"Goverment Motors"

[analog]

ABS is kaput on my '96 Ford Ranger. At $2500 for a new modulator, I am quite content to brake the old fashioned way..

Seems pretty steep...
does it look like this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/89-98-Fo ... ccessories

I would get the Ford shop manuals for it, it's getting old and should start having gadget troubles..
Here's where i buy all my manuals:
http://stores.ebay.com/Lorie-and-Jeff they're friendly East Tennessee folks.

I have a project truck, '83 Ford Ranger with the little diesel engine. It's way uglier than OT's truckling.
Only electronic thing in it is the radio.
That'll be the "rest of my years" vehicle.
Not real economical - gets 35mpg but - diesel now costs more than gasoline, and at oil change time it takes seven quarts and two filters.
But it sure is simple. Sigh.........

[jamiebk]

Analog...yeah, that sure looks like "it". I am inclined to take a stab at it, but the wiring and tubing confounds me a bit. I couldn't believe it when the guy said $2500. I gotta find a new shop. He charged me $450 to put in a new purge flow sensor/valve/selenoid.

[dai bread]

The American car industry has been in trouble for some time. John Steinbeck was rude about it in 1960, when he travelled the country with his dog Charley. (See "Travels with Charley", written in 1962). He liked American trucks, though, and used a campervan.

[dai bread]

Analog...yeah, that sure looks like "it". I am inclined to take a stab at it, but the wiring and tubing confounds me a bit. I couldn't believe it when the guy said $2500. I gotta find a new shop. He charged me $450 to put in a new purge flow sensor/valve/selenoid.

Reminds me of the guy who serviced my father's car. He serviced the brakes for $350 (some years ago). I asked a petrol-head I worked with what he would expect for a $350 brake job. "New ones," he said.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I have a project truck, '83 Ford Ranger with the little diesel engine. It's way uglier than OT's truckling.

Have you seen the Ugly Truckling?

[jamiebk]

And they should use it (the megaphone). Ford IS building better cars now and it's true that Toyota and Honda set the bar for quality. However, our industries are hurting and are you really saying that you'd rather have your dollars go to the Japanese? Come on Shap....

I'll spend my dollars where they get the best car for the money. If that's a Japanese Car, a Brazilian Car, or an American one, it's all the same to me. If everything else is the same, I'll buy the American Car. Everything else hasn't been the same for a long time, though, so that hasn't been a factor.

I think Ford makes good vehicles, they have for a while. GM has had problems for a long time, and I don't see any evidence they've fixed them, yet. They're all overpriced, IMHO, but I'll try to get the most bang for my buck, thank you. I drove American vehicles for most of my life. The last two have had serious brake issues, the the company denied there was a problem. Now I have two foreign vehicles, and fewer problems.

FWIW, I liked the power and acceleration of my last American truck better than my current foreign one, but there were other issues that gave the foreign truck the edge.

The Toyota reputation for quality is crushed with this accelerator snafu. What's disturbing here is not so much the issue itself, but how Toyota has handled this. As the investigations into this open new insights we are seeing incompetence and perhaps even deception in dealing with the problem. I thought better of Toyota, but am beginning to see that they are just like every other big corporation. I am growing in skepticism as to the "mechanical" fix that is being implimented. Everything I see on this tells me that this is electronic (computer or software) and not just a stuck accelerator...a stuck accelerator doesn't accelerate the car out of control...it simply doesn't slow down. People are reporting their cars accelerating out of control (speeding up). I worry that Toyota is patching the wrong problem and sending the patient off with a false sense of having the problem fixed.

In any event, while you indicate that you have purchased Toyota in the past because of quality (as have I), with this recent issue they are now in the same bucket as the other manufacturers. A major snafu, poorly handled. People have died from this...people have had to bear the cost of repairs and higher insurance, and have had driving records marred because of Toyota incompetence and unwillingness to admit a problem until it was forced upon them to do so.

[piqaboo]

I wondered about the family killed in the Toyota with the stuck accelartor. He was a highway patrolman, and his wife had time to call and report that the accelerator was stuck and they had no brakes, and were heading into a busy intersection. I would have thought the patrolman would have had the presence of mind to shift into neutral and/or shut off the key. It is unclear from what I've read whether or not he tried the emergency brake, but they sometimes won't lock if the vehicle is in gear - again a patrolman should have known that.

I was driving a friend's car on the fwy some years back (a mazda), and the accelerator stuck open.
Automatic transmission.

I decided I'd rather buy him a new car than die, so
I put the car in low - holy cow that was scary - the engine raced and I thought it would blow up.
I was on the brakes HARD.
I was lucky to be near an offramp, and able to honk, and time my trip down it to stay out of traffic.
two rights, and a left, w small hills later, I forced the beast to a stop very shortly before the brakes melted too much to function,
and turned off the key.
Engine smoking, brakes smoking. I was out of that car w fire extinguisher so fast.

[Haggis@wk]

I have a project truck, '83 Ford Ranger with the little diesel engine. It's way uglier than OT's truckling.

Have you seen the Ugly Truckling?

And this is a five year old photo of the Ugly Truckling. I shudder to think what it's looking like today.

[Haggis@wk]

I have a project truck, '83 Ford Ranger with the little diesel engine. It's way uglier than OT's truckling.

Have you seen the Ugly Truckling?

And this is a five year old photo of the Ugly Truckling. I shudder to think what it's looking like today.

[analog]

Well that photo looks better than the one i remember...
i don't own a digital camera but a neighbor has one..
I'll see i can get a snapshot of my diesel ranger posted - it is indeed way uglier....
maybe you guys will help me name it.

a.

[Shapley]

In any event, while you indicate that you have purchased Toyota in the past because of quality (as have I), with this recent issue they are now in the same bucket as the other manufacturers. A major snafu, poorly handled. People have died from this...people have had to bear the cost of repairs and higher insurance, and have had driving records marred because of Toyota incompetence and unwillingness to admit a problem until it was forced upon them to do so.

Could be, but I am hesitant to accept any government-issued report on the problems. It's a major conflict of interest. We may just as well as General Motors to conduct an investigation into troubles at Toyota. Oh, wait, we are asking General Motors to do that...

[BigJon]

My Chevy Astro van had a different problem - the brakes simply seemed to be too small to stop the van if it was loaded or was traveling downhill. Very frightenting.

The Astro was inadequate in so many ways. What dogs those were.

[BigJon]

I wondered about the family killed in the Toyota with the stuck accelartor. He was a highway patrolman, and his wife had time to call and report that the accelerator was stuck and they had no brakes, and were heading into a busy intersection. I would have thought the patrolman would have had the presence of mind to shift into neutral and/or shut off the key. It is unclear from what I've read whether or not he tried the emergency brake, but they sometimes won't lock if the vehicle is in gear - again a patrolman should have known that.

To me that case sounded like a murder or murder-suicide staged to look like a car failure. There are so many things you can do to slow a car and they had a lot of time to try them all. The odds of total failure of both systems are astronomical as well. I didn't buy it from the beginning. I wonder what the forensics found out about the functioning of the car systems after the crash.

[BigJon]

I thought most american car parts were being made overseas.... shipped over here and then assembled....

did I miss something here?

Nope, a lot of US built cars also contain US built parts. JiT manufacturing philosophy pretty much insures that.

[BigJon]

When the ABS loses power a sane system should revert to old timey 'fluid goes from master straight through the tubes to the wheel cylinders' system. But there exist variants that won't stop you without ABS active.

Not true. Everything sold in the US still has fluid to the wheels. But some will lose braking efficiency because the front-rear proportioning valve has been replaced with the electronics of the ABS system. Not good, as braking performance can be cut in half, but still permitted.

[Trumpetmaster]

I thought most american car parts were being made overseas.... shipped over here and then assembled....

did I miss something here?

Nope, a lot of US built cars also contain US built parts. JiT manufacturing philosophy pretty much insures that.

OK... Thanks BigJon....

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

To me that case sounded like a murder or murder-suicide staged to look like a car failure.

It was the intersection of the 125 offramp into Mission Gorge Road in Santee. It's a long downslope from a fairly high ridge by Grossmont College into the SandyEggo river channel, and the accident folks decided that it was an aftermarket floormat in the Lexus that contributed to the jammed pedals. There's a fairly abrupt drop after you cross Mission Gorge Road and go off the edge into the channel: that was where the Lexus flipped.

The Lexus was a loaner, from the dealership where the driver's car was getting some work done. I'm not sure how a guy would rig a loaner to flip and burn in the riverbed, with his kids and himself in it, but I'd think it would take a great deal of creativity and planning. I'm more inclined to the software+floormat explanation. Murder/suicide sounds like it would be way too complicated for a guy who habitually carries a nice, simple gun...

[analog]

When the ABS loses power a sane system should revert to old timey 'fluid goes from master straight through the tubes to the wheel cylinders' system. But there exist variants that won't stop you without ABS active.

Not true. Everything sold in the US still has fluid to the wheels. But some will lose braking efficiency because the front-rear proportioning valve has been replaced with the electronics of the ABS system. Not good, as braking performance can be cut in half, but still permitted.

Okay - i am guilty of imprecise wording, so much so my intent was lost. Sorry.

I've not seen anything other than fluid actuated wheel cylinders since the '31 Model A Ford we kids had in high school.

ABS is a computer driven fluid pressure modulating gizmo that's in between your foot and the wheel cylinders.

A sane system fails to just a pass-through.
There exist variants in which, if ABS is not active, the pedal force required to stop becomes excessive to the point it would be perceived by many as total brake failure. A driver of delicate physique may be unable to apply pedal force sufficient to effect any but the most gentle stop.

I do better in the mornings!

a.

[Haggis@wk]

The Toyota reputation for quality is crushed with this accelerator snafu. What's disturbing here is not so much the issue itself, but how Toyota has handled this. As the investigations into this open new insights we are seeing incompetence and perhaps even deception in dealing with the problem. I thought better of Toyota, but am beginning to see that they are just like every other big corporation. I am growing in skepticism as to the "mechanical" fix that is being implimented. Everything I see on this tells me that this is electronic (computer or software) and not just a stuck accelerator...a stuck accelerator doesn't accelerate the car out of control...it simply doesn't slow down. People are reporting their cars accelerating out of control (speeding up). I worry that Toyota is patching the wrong problem and sending the patient off with a false sense of having the problem fixed.

In any event, while you indicate that you have purchased Toyota in the past because of quality (as have I), with this recent issue they are now in the same bucket as the other manufacturers. A major snafu, poorly handled. People have died from this...people have had to bear the cost of repairs and higher insurance, and have had driving records marred because of Toyota incompetence and unwillingness to admit a problem until it was forced upon them to do so.

Apparently our friends to the north see more than just a corporate SNAFU here

FINANCIAL POST: The War On Toyota.

“The attack on Toyota, at this time of U.S. economic weakness and populist excess, is fast turning into a great American nationalist assault on a foreign corporation, an economic war.”

[jamiebk]

When the ABS loses power a sane system should revert to old timey 'fluid goes from master straight through the tubes to the wheel cylinders' system. But there exist variants that won't stop you without ABS active.

Not true. Everything sold in the US still has fluid to the wheels. But some will lose braking efficiency because the front-rear proportioning valve has been replaced with the electronics of the ABS system. Not good, as braking performance can be cut in half, but still permitted.

Okay - i am guilty of imprecise wording, so much so my intent was lost. Sorry.

I've not seen anything other than fluid actuated wheel cylinders since the '31 Model A Ford we kids had in high school.

ABS is a computer driven fluid pressure modulating gizmo that's in between your foot and the wheel cylinders.

A sane system fails to just a pass-through.
There exist variants in which, if ABS is not active, the pedal force required to stop becomes excessive to the point it would be perceived by many as total brake failure. A driver of delicate physique may be unable to apply pedal force sufficient to effect any but the most gentle stop.

I do better in the mornings!

a.

Even though my ABS modulator is not working, the brakes seem to work fine. I just don't get any pulsing. The pedal pressure seems about the same.