The new mats sound great. My All Weather ones started to fall apart shortly after I bought them. Not sure about the brake interlock. I already have a VDIM defeat module wired into the brakes. They aren't going to like that!

 

Apparently, the dealership was informed of the accelerator pedal issue prior to the accident:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...h-had-earlier/

 

So yeah... stupid dealership using the flootmats from the wrong car, that ignored complaints about it, combined with a driver too dumb to put the car in neutral, and now Toyota's out eleventy-pepsi dollars on a totally unnecessary recall.

 

Yep, that pretty well sums it up. There is no fault with the setup as long as the correct mats are used and are hooked in correctly. But that wasn't good enough for the authorities, and Toyota felt that had to do 'something', so let's shave the gas pedal and provide some new style floormats. Voila, we are good corporate citizens and we solved the problem. It's all BS. I have less admiration for Toyota after this debacle.

 

According to the police report, the police interviewed several previous drivers of the car (it was a loaner) and asked if any of them knew that holding the ignition button for three seconds would shut the car down, and none knew.

One of the previous drivers had the same problem, and pumped the button a few times before using neutral.

I predict that 2012+ model year Lexus vehicles will shut off with 3+ rapid presses of the ignition button.

 

Not certain if Toyota having 41% of all sudden-acceleration complaints is related to their pedal-related recall:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/car...s-ford-gm.html

 

Ok...i just checked on my car... There is NO possible way for the pedal to get stuck!! I will let my dealer know not to touch my pedal... If they do, thy are buying me a new one.

 

Couldnt believe the floor mat thing, you have to be what? like 1 year old to not be able to clip the floor mats properly?

 

The accident happened on a loaner that had RX mats in an ES. They didn't fit properly. Read the police report, above, and you'll have a different perspective on this. I know I did.

 

Yeah, can't really blame the driver for the mats.

You can blame him for not putting the car in neutral though

 

I thought about this. I'm wondering if the guy slapped it into park in a panic, and the car just kept on going. I remember a thread on here discussing how "park" keeps the car in "drive" to keep from killing the transmission.

At one point in the police report, it's discussed that the car pulled over to the side of the road at one point and was going slow until there was smoke at the front of the vehicle and he sped off. The smoke was presumably the brakes failing, and I can just imagine this guy slamming the thing into park when he was on the side of the road and not being able to stop.

Agreed that neutral would have been a better course of action, but I can certainly understand how this could happen after reading the report. We're all armchair experts, but the guy was panicked and probably not thinking very clearly.

 

btw - Anybody seen a sawed-off by dealer gas pedal or hopefully that never happened?

 

There's a fundamental problem with this. The engine does not load in park. Ever. So saying he shredded the parking pawls and the car continued to drive because the transmission is in "drive" and park at the same time makes no sense. The valve body solenoids on the gearbox determine what gear is active. In park, none of the solenoids are actuated, so there's nothing in the gearbox to provide a driving force to the wheels.

Wouldn't it be bizarre if this were related to the ES350's transmission flare problem, and there really was a major internal failure in the gearbox?

 

The 'fix' appears to be more involved than necessary:

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/18/c...medy-detailed/

 

The fix/hack job is something that I will avoid, I guess the new pedals are available in April...