Toyota sedang mengalami ujian berat - PART 01

[roadtrain99]

sptnya yg terheboh tentang tyt recall di us. kok yg di afsel kalo ga salah, ga terlalu kedengeran...

[DOHC]

biasa lahh... perusahaan yg cukup gede di dunia ini, apalagi ngalahin perushaan2 otomotif kepunyaan paman sam sendiri... makanya gt ada masalah dikit lgs di blow up gede2an... padahal produsen mobil laen jg mobil nya kaga kalah gawat koq problem nya...

[FortunerMan]

biasa lahh... perusahaan yg cukup gede di dunia ini, apalagi ngalahin perushaan2 otomotif kepunyaan paman sam sendiri... makanya gt ada masalah dikit lgs di blow up gede2an... padahal produsen mobil laen jg mobil nya kaga kalah gawat koq problem nya...

Jangankan di Amerika...di SM aja yg sentimen gak jelas ama Toyota banyak - Toyota jualan Innova sekian dibilang greed, padahal yg maksa beli juga gak ada, tapi orang tetap beli. Yg beli di bilang gak SMART

Mental orang sirik....susah. Tapi menarik sekali, buat diketawain

[maskopat]

yang dipermasalahkan bukan recallnya om... tapi ngelesnya itu.. lihat aja tret antara om FM dengan om Captivated.. bla bla bla...

user sudah complain, dibilang karena kesalahan user. lalu ada cash settlement.. setelah diblow up, eh baru deh minta maaf ke kongres.
tinggal tunggu realisasi "maaf" si tole terhadap korban kecelakaannya aja nih...

buktikan komitmen pendiri toyota...

[Captivated]

hihihihi... berani aja lah ke amrik, wong pasar si tole cukup besar koq di sana. tinggal masalah "keberanian" si tole untuk mengganti semua kerusakan dan kompensasi semua akibat dari masalah pada recall...

kalo cuman dateng dan minta maaf tanpa aksi apa pun, menurut ane sih masih pengecut..

Saya rasa klo cuma dateng minta maaf trus cuma diem, itu mah OnCe namanya alias Oon Cekali.. ,apalagi dikandang lawan, kyknya mesti diikuti dg tindakan lah, wong outletnya di US msh pada jualan.

udh ada aksi tp mgkn blm 100% tokcer
toyota (dan mgkn NHTSA) msh blm serius merambah ke mslh elektronik
klo sampe mslh elektronik bener2 jd penyebabnya, bs panjang/rame/muahal kasusnya ntar

[DOHC]

nah yg skrg kita liat gmana tuh realisasi tanggung jawab toyota nya... kalo emang dia bener2 mo bersikap ksatria, maka brani bertanggung jawab lah bagaikan ksatria samurai jepang... ganti rugi smua konsumen yg dirugikan... nah itu baru ane salut ama toyota..... btw toyota emang nya kaga nge ganti smua parts2 yg rusak tsb (pedal gas dan masalah laen2 nya).. trus yg recall gede2an ini ngapain donk

[FortunerMan]

Semua kasus harus di review satu per satu, gak bisa pukul rata begitu. Orang complain belum tentu bener atau tidak, ntar semua Toyota nabrak bilangnya gara2 mobilnya jalan sendiri

Sementara...penjualan Toyota di China naik 53% dibanding taun lalu, mengikuti gerakan sales Toyota di dunia. Jepang naik 45%. Global sales January naik 15,3%, February naik juga gak ya? Menarik sekali "recall" ini...

Di Indonesia santai kali ye...wong jualannya gak banyak yg kena recall.

Di Amerika pun,
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 ... ate2-.html

Toyota Gains After Sales Fall Less Than Estimated
“I thought Toyota would be off by double digits,” said Jack Nerad, an executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book, an auto pricing and data service in Irvine, California. “It seems to indicate there’s still a lot of residual support for the company.”

Seventy-four percent of Toyota owners say they haven’t lost confidence in the company’s vehicles, and 82 percent think they are safe, Gallup said yesterday, citing a poll conducted on Feb. 27 and 28.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/01/cons ... utoblog%29

Consumer Reports may restore Toyota "Recommended" ratings next week
Consumer Reports may be ready to offer a vote of confidence in Toyota, depending on the outcome of the Japanese automaker's current Congressional Hearings on Toyota Safety here in the United States, says CR Senior Director David Champion.

At the end of January as news was starting to pile up regarding reported cases of unintended acceleration and the subsequent recalls of nine Toyota models (totaling 2.3 million vehicles), CR decided to pull its Recommended rating from the Toyota Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Highlander, Matrix (and its twin, the Pontiac Vibe), RAV4, Sequoia and Tundra.

Says Champion, "We're looking at a daily basis at the recalls. We want to be sure that the recalls are being performed." Assuming that Toyota's efforts to repair faulty gas pedals remain on track, it would seem CR has enough faith in the automaker to give back its coveted Recommended ratings.

And what of suggestions that there may be more to Toyota's unintended acceleration woes than faulty floor mats and gas pedals? "We want to see if anything bubbles up from the Senate hearings... A lot of people pointed to the electronics, but I don't see anything at the moment that points to an electronic issue."

[solar_kerosen]

Pembelajaran buat Toyota , komponen rem dan gas harus diproduksi langsung oleh Toyota sedangkan yg di subkan sih cocoknya Switch kaca, speedometer dan lain sebagainya

[toyotaman]

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_c ... -box-data/

AP IMPACT: Toyota secretive on 'black box' data

AP IMPACT: Toyota secrets in auto 'black box' data emerging in sudden acceleration lawsuits print

By Curt Anderson and Danny Robbins, Associated Press Writers

SOUTHLAKE, Texas (AP) -- Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts.



The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent -- and sometimes even contradictory -- in revealing exactly what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.



By contrast, most other automakers routinely allow much more open access to information from their event data recorders, commonly known as EDRs.



AP also found that Toyota:



-- Has frequently refused to provide key information sought by crash victims and survivors.



-- Uses proprietary software in its EDRs. Until this week, there was only a single laptop in the U.S. containing the software needed to read the data following a crash.



-- In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank.



Toyota's "black box" information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of 8 million vehicles by the world's largest automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this week that 52 people have died in crashes linked to accelerator problems, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.



When Toyota was asked by the AP to explain what exactly its recorders do collect, a company statement said Thursday that the devices record data from five seconds before until two seconds after an air bag is deployed in a crash.



The statement said information is captured about vehicle speed, the accelerator's angle, gear shift position, whether the seat belt was used and the angle of the driver's seat.



There was no initial mention of brakes -- a key point in the sudden acceleration problem. When AP went back to Toyota to ask specifically about brake information, Toyota responded that its EDRs do, in fact, record "data on the brake's position and the antilock brake system."



But that does not square with information obtained by attorneys in a deadly crash last year in Southlake, Texas, and in a 2004 accident in Indiana that killed an elderly woman.



In the Texas crash, where four people died when their 2008 Avalon ripped through a fence, hit a tree and flipped into an icy pond, an EDR readout obtained by police listed as "off" any information on acceleration or braking.



In the 2004 crash in Evansville, Ind., that killed 77-year-old Juanita Grossman, attorneys for her family say a Toyota technician traveled from the company's U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif., to examine her 2003 Camry.



Before she died, the 5-foot-2, 125-pound woman told relatives she was practically standing with both feet on the brake pedal but could not stop the car from slamming into a building. Records confirm that emergency personnel found Grossman with both feet on the brake pedal.



A Toyota representative told the family's attorneys there was "no sensor that would have preserved information regarding the accelerator and brake positions at the time of impact," according to a summary of the case provided by Safety Research & Strategies Inc., a Rehoboth, Mass.-based company that does vehicle safety research for attorneys, engineers, government and others.



One attorney in the Texas case contends in court documents that the Toyota may have deliberately stopped allowing its EDRs to collect critical information so the Japanese automaker would not be forced to reveal it in court cases.



"This goes directly to defendants' notice of the problem and willingness to cover up the problem," said E. Todd Tracy, who had been suing automakers for 20 years.



Randy Roberts, an attorney for the driver in that case, said he was surprised at how little information the Avalon's EDR contained.



"When I found out the Toyota black box was so uninformative, I was shocked," Roberts said.



Toyota refused comment Thursday on Tracy's allegations because it is an ongoing legal matter, but said the company does share EDR information with government regulators.



"Because the EDR system is an experimental device and is neither intended, nor reliable, for accident reconstruction, Toyota's policy is to download data only at the direction of law enforcement, NHTSA or a court order," the Toyota statement said.



Last week, Toyota acknowledged it has only a single laptop available in the U.S. to download its data recorder information because it is still a prototype, despite being in use since 2001 in Toyota vehicles. Three other laptops capable of reading the devices were delivered this week to NHTSA for training on their use, Toyota said, and 150 more will be brought to the U.S. for commercial use by the end of April.



By contrast, acceptance and distribution of data recorder technology by other automakers is commonplace.



General Motors, for example, has licensed the auto parts maker Bosch to produce a device capable of downloading EDR data directly to a laptop computer, either from the scene of an accident or later. The device is available to law enforcement agencies or any other third party, spokesman Alan Adler said.


Spokesmen from Ford and Chrysler said their recorder data is just as accessible. "We put what you would call 'open systems' in our vehicles, which are readable by law enforcement or anyone who has a need to read that data," Chrysler spokesman Mike Palese said.


Nissan also makes its EDR data readily available to third parties using a device called Consult, spokesman Colin Price said. The program allows access to a host of vehicle data, from diagnosing the cause of a check-engine light to downloading EDR data after a crash, he said.


However, Honda does not allow open access to its EDR data. Spokesman Ed Miller said the data is only readable by Honda and is made available only by court order.



In many cases, attorneys and crash experts say EDR data could help explain what happened in the moments before a crash by detailing the positions of the gas and brake pedals as well as the engine's RPM.



"Had Toyota gotten on the stick and made this stuff available early on, I think they'd be in a better position than they are now," said W.R. "Rusty" Haight, owner of a San Diego-based collision investigation company.



In congressional hearings on the recalls last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota's EDR data cannot be read by a commercially available tool used readily by other automakers. "Toyota has a proprietary EDR, which is the system that only they can read," LaHood said.



The AP review of lawsuits around the country found many in which Toyota was accused of refusing to reveal EDR and other data, and not just in sudden acceleration cases.



In Kentucky, to cite one example, a recent lawsuit filed by Dari Martin over a wreck involving a 2007 Prius sought information from Toyota to bolster his claim that the car's seatbelt was defective. Toyota refused, contending there was no reliable way to validate the EDR data and that an engineer would have to travel from New Jersey or California at a cost of some $5,000 to retrieve it.



"There is simply no justifiable reason for Toyota not to disclose this information," Martin's lawyers said in a court filing.



Lawsuits in California and Colorado have accused Toyota of systemically withholding key documents and information in a wide variety of accident cases, but no judge or jury has found against the car company on those allegations.



Some crash experts say Toyota shouldn't bear too much criticism for failing to capture large amounts or specific kinds of data, because EDR systems were initially built for air bag deployment and not necessarily to reconstruct wrecks. They also vary widely from vehicle model to model, said Haight, the San Diego collision expert.



"That doesn't mean I'm hiding something or preventing you from getting something," Haight said. "It simply means that, in the development of a car, other considerations took priority -- nothing more."



Anderson reported from Miami. AP Business Writer Dan Strumpf in New York, AP writer Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and AP Researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this report.

[Captivated]

Toyota mmg harus lbh terbuka lagi, klo ga bs jadi bulan2an pers/kongres/lawyer di amrik

[FortunerMan]

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_c ... -box-data/

AP IMPACT: Toyota secretive on 'black box' data

AP IMPACT: Toyota secrets in auto 'black box' data emerging in sudden acceleration lawsuits print

By Curt Anderson and Danny Robbins, Associated Press Writers

SOUTHLAKE, Texas (AP) -- Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts.



The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent -- and sometimes even contradictory -- in revealing exactly what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.



By contrast, most other automakers routinely allow much more open access to information from their event data recorders, commonly known as EDRs.



AP also found that Toyota:



-- Has frequently refused to provide key information sought by crash victims and survivors.



-- Uses proprietary software in its EDRs. Until this week, there was only a single laptop in the U.S. containing the software needed to read the data following a crash.



-- In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank.



Toyota's "black box" information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of 8 million vehicles by the world's largest automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this week that 52 people have died in crashes linked to accelerator problems, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.



When Toyota was asked by the AP to explain what exactly its recorders do collect, a company statement said Thursday that the devices record data from five seconds before until two seconds after an air bag is deployed in a crash.



The statement said information is captured about vehicle speed, the accelerator's angle, gear shift position, whether the seat belt was used and the angle of the driver's seat.



There was no initial mention of brakes -- a key point in the sudden acceleration problem. When AP went back to Toyota to ask specifically about brake information, Toyota responded that its EDRs do, in fact, record "data on the brake's position and the antilock brake system."



But that does not square with information obtained by attorneys in a deadly crash last year in Southlake, Texas, and in a 2004 accident in Indiana that killed an elderly woman.



In the Texas crash, where four people died when their 2008 Avalon ripped through a fence, hit a tree and flipped into an icy pond, an EDR readout obtained by police listed as "off" any information on acceleration or braking.



In the 2004 crash in Evansville, Ind., that killed 77-year-old Juanita Grossman, attorneys for her family say a Toyota technician traveled from the company's U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif., to examine her 2003 Camry.



Before she died, the 5-foot-2, 125-pound woman told relatives she was practically standing with both feet on the brake pedal but could not stop the car from slamming into a building. Records confirm that emergency personnel found Grossman with both feet on the brake pedal.



A Toyota representative told the family's attorneys there was "no sensor that would have preserved information regarding the accelerator and brake positions at the time of impact," according to a summary of the case provided by Safety Research & Strategies Inc., a Rehoboth, Mass.-based company that does vehicle safety research for attorneys, engineers, government and others.



One attorney in the Texas case contends in court documents that the Toyota may have deliberately stopped allowing its EDRs to collect critical information so the Japanese automaker would not be forced to reveal it in court cases.



"This goes directly to defendants' notice of the problem and willingness to cover up the problem," said E. Todd Tracy, who had been suing automakers for 20 years.



Randy Roberts, an attorney for the driver in that case, said he was surprised at how little information the Avalon's EDR contained.



"When I found out the Toyota black box was so uninformative, I was shocked," Roberts said.



Toyota refused comment Thursday on Tracy's allegations because it is an ongoing legal matter, but said the company does share EDR information with government regulators.



"Because the EDR system is an experimental device and is neither intended, nor reliable, for accident reconstruction, Toyota's policy is to download data only at the direction of law enforcement, NHTSA or a court order," the Toyota statement said.



Last week, Toyota acknowledged it has only a single laptop available in the U.S. to download its data recorder information because it is still a prototype, despite being in use since 2001 in Toyota vehicles. Three other laptops capable of reading the devices were delivered this week to NHTSA for training on their use, Toyota said, and 150 more will be brought to the U.S. for commercial use by the end of April.



By contrast, acceptance and distribution of data recorder technology by other automakers is commonplace.



General Motors, for example, has licensed the auto parts maker Bosch to produce a device capable of downloading EDR data directly to a laptop computer, either from the scene of an accident or later. The device is available to law enforcement agencies or any other third party, spokesman Alan Adler said.


Spokesmen from Ford and Chrysler said their recorder data is just as accessible. "We put what you would call 'open systems' in our vehicles, which are readable by law enforcement or anyone who has a need to read that data," Chrysler spokesman Mike Palese said.


Nissan also makes its EDR data readily available to third parties using a device called Consult, spokesman Colin Price said. The program allows access to a host of vehicle data, from diagnosing the cause of a check-engine light to downloading EDR data after a crash, he said.


However, Honda does not allow open access to its EDR data. Spokesman Ed Miller said the data is only readable by Honda and is made available only by court order.



In many cases, attorneys and crash experts say EDR data could help explain what happened in the moments before a crash by detailing the positions of the gas and brake pedals as well as the engine's RPM.



"Had Toyota gotten on the stick and made this stuff available early on, I think they'd be in a better position than they are now," said W.R. "Rusty" Haight, owner of a San Diego-based collision investigation company.



In congressional hearings on the recalls last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota's EDR data cannot be read by a commercially available tool used readily by other automakers. "Toyota has a proprietary EDR, which is the system that only they can read," LaHood said.



The AP review of lawsuits around the country found many in which Toyota was accused of refusing to reveal EDR and other data, and not just in sudden acceleration cases.



In Kentucky, to cite one example, a recent lawsuit filed by Dari Martin over a wreck involving a 2007 Prius sought information from Toyota to bolster his claim that the car's seatbelt was defective. Toyota refused, contending there was no reliable way to validate the EDR data and that an engineer would have to travel from New Jersey or California at a cost of some $5,000 to retrieve it.



"There is simply no justifiable reason for Toyota not to disclose this information," Martin's lawyers said in a court filing.



Lawsuits in California and Colorado have accused Toyota of systemically withholding key documents and information in a wide variety of accident cases, but no judge or jury has found against the car company on those allegations.



Some crash experts say Toyota shouldn't bear too much criticism for failing to capture large amounts or specific kinds of data, because EDR systems were initially built for air bag deployment and not necessarily to reconstruct wrecks. They also vary widely from vehicle model to model, said Haight, the San Diego collision expert.



"That doesn't mean I'm hiding something or preventing you from getting something," Haight said. "It simply means that, in the development of a car, other considerations took priority -- nothing more."



Anderson reported from Miami. AP Business Writer Dan Strumpf in New York, AP writer Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and AP Researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this report.

Si TS GTR kemana ya...kok threadnya di tinggalin?

[toyotaman]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-t ... 6834.story

More owners of Toyota vehicles say recall repairs aren't working

Some of the more than 60 drivers reporting incidents say sudden unintended acceleration has happened to them more than once since having modifications done at dealers.

By Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian

March 5, 2010

More than 60 drivers have complained of sudden acceleration incidents despite the fact that their cars were repaired by Toyota Motor Corp. in the current recalls, new data released Thursday show.

The latest figure, released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, significantly increases the total number of complaints involving repaired vehicles, which was less than 10 on Tuesday. The new complaints allege several accidents and at least three injuries resulting from runaway unintended acceleration despite the vehicles' undergoing a series of modifications at Toyota dealerships designed to resolve the issue.

In response to the rising number of complaints, federal regulators said they would contact each motorist to find out more about what happened. NHTSA also said it would ask Toyota for similar complaints it may have received from customers. The agency does not normally verify individual reports, posted anonymously on its database.

"If it appears that a remedy provided by Toyota is not addressing the problem it was intended to fix, NHTSA has the authority to order Toyota to provide a different solution," the agency said in a statement.

Toyota said that it had begun its own evaluation of the complaints, and that it was too soon to release findings. Toyota is "doing everything it can to ensure that our customers are confident in their vehicles," the company said in a statement.

The automaker has maintained that sudden unintended acceleration in its Toyota and Lexus vehicles is caused by sticking gas pedals or floor mats that can entrap the pedal, and has issued nearly 10 million recall notices for vehicles worldwide to correct the problem.

The new complaints, however, are fueling skepticism from those who think the root cause may lie in Toyota's electronics.

"These reports are extremely troubling and reinforce the serious questions raised in congressional hearings about the true cause of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles," Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), vice chairman of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, said in letter Wednesday to the Department of Transportation and NHTSA.

If the allegations are true, he added, it could indicate "that Toyota electronics may be playing a role."

In its statement, Toyota said that the complaint evaluations it has already completed "have found no evidence of a failure of the vehicle electronic throttle control system, the recent recall remedies or the brake override feature."

One complaint involves a 2009 Matrix that was repaired Feb. 13 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Eleven days later, it spun out of control and hit a concrete median at 55 mph, according to the filing, which alleges an unspecified injury.

The owner of a 2007 Camry wrote to NHTSA saying that even after the recall repairs were made Feb. 27 at a dealership in Greensboro, N.C., the vehicle "experienced a sudden surge in acceleration twice."

The driver described racing from a standing start and also an event that occurred at highway speeds. The complaint suggests the problem is in the car's computer system.

The recalls, which affect a broad variety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles, also include the Pontiac Vibe, which was built in a joint venture between General Motors Co. and Toyota at a California plant until last summer.

One driver from Missouri complained to NHTSA of a 2009 Vibe that raced to 7,000 rpm uncommanded, causing it to lurch forward.

The owner took it to the dealership Feb. 19, where its accelerator was modified and driver's-side floor mat removed. Three days later, the complaint alleged, "the car malfunctioned again, causing a near collision."

Under its two continuing recalls, which affect about 6 million cars in the U.S., Toyota is replacing or modifying pedals, changing out floor mats, removing carpet padding and installing software designed to allow the brake to electronically override the throttle.

Earlier this week, Toyota said it had already repaired more than 1 million vehicles under the recall campaigns.

NHTSA said this week that it had received at least 52 reports of fatalities linked to sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

[datsu]

klonengan detected niih...

[FortunerMan]

klonengan detected niih...

hihihihi...

[toyotaman]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-t ... 2376.story

By Stuart Pfeifer, Carol J. Williams and Robert Faturechi

February 28, 2010

Crash reports tell of horror
Sudden and unexpected speed is a common thread in accounts of fatal wrecks involving Toyota vehicles, some of which haven't been recalled


One car barreled through a stop sign, struck a tree and landed upside down in a Texas lake, drowning four people. Another tore across an Indiana street and crashed into a jewelry store. A third raced at an estimated 100 mph on a San Bernardino County street before striking a telephone pole, killing a restaurant owner.


At least 56 people have died in U.S. traffic accidents in which sudden unintended acceleration of Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles has been alleged, according to a Times review of public records and interviews with authorities.


Most died while doing the mundane: returning to work after lunch, shopping, driving to the bank to make a deposit. The deaths occurred in big cities and small towns throughout the U.S.: Los Angeles; Tucson; Auburn, N.Y.; Marietta, Ga. The stories are told in court filings, federal accident complaints and police reports.


In the last decade, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received complaints of 34 fatalities related to sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles, far more than for any other automaker. At least 22 additional deaths related to Toyota acceleration problems have been alleged in lawsuits and police reports.


The NHTSA database does not determine whether the complaints are valid, and none of the allegations have been proved in court. Still, the increase in the number of people who publicly blame Toyota vehicles for deaths and injuries comes at a difficult time for the world's largest automaker, which in recent months has issued nearly 10 million safety recall notices on vehicles worldwide.


Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons declined to comment for this report, saying the company does not discuss cases in which litigation has been, or may be, filed. The company has said it is confident that all models with potentially sticking pedals have been identified and that the recalls will address all problems.


In the last week, Toyota has become the focus of a U.S. criminal investigation related to its handling of safety issues; its president apologized before a congressional committee; and an internal memo was released in which Toyota executives boasted about saving money by averting recalls.


'Look of terror'

Umni Suk Chung screamed, "No brakes! No brakes! No brakes!" as her Lexus RX330 sped along the shoulder of the 10 Freeway in West Los Angeles on a deadly collision course.


Chung's luxury SUV was going nearly 80 mph when it smashed into a Mercedes sedan on the Overland Avenue exit ramp. The Lexus overturned, killing Chung's sister-in-law, Esook Synn, who was seated in the back seat. Chung and another passenger were badly injured.


A woman who said she witnessed the accident said that she could see a "look of terror" in Chung's face just moments before the Dec. 15, 2008, crash.


"They looked like they lost control of the car. The car did not look like it was decelerating at all, as if the accelerator was stuck or something," the woman wrote on the Los Angeles Fire Department website.


Chung and Synn, both Torrance residents, had been returning to work at a real estate office after having lunch at a Korean restaurant.


Synn, 69, was survived by her husband, Kyung; a son, Gordon; and a daughter, Aimee.


"It's heartbreaking for us to know how scared or terrified she must have been because of the way the accident happened. It breaks our heart," Gordon Synn said.


Synn's relatives have retained an attorney, Larry Grassini, who said he believes an electronic system malfunction caused the vehicle to accelerate while rendering the brakes useless. The Lexus RX330 is not among the models recently recalled by Toyota for problems linked to unintended acceleration.


Toyota officials analyzed data from the Lexus' "black box" and determined it was traveling 78 mph at the time of the crash, according to a report by the California Highway Patrol.


Eleven months after the crash, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office charged Chung with gross vehicular manslaughter without alcohol impairment as well as reckless driving causing injury, both felonies. Now 62, Chung faces up to six years in prison if convicted. Before the accident, she had a clean driving record, according to the CHP report.


"This case got filed and investigated before anybody knew about the problems with these Toyotas," said Richard Hutton, Chung's attorney.


"It's been hell for her," he said. "She feels bad enough that people were hurt and a relative was killed. Hopefully this case will get thrown out."


'My accelerator stuck'

Paramedics found Juanita Grossman with both feet still pressing the brake pedal.

Alert but critically injured, she said her 2003 Toyota Camry had inexplicably accelerated March 16, 2004, as she left a drive-through pharmacy, racing across a busy street and slamming into a jewelry store in Evansville, Ind.

"It was like a car on a slingshot. She was slung across the street into that building," said her son, Bill.

Grossman, 77, died six days after the accident at a local hospital. In the days before her death, she described a car with a mind of its own, racing forward as she sat helpless behind the wheel, her feet jamming the brakes without effect, her son said.


"First thing she said was, 'My accelerator stuck,' " recalled her son. "She kept emphatically saying that the accelerator stuck on her."


Grossman is survived by two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The Indiana woman worked for an accounting company and was active in her church. Her son remembered her as principled and thorough, making to-do lists and never forgetting a birthday or anniversary.


The 2003 Toyota Camry is not among the models recently recalled by Toyota. After the accident, the family considered taking legal action against the company. They decided against it, worried that the legal costs would overwhelm them.


"It would've been the giant versus the little guy," Bill Grossman said.

Holiday horror

On the day after Christmas 2009, Monty Hardy and three members of his church were proselytizing in a Dallas suburb, spreading their faith door to door. The four Jehovah's Witnesses were traveling in Hardy's 2008 Toyota Avalon about 30 mph on a residential street when the car suddenly accelerated, raced through a stop sign and left the road, crashing into a fence and tree and landing upside down in a small lake, according to a police report.

All four drowned.


Hardy, 56, and his wife had recently received a recall notice from Toyota; it said the car's floor mats could cause the accelerator to stick. So the couple removed those mats and placed them in the trunk, said Randy Roberts, a Tyler, Texas, attorney who's representing Linda Hardy in a planned lawsuit against the carmaker.


The couple had also taken the car into a dealership to have problems with its acceleration system examined, Roberts said.


Investigators removed the box that records speed data and gave it to Toyota for evaluation, Roberts said. The data showed the car was traveling at 47 mph when it hit the fence and at 45.5 mph when it hit the tree, the lawyer said.


"It's an engine throttling at a stuck speed," Roberts said. "To me, it's pretty obvious that this was your classic acceleration problem. The man had a perfect driving record. He's out doing work for his church the morning after Christmas."


Fined for speeding

Jose Madrigal, a Mexican immigrant and devoted Catholic, made the sign of the cross each time he took a drive.

"My father was not very comfortable getting in a car," Adelina Aguilera, his daughter, said recently.

On March 9, 2009, Madrigal was a passenger in a 2009 Corolla driven by his wife of 50 years, Adelina Madrigal.

His wife said she was driving on Florence Avenue when the car suddenly accelerated, even as she applied pressure to the brakes. In order to avoid approaching cars, she swerved onto the wrong side of the road, struck a car and then crashed into a concrete wall beneath the 605 Freeway, according to a Downey police accident report.


Jose Madrigal, 89, was critically injured. He died March 25 from internal injuries.


"My dad was in wonderful health. He still mowed the lawn, had a great appetite, was very active," Aguilera said. "I expected to have my father around for a long, long time."


Downey police Officer Sean Penrose did not believe Adelina Madrigal's account of the accident. He issued the 71-year-old woman a ticket for speeding and wrote in his report that she must have applied the gas pedal instead of the brakes.


On April 15, three weeks after her husband's death, she paid a fine for speeding and the case was closed, according to DMV records. It was the first ticket Madrigal ever received, her daughter said.


"My mom feels so guilty. It's awful for her. Her partner of 50 years, the person she was with no matter what, is gone," Aguilera said. "As a Catholic you're taught that everything happens for a reason. That's what's getting her through. That everything happens for a reason."


In the months to follow, Toyota issued two recalls for the 2009 Corolla, one for floor mats that could cause the accelerator pedal to stick and another for a gas pedal prone to sticking.


Close to home

On a Sunday morning in March 2004, a friend picked up Ethyl Marlene Foster to drive her to church in Phoenix, Ore. It was their routine.

Foster's husband, Clarence, waved goodbye to the 67-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis and strolled back into the couple's residence inside the mobile home park he managed. Moments later his phone rang.

"There's been an accident in the park," the voice on the other end said.

He rushed out to find the 2004 Toyota Camry mangled against a nearby double-wide. The force of the impact had moved the structure a foot.


Ethyl Foster was dead inside the car, just about 100 feet from her own front door. Her friend was injured.


The driver would later explain that the car accelerated uncontrollably when she shifted the transmission to drive, causing it to slam into the mobile home, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In addition to her husband, Foster is survived by four daughters, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The 2004 Camry has not been included in any of Toyota's recent high-profile recalls.


'The car had a mind of its own'

On the day after Thanksgiving in 2009, Colleen Trousdale and her 10-year-old granddaughter went out on a Black Friday shopping spree.


They were driving through a busy intersection in downtown Auburn, N.Y., their car loaded with presents, when a 2010 Toyota Camry ran a red light and slammed into the driver's side of Trousdale's Ford Taurus, said Auburn police Lt. Shawn Butler.


Trousdale was pronounced dead at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. She was 56. Her granddaughter escaped with minor injuries.


Police questioned the Camry's driver, 56-year-old Barbara Kraushaar, as she was treated by paramedics. The woman had run through three red lights and was driving 60 mph, witnesses estimated, before the crash.


"The car had a mind of its own," she said, according to Butler.


Doctors would later conclude that Kraushaar had suffered a stroke, Butler said. In an interview about a month after the crash, Kraushaar told police she had applied her brakes but could not stop the car, Butler said.


Police have not determined whether the stroke or mechanical failure, or both, caused the accident, Butler said. The 2010 Camry is under two recalls, one for a floor mat that can cause the accelerator to stick and a second to replace a gas pedal blamed in some sudden-acceleration cases.


Concerned about the problems with the Camry, police invited the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate.


The agency removed the "black box" that holds data about the vehicle's speed and asked Toyota officials to download it. The company reported that it is not capable of retrieving data from black boxes in 2010 Camrys, Butler said.


The information in that black box, Butler said, "is the last piece of the puzzle."

Professional driver

Adegoke Abdul Aladegbemi was a professional chauffeur, employed to shuttle around diplomats for the Nigerian consulate in Atlanta.


On the evening of March 1, 2009, Aladegbemi had just picked up his 6-year-old daughter, Julianna, at an office park in suburban Marietta, Ga., when the 2005 Toyota Camry that belonged to the consulate sped through a stop sign at a T-intersection and plunged into an ornamental lake.


Witnesses waded in to assist, but the father and daughter weren't freed from the vehicle until Cobb County emergency rescue personnel arrived a few minutes later and extracted them, alive but unconscious. Aladegbemi, 57, and his daughter were both pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.


"Abdul, it is hard to believe that your address now is in the heaven," the driver's friend, Marcio Silva, wrote in the online guest book for remembrances.


"Brother Goke and Julianna, rest in the bosom of the Lord. We love you," added another, Gbadebo Adebayo.


A consular official confirmed that the chancellery owned the car involved in the accident, and that it had filed a complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The official declined to discuss further details about the incident other than to assert that Aladegbemi was known to be a good driver.


The 2005 Camry has not been included in any of the recent Toyota recalls.

Beloved matriarch

Noriko Uno left her Upland home on Aug. 28, 2009, to do some grocery shopping and deposit the latest receipts from the family's sushi restaurant. Her errands were all within a mile of her home.


She was driving south along Euclid Avenue at about the 30 mph speed limit when her 2006 Toyota Camry suddenly sped up to nearly 100 mph. Witnesses reportedly told police that they saw the 66-year-old woman tearing along the eastbound lane of the suburban roadway, gripping the steering wheel, her face frozen in terror, trying to steer out of traffic and away from pedestrians.


The car struck a telephone pole and then careened into some shrubbery. It became airborne and came to rest after crashing into a large tree.


When emergency workers extracted her body from the wrecked vehicle on that Friday afternoon, they noted the hand brake had been pulled up in a last-ditch attempt to halt the speeding car.


Reeling from their loss, Uno's husband, Yasuharu, and adult son, Jeffrey, at first were mystified as to what could have caused the normally cautious bookkeeper to be traveling at such a dangerous speed.


Then they learned details of the runaway Lexus accident in San Diego that took the lives of a California Highway Patrol officer and his family on the same day that Uno died.


Yasuharu and Jeffrey now presume that unintended acceleration caused the fatal accident that killed their family's beloved matriarch. They filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Toyota on Feb. 4 -- a painful decision, according to their lawyer.


"They're a Japanese family. They've owned nothing but Toyotas. They would have liked to see the jewel of the auto manufacturing society not tainted in any way," said Garo Mardirossian, the family's attorney.


The 2006 model Camry is not included in any of Toyota's recent high-profile recalls.


"Seven witnesses saw this car rocketing down Euclid doing 100 mph with a woman behind the steering wheel frantically trying to steer out of harm's way," Mardirossian said. "She had pulled the hand brake all the way up. Unfortunately, people don't know that the hand brake is only good if you're not going so fast."

The Unos still own two Toyotas.

[FortunerMan]

klonengan detected niih...

Klonengan ngamuk

[grandscenic]

Honda Recalls 21,000+ Odyssey Minivans

The American division of Honda recently posted a safety recall notice on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) official site, concerning the 2005 Honda Odyssey Touring minivans equipped with a power operated rear liftgate. According to this notice, the recall campaign will involve 21,776 vehicles.
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/honda ... 17701.html

Kok recall ini kyk Trend Fashion ya..

[grandscenic]

5th of March 2010 | 13:25 GMT |
GM Moves to 0% Financing

"There’s a war going on in the US auto industry. All producers want to profit from Toyota’s downfall, while the Japanese car manufacturer struggles to keep its sales up. After Toyota announced that it will offer a 0 percent/60-month financing program, GM adopted the same strategy."
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/gm-mo ... 17695.html

Maksudnya ngikutin langkah Toyota..

[mandala1]

Om toyotaman orang indo bukan sih? Koq ga pernah ada tulisan ngobrol atau gimana, cuma numpang copas doang...

[FortunerMan]

Om toyotaman orang indo bukan sih? Koq ga pernah ada tulisan ngobrol atau gimana, cuma numpang copas doang...

Hi hi...gak nulis apa2 aja udah ketahuan siapa, apalagi nulis

[mandala1]

^^wuiiih....hebat nih om FM, bisa nebak sekali bener
Udah kayak detektip romantika ajah

[grandscenic]

^^wuiiih....hebat nih om FM, bisa nebak sekali bener
Udah kayak detektip romantika ajah

detektip romantika apaan ya om.. maklum msh newbie.

[mandala1]

detektip romantika apaan ya om.. maklum msh newbie.

Hihihhii....ane juga ga gitu ngerti om grand, coba ntar kita tanya sama wan abu...

[Abu2]

detektip romantika apaan ya om.. maklum msh newbie.

Hihihhii....ane juga ga gitu ngerti om grand, coba ntar kita tanya sama wan abu...

wakakakkaka, pantesan tadi ane keselek, tiba2 ane terlibat disini.....

Eh..om mandal.......kira2 itu nick toyotaman jangan2 dirutnya TAM..

[asudarsono]

Detektip romantika bukannya majalah om - om jaman dulu ????