carapace – Not your father’s america

Ed Wallace
Friday, Feb. 05, 2010
Special to the Star-Telegram

Lee Iacocca, former chairman of Chrysler Corporation, once famously said, "When the crusaders get on their horses, you might as well get out of their way." Then again, Iacocca also did things that corporate executives rarely do when confronted with a serious mistake the company’s made: He ‘fessed up to the error, apologized and quickly made things right with the aggrieved.

For example, in the late eighties it was revealed that Chrysler had disconnected the odometer cables on vehicles used by the company’s executives. Once those vehicles were retired for sale — to a new car dealer and thence to the public — the odometer cables would be reconnected, but the mileage on the car would still show near zero. Disconnecting a vehicle’s odometer violated federal laws; but, while Chrysler’s attorneys were telling Lee not to comment on the issue, Iacocca ignored them and went to the media.

He admitted what had been done, shook his head at the blatant stupidity of it all, and then set about making the customers who had purchased those vehicles whole again. As a result, most who already had respect for the Chrysler chairman gained even more — and the problem quickly went away.

Now it’s Toyota’s turn in the crusaders’ sights. But apparently the Japanese automaker either can’t understand the nature of the crusaders or can’t see how to defuse the problem.

Love Mislaid

The flap has stemmed from reports that, in many Toyota car models, either:

- the gas pedals have stuck, causing unintended acceleration; or

- the floor mats were riding over the foot pedals; or

- the car’s computerized drive-by-wire engine controls had developed a mind of their own — all taking the vehicle out of the driver’s control.

To the media, uncontrollable automobiles have always been appealing stories. It becomes disappointing when the published articles on these potential problems rarely include the opinion of real automotive engineers. Instead we often find data from plaintiffs’ attorneys handling cases against Toyota, or from unnamed "automotive experts" — possibly hired by those same attorneys.

Just to make sure that this pot of fun stays at a boil, throw in a few quotes and statistics from sources claiming to be safety advocates. And the endlessly circulating question in the articles is damning in its premise: If Toyota knew about this problem as long as a decade ago, why did they not do anything about it?

On one day the story is that Toyota’s floor mats are the problem. Next day it’s a gas pedal made by CTS, and yet another day it’s the drive-by-wire acceleration system. One thing is for sure, the idea is being embedded into the public’s mind that someday in the near future, no matter what you do when it happens, you could be the next Toyota statistic. So much for their slogan, "I love what you do for me."

Always the Car’s Fault …

Unintended acceleration in automobiles has been around as a reported problem for as nearly as long as there have been automobiles. The most famous case, because of the resulting publicity, nearly destroyed Audi during the late eighties. Frantic Audi owners lost untold millions of dollars, unloading their automobiles as quickly as they could, thereby taking serious hits in the cars’ wholesale values because nobody would touch a used Audi.

And it was all tragically unnecessary: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration studied every last car involved and concluded that the cars were neither demonically possessed nor suffering any engineering problem that would cause the driver to be unable to control the car. But when the final report was released that fact was virtually ignored.

This seems like a good time to make a casual observation about automobiles and aircraft. Why is it that when someone has a serious accident in an automobile and blames an uncontrollable car, our first thought is that the problem must be the vehicle — but when an airliner goes down our first thought is pilot error?

Most drivers are amateurs, no matter how long they’ve had a license or been driving. But airline pilots are among the best trained and most often tested professionals in the world. They are not prone to panic, even in the most stressful situation. If the worst happens they will not freeze — their minds and bodies will react as they’ve been trained to.

Whether out of prejudice or pathos, we generally give drivers the benefit of the doubt. It goes against everything we know about human nature and biology, but loss of control always "must be the automobile’s fault."

Except When It’s Demonstrably Not

Today nearly 6 million Toyota vehicles are under recall for some form of action to ensure that a gas pedal does not stick in place, taking away the driver’s control of the car’s acceleration, or problematical floor mats. But NHTSA has conducted at least six investigations and not once found a problem with the gas pedal sticking. Additionally, NHTSA has investigated numerous complaints involving Toyotas’ drive-by-wire engine controls and found zero problems with that electronic system.

So here’s the tally: Six million vehicles driven billions of miles over the past decade have caused fewer than 3,000 complaints (not all of which are legitimate) — and somewhere between nine and 19 fatalities. Statistically, those numbers do not point to an assignable cause, like a recurring engineering problem.

If a serious engineering defect were the cause, then the accident rate would be far higher than is currently being blamed on these reported "issues." Moreover, we would find at least one common defect, and as of today that hasn’t happened either.

Statistically speaking, you’re probably more likely to win the Texas Lottery three times in a row than to have your Toyota unexpectedly accelerate on you.

Wrong Equipment, Improperly Installed

The case that put this issue on the front pages of many national newspapers was that of Mark Saylor. The 19-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol and three other passengers were killed in a runaway Lexus ES 350 on August 28, 2009. This is the case that suggested that a serious problem existed with Toyota floor mats.

And there were problems with that car’s mats — but they weren’t quality or manufacturing problems. Here’s the real story.

The floor mat installed was not made for an ES 350, but for a Lexus RX 350; a much larger floor mat that should never have been put into that vehicle by Bob Baker Lexus, which owned that loaner car. But besides being the wrong size, NHTSA found, the mat was not secured in any way to the clips that Toyota installs to keep its vehicles’ floor mats from creeping up onto either the gas or brake pedal.

According to Toyota, there was even another problem with the oversized floor mat: It was upside down, the carpet side facing the floorboard. This could explain how under heavy foot action it could slide over the important pedals.

NHTSA also noted in its report that the brake pads were scorched and discolored; enough braking pressure had been applied to seriously damage the vehicles’ brakes, but even that hadn’t succeeded in stopping it. The initial sheriff’s report noted that it appeared the floor mat had slipped over the accelerator: possibly due to those oversized and unsecured floor mats, Saylor might have been unknowingly hitting the gas pedal as hard as he was the brake.

Blacked-out Blame: Incomplete Report

Yes, it’s a human tragedy that should not be quickly dismissed or discredited. But why didn’t Saylor immediately put the transmission into neutral to stop his forward movement, or turn off the ignition? We may never know because part five of the NHTSA report is completely redacted (blacked out). At this time the complete story is unavailable.

But somewhere out there is the truth. And it’s caught in a computer memory chip that, like those in other vehicles on the road today, shows exactly what the driver was doing during the last 20 – 30 seconds before an accident.

General Motors and other automakers have long acknowledged that they keep this "get out of court free" chip in their vehicles. Toyota will only concede that such chips enable diagnostic testing of certain parts of the vehicle.

Even when a Toyota Avalon drove into a pond in Southlake, a chip’s memory could answer important questions — like whether the brakes or the gas was being applied at the time of the wreck.

Yet here, both Toyota and the government remain remarkably silent.

We know that NHTSA has investigated these vehicles’ computer systems and brake pedals and as of this writing has found no mechanical or software problems. Which makes it strange that as of this past Tuesday government officials are slamming Toyota for dragging their feet on this matter, when the government admitted they could find no fault with the vehicles and closed their investigations.

But one thing we do know: NHTSA has investigated cases of unintended acceleration for decades in many cars and not once found fault with the vehicle.

Public indecision certainly hasn’t helped Toyota’s case. Maybe they need a Lee Iacocca to tell it like it is — or maybe they’re just heeding his sage advice and getting out of the crusaders’ way.

Note from Ed:

After the article was completed I found that the line, "But NHTSA has conducted at least six investigations and not once found a problem with the gas pedal sticking." was incorrect.

According to Toyota, they discovered the problem with the CTS gas pedals and notified NHTSA in late October 2009. That letter states they would find an engineering solution for the problem.

Toyota’s letter leaves questions as to NHTSA’s statement that Toyota has been dragging their feet on this problem.

Ed Wallace has received the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Association. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, frequently contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the top-rated talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF. E-mail: wheels570@sbcglobal.net, and access all of Ed’s work at his Web site, www.insideautomotive.com.

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/1950458.html