top no matter what, as fast as you can.  Don't even look, just go.  You'll find neutral eventually.  I can find neutral from the sport shift mode position with my eyes glued on the road now, time to do get my wife to do the same.   


(disclaimer: don't try this if you're not in a closed/deserted road, if you're not a professional stunt man, or a driver with years of experience and if you didn't read the f*ing manual, or if you're just a wuss prone to panic and has no biz. driving a car in the first place.  I'm not responsible for any consequence of you trying any of this, do your own research or just pray this never happens to you.    )