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4th of February 2010 | 08:31 GMT | Charles Darveight 
I, Robot. Brought to You by Toyotaaaa!...
STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
- How will Toyota's recall nightmare end?
- How will they regain the customer's trust?
... Over the years I've owned a number of cars. For example, a couple of years ago I was the unhappy owner of a Mercedes-Benz ML. It was the latest model then, but some time had passed since the generation's launch so I told myself it would be bug-free, just the thing for feeling the pleasure and relaxation brought by driving a Mercedes.
The nightmare began from the first days after I bought it. The self-closing trunk had moments when it simply didn't want to open or close. Even if I slammed the hatch as hard as I could, although it appeared to be closed I would be instantly surprised by the car's alarm ringing because of... an open "door". In this case, the luggage compartment's hatch. I also remember a moment when I simply had to take out my suit cases from the trunk through the interior, after previously taking apart the rear seats in order to reach my luggage. All this accompanied by the hysterical laughs from my friends who couldn't understand why my hundred grand car wouldn't open its hatch...
Apart from these "small" issues, the car seemed bullet proof. But obviously, embarrassing visits to the service followed. Just like in a cruel Murphy law, the damn thing was working perfectly whenever I "visited" the service, enough reason for the mechanics to think that I'm crazier than a bag of Angel Dust. When I finally managed to demonstrate the problem, they couldn't find a logical explanation for it to happen, so I was stuck with my brand new car that couldn't open or close its hatch.
Then, one day, the taillights suddenly gave out. Again visits to the service and again the mechanics were surprised to find out that after changing the bulbs all seemed to work just fine. Only for the brake lights to fail a week later. I know... it was my fault for pushing the brake pedal from time to time, so they were probably "worn out". Than the daylight driving lights succumbed, just as strange, without any warning or prior malfunction. In fact, they were sometimes working and sometimes not. Generally, not...
In the end, I got rid of the demanding ML and never regretted it. It became just a hole in my budget, but also a first experience with an "intelligent car with moods."
But soon after that a buddy of mine bought the same model, only a bit newer. Careful, he deleted the self-closing trunk option thinking he'll get rid of similar problems this way. Riiight! His exterior rear view mirrors have "offline" moments now. They remain lifeless, hanging, like the car is so tired it doesn't even have the strength to hold them in a decent position. The door handles, also, break whenever they feel like it, among other little electronic hiccups coming from the "intelligent" on-board computer.
A Mercedes mechanic praised us for being lucky. He said that the S-Klasse was even more prone to these kinds of problems, since the car itself is much more "techy".
I don't know how Mercedes has evolved since then, or what kind of problems German sedan owners are experiencing, but I really wasn't expecting to hear about Toyota. A brand so sure of itself to have so many problems?
What seemed like a rumor transformed into a massive recall and an immense scandal. Instead of dying out after a few weeks, new problems are coming out, which makes the whole thing stranger and stranger.
I can understand, for example, when a BMW is displaying fake errors from the on-board computer. They happen often and they're annoying. I'm sure you also had them. But, hey, at least they're fake! You pay a visit to the service, they reset the computer and you're home free. OK, they're very annoying and BMW should maybe try and take them down a notch or two, but driving a car like that is still totally different and much, much safer than driving a car that accelerates by itself, like Christine.
That is something that's not at all funny and any fan, as zealous as he might be, cannot say that he's satisfied with a company that sells cars like that. And if those problems weren't enough, it seems that the Prius suffers from a similar "disease".
Apparently, at certain cruising speeds, the Prius has a tendency to accelerate without the driver even touching the acceleration pedal, which is enough to give anyone a good scare. The good thing is that at least the brakes seem to work, so the odd automatic sprint can be put to a stop.
In the meantime, Toyota gives another statement, some food is eaten at a press conference and the planet keeps spinning in the same direction.
But, what I really find tragic about what the Japanese brand is confronting with now is something else. I, personally, would never be tempted to buy another Toyota model from now on. So I'm thinking, what are they going to do? How will they step out of this bad and dangerous situation? How will they regain the people's trust? It's hard to say and even more difficult to accomplish.
I'm also curious about the response given by the people who created the "guilty software", at least in the Prius' case. And then, how do we know that not ALL Toyota models are affected by these "bugs"?
How is your "intelligent" car coming along?
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The nightmare began from the first days after I bought it. The self-closing trunk had moments when it simply didn't want to open or close. Even if I slammed the hatch as hard as I could, although it appeared to be closed I would be instantly surprised by the car's alarm ringing because of... an open "door". In this case, the luggage compartment's hatch. I also remember a moment when I simply had to take out my suit cases from the trunk through the interior, after previously taking apart the rear seats in order to reach my luggage. All this accompanied by the hysterical laughs from my friends who couldn't understand why my hundred grand car wouldn't open its hatch...
Apart from these "small" issues, the car seemed bullet proof. But obviously, embarrassing visits to the service followed. Just like in a cruel Murphy law, the damn thing was working perfectly whenever I "visited" the service, enough reason for the mechanics to think that I'm crazier than a bag of Angel Dust. When I finally managed to demonstrate the problem, they couldn't find a logical explanation for it to happen, so I was stuck with my brand new car that couldn't open or close its hatch.
Then, one day, the taillights suddenly gave out. Again visits to the service and again the mechanics were surprised to find out that after changing the bulbs all seemed to work just fine. Only for the brake lights to fail a week later. I know... it was my fault for pushing the brake pedal from time to time, so they were probably "worn out". Than the daylight driving lights succumbed, just as strange, without any warning or prior malfunction. In fact, they were sometimes working and sometimes not. Generally, not...
In the end, I got rid of the demanding ML and never regretted it. It became just a hole in my budget, but also a first experience with an "intelligent car with moods."
But soon after that a buddy of mine bought the same model, only a bit newer. Careful, he deleted the self-closing trunk option thinking he'll get rid of similar problems this way. Riiight! His exterior rear view mirrors have "offline" moments now. They remain lifeless, hanging, like the car is so tired it doesn't even have the strength to hold them in a decent position. The door handles, also, break whenever they feel like it, among other little electronic hiccups coming from the "intelligent" on-board computer.
A Mercedes mechanic praised us for being lucky. He said that the S-Klasse was even more prone to these kinds of problems, since the car itself is much more "techy".
I don't know how Mercedes has evolved since then, or what kind of problems German sedan owners are experiencing, but I really wasn't expecting to hear about Toyota. A brand so sure of itself to have so many problems?
What seemed like a rumor transformed into a massive recall and an immense scandal. Instead of dying out after a few weeks, new problems are coming out, which makes the whole thing stranger and stranger.
I can understand, for example, when a BMW is displaying fake errors from the on-board computer. They happen often and they're annoying. I'm sure you also had them. But, hey, at least they're fake! You pay a visit to the service, they reset the computer and you're home free. OK, they're very annoying and BMW should maybe try and take them down a notch or two, but driving a car like that is still totally different and much, much safer than driving a car that accelerates by itself, like Christine.
That is something that's not at all funny and any fan, as zealous as he might be, cannot say that he's satisfied with a company that sells cars like that. And if those problems weren't enough, it seems that the Prius suffers from a similar "disease".
Apparently, at certain cruising speeds, the Prius has a tendency to accelerate without the driver even touching the acceleration pedal, which is enough to give anyone a good scare. The good thing is that at least the brakes seem to work, so the odd automatic sprint can be put to a stop.
In the meantime, Toyota gives another statement, some food is eaten at a press conference and the planet keeps spinning in the same direction.
But, what I really find tragic about what the Japanese brand is confronting with now is something else. I, personally, would never be tempted to buy another Toyota model from now on. So I'm thinking, what are they going to do? How will they step out of this bad and dangerous situation? How will they regain the people's trust? It's hard to say and even more difficult to accomplish.
I'm also curious about the response given by the people who created the "guilty software", at least in the Prius' case. And then, how do we know that not ALL Toyota models are affected by these "bugs"?
How is your "intelligent" car coming along?
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04.02.2010 | 09:50 GMT
Hey man , I feel you with that ML that it is an excellent car ... but I have an ML 320 petroleum from 2002. It is 2010 and I never had REAL problems with it. The only thing that I don't like is that no matter what type of windshield wipers I put , they still "soundly scrape" the windshield.
However , my ML 320 was assembled in USA , at half the cost in Germany , so the new 2008 ML 320 CDI it costs $50000 ( 35000 euro ) full optional , instead $100000 ( 70000 euro ) in Germany , without many optionals included.
Respect
09.02.2010 | 13:38 GMT
I usually drive a VW Passat Wagon from 2007 here in Germany. There is only one pretty annoying bug. When the automatic volume increase for radio traffic messages is deactivated and you use the hands-free set for you cellphone and you end you call while a traffic message is broadcasted it activates the volume increase and blows your ears off.
But the driving part of the car feels perfectly safe.
09.02.2010 | 22:15 GMT
My 2008 VW Rabitt /Golf -sucks,i think Vw and Audi,they shouldnt be on the market ,and i know they are people there that they look like they haveing a meeting at the VW Service department once in a while keep coming back for different problems .Im i right?or wrong?
11.02.2010 | 14:07 GMT
Windows-like cars are (and will be) liable to troubles made by bad programming. I expect soon to take on travel with me all the drivers needed by the car to function properly (drivers for brakes, drivers for engine, pumps,... BIOS update, etc.). When experience problems, you just put the proper DVD to the unit and instal new driver and go on. Just scared of BSODs.
12.02.2010 | 23:46 GMT
Just great. Years ago as a Saturn salesperson, I heard so much about the infallibility of Toyota and Honda that, while I wondered about the long-term effect on our economy that shipping trillions to Japan might have, at the time I couldn't fault someone for sticking with a brand they believed or everyone told them was bulletproof.
So much for one more myth grown in Ralph Nader's greenhouse of anti-Americanism that finally did destroy a car that I honestly believe, at least for a time, was in many ways superior to any Japanese product. Sadly, no matter what American car companies do, in the long run, American consumers will continue to buy the lie that any product that is not American has to be better and, as a consequence, destroy their own livelihoods by becoming citizens of a nation whose economy, with no manufacturing base, will continue to decline. What fools.
13.02.2010 | 03:06 GMT
BIOS? Windows software in a car? That just shows how ignorant are the people who start blaming the firmware (it's not software) in a car. the firmware in those computer modules is usually a Real Time Operating System (or even embedded Linux when latencies are not that tight -say 200usecs).
The problem in the German cars is their use of the CAN bus and a network topology in lieu of the large instrument panel harnesses and all car wiring. The mirror controllers, for example, are by themselves a computer that is networked over the CAN bus to receive (and echo) user commands from a user interface controller, which itself may be monitoring the computer that controls the mirror switches.
The CAN bus is a very good network interface between computers modules in noisy environments but the resulting system requires a level of system integration and testing that the automakers are not used to.. never mind the mechanics.. they don't know how to use electronic bus analyzers and Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) test tools ( to figure out breaks and poor connections in cable harnesses).
In an aircraft or factory floor, however, CAN bus based systems are very reliable.
In cars, I think the designers have gone overboard without really understanding the complexity of the traffic communication over the bus nor the system loops and timeouts that a busy bus can create ( think Denial of Service over the Internet...).
Toyota? I don't really know what they've done. I know they use a networked interface as well but they are nowhere as loaded with features and their wiring ( and bus topologies ) must be much simpler than the Benzes and Bimmers. I suppose that in their zeal to grow bigger than GM they slipped in their system analysis and testing. And now they're paying for it.
Regards
tony
19.02.2010 | 07:14 GMT
excellent point of view. Friend of mine use ML for couple yearse, and he has not any single problem. My sister drives toyota, my cousin drives toyota and they all ara satisfied, so I am little bit confused here.
But an article is great. Stay safe folks
24.02.2010 | 02:36 GMT
In my experience the problems are far more common in new or more advanced cars. I' boutgh the first Opel Astra 2001 sport coupe with a lot of electronics and the firmware was full of bugs. Several times I' got trapped inside the car, becuase the car wouldn't open or let you open the dors, yes, exaclty like Christine. If you manually opened the lock of the dor it will come down instantly. The injection would stop if at fast speed you'll acelerate sudenly some times.
I' learn to disconnect and reconect the battery every couple of weeks. The dealer wanted to charge me for the firmware update, even when it was to correct bugs.
The same model of the next year didn;t had that many problems. I' guess is the same with the ML, it depend of the firmware versions and car generation.
leasson: do not get the first edition of a car.....
01.03.2010 | 02:59 GMT
I guess I will safely continue loving driving my old beater Toyota 4 door.
She's still ticking! :) Mfd.wayyyyy before all the computer stuff in cars.
01.03.2010 | 21:29 GMT
Very fast