Recent Toyota Quality issues

[DoctorJay]

It worked great! Healed in 6 weeks what nature on its own hadn't done in 4 months. The $4k I have no problem with either. Testing and validating good science costs money and avoiding surgery is a good investment. The only thing that bothered me was throwing away something that I knew was still perfectly capable of healing a person. .

The only thing I've got a problem with is that a lot of that money goes toward liability and future (and present) litigation. It's a capitalist economy, and I'm a big fan of people inventing things that work and making a lot of money off them because they hold the patents. I'm less enthusiastic about lawyers who file suit when a bone wouldn't have healed anyway, and make a lot of money off the situation.

I think this is a valuable safety device and probably shouldn't be dismissed as gizmo junk. Todays cars are capable of much more rapid stops than people will push them to. Some accidents will be avoided altogether with this tech and others reduced in severity. When the biggest downside is a good seatbelt check for the rest of the family as a result of a twitchy drivers foot I have no problem with it.

Am I really the only one who doesn't like this thing? I'll concede the point, that it may help a majority of drivers. I just wish I could turn it off. And besides, and back to the original point of the thread, it's just another shoddily manufactured, proprietary electronic thing that's going to break at some point, and cost hundreds of dollars to fix.

Anyway, if you wanted to make the roads safer, you could do it in 2 easy steps:

1. Intensive driver education. 40 hours in the classroom, 40 hours on the road, including a skidpad.
2. Make cell phone use illegal while driving, with or without a hands-free device (which doesn't improve safety). Cell phones increase the accident rate by 400%, the same as driving drunk, so why do we have MADD and not MACP?

 

[slimbuddha]

Anyway, if you wanted to make the roads safer, you could do it in 2 easy steps:

1. Intensive driver education. 40 hours in the classroom, 40 hours on the road, including a skidpad.
2. Make cell phone use illegal while driving, with or without a hands-free device (which doesn't improve safety). Cell phones increase the accident rate by 400%, the same as driving drunk, so why do we have MADD and not MACP?

This sounds nice, but the same people that are distracted by a cell phone will just be distracted by the radio, talking to someone else in the car, oh, look at the butterfiles, that cloud looks like Colonel Sanders.. THUNK

 

[CrusrDug]

The bluetooth for me is a needed technology. Since we're a changing world and have to accept that, then the solution is to make things better after we create the hazards. I seriously do not like talking in the car unless it's bluetooth. I don't even like the hands free ear buds with the cord because a quick jerk or turn of the head will most likely pull something from somewhere and cause you to double jerk and thunk. That said, there is some responsibility here. People need to realize when their being distracted no matter what the distraction is coming from.

Quality issues are abound everywhere these days. Look at some of the crap you buy for your house and then wonder how the heck they get away with producing such a POS.

 

[Gohawks63]

The bluetooth for me is a needed technology. Since we're a changing world and have to accept that, then the solution is to make things better after we create the hazards. I seriously do not like talking in the car unless it's bluetooth. I don't even like the hands free ear buds with the cord because a quick jerk or turn of the head will most likely pull something from somewhere and cause you to double jerk and thunk. That said, there is some responsibility here. People need to realize when their being distracted no matter what the distraction is coming from.

Quality issues are abound everywhere these days. Look at some of the crap you buy for your house and then wonder how the heck they get away with producing such a POS.

Agree 100%. Just dropped off the rig today to get the camera replaced along with an oil change. They gave me a Yaris as a loaner. I hate not having BT. I have an earpiece, but it's in my other car and the battery is probably dead as I never use it any more since both cars have the BT technology.

 

[DoctorJay]

The bluetooth for me is a needed technology. Since we're a changing world and have to accept that, then the solution is to make things better after we create the hazards. I seriously do not like talking in the car unless it's bluetooth. I don't even like the hands free ear buds with the cord because a quick jerk or turn of the head will most likely pull something from somewhere and cause you to double jerk and thunk. That said, there is some responsibility here. People need to realize when their being distracted no matter what the distraction is coming from.

Quality issues are abound everywhere these days. Look at some of the crap you buy for your house and then wonder how the heck they get away with producing such a POS.

It's still a distraction and it still leads to accidents. The research I know of points out that the key factor is that the other person in the conversation is not in the car with you; therefore, they cannot react to outside circumstances the way a conversing passenger could. This is what makes cell phones dangerous. (All this comes from simulator testing). Bluetooth and hands-free are good because they reduce the 'heads-down' time of dialing, and free up another hand for the wheel, but it's not the same thing as not talking on the phone.

As far as the argument that all these people would just be distracted by something else if they weren't on the phone: that may be true. I'm just pointing out that the accident rate could be helped far more by American drivers 1)undergoing adequate training and 2)avoiding distractions, than by putting hokey gizmos into cars that help drivers stay out of wrecks. Having said that, I know that none of this will ever come to pass, mostly because we, as a nation, are too lazy for it. A politician mandating airbags in cars is a hero; one who mandates $2000 worth of driver's ed for everyone plus annual testing for those over 60 will be a villain.

 

[CameraCruiser]

Dr. J, I couldn't agree more about need for both more education and additional stipulations on a phones use in a moving automobile. I was recently rear-ended by a woman and the only thing I remember is looking in the rear view mirror and seeing her blindly run into me with her cellphone to her ear. If it weren't for the fact that she was driving a late model Toyota she probably would have died. The rescue team pulled her out bloody and still gripping the phone.

She later told police that she had been arguing with her boyfriend and didn't even realize that she had gotten on the freeway. She was that detached from driving. Arghhh.

The other thing is education, there is just not enough of it, regardless if your a teen, adult, or senior you can always be taught, or reminded of new laws and skills to improve your driving. At some point in time people started to assume that driving was a right instead of a privledge. I am far more worried about the guy to the front, back and sides of me navigating their 2 to 3 ton vehicles around So Cal freeways than I am about someone smoking a cigarette next to me, but everyone crys about that.

Instead of showing some old lady smoking a cigarette through a hole in throat, lets start showing 30 second comercials with people with missing limbs because of some dumb-**s car accident.

It's like what airplane pilots learn. First, fly the plane. Everything else is secondary to that.

End rant, which could go on and on. Besides, traffic is moving again, got to stop txting (kidding, of course).

 

[calamaridog]

It's always bothered me that they deeply embed all the electronics into the vehicle. A Landcruiser can last 30 years or more, but the electronics won't, and even if they did they'd be totally obsolete decades sooner.

Exactly!

 

[SWUtah]

I saw this huge fat guy driving down the freeway last Sat. in a late model car that had large patches of paint faded, because of poor care, resting a book on his belly and reading while he was driving, wandering from lane to lane at about 60+ mph. Shouldn't it be OK if you have a gun to just drive up and shoot this guy in self-defense?

 

[calbo]

Hahaha, perfect way to end the rant! "Got to stop txting."

People still cut their thumbs off with handsaws when tablesaws hadn't been invented yet.
Cars and cellphones are tools. Technology is constantly making them better. Be smarter than technology. Learn to use it. Not to abuse it and get your butt a bind.

 

[b56tc]

if you don't mind if I redirect -

my '04 camera has been Tango Uniform for about a year. I also do not want it $1000 bad.
I am intrigued by the $150 option - a camera is a camera, and even if it works for 2y (twice as long as the original), I can replace it buku times before I'm at $1000

Search as I may, I cannot find that thread, anyone remember the particulars?