Toyota Marketing Smartly Shifting
If you ask the average person what words come to mind when they think “Toyota,” there’s a pretty good chance they’ll say “quality and reliability.” Since the 1970’s, Toyota has garnered a strong reputation for building quality, reliable vehicles. While some would argue that this reputation is undeserved, that’s not what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about is popular perception. Read more…
Why Install After Market Shocks on your Toyota Tundra?
Why change the stock shocks on your Toyota Tundra for a set of aftermarket units? There are actually several reasons why so many truck owners elect not to return to factory components when it comes time to replace their damping system. Let’s take a look at some of the top reasons why aftermarket shock replacements are so common. Read more…
NHTSA Finally Acknowledges Finding No Fault With Toyota Throttles
After nearly a month of denials and anonymous statements, a NHTSA official reported to congress yesterday. From Automotive News (subscription required):
Brakes weren’t applied by drivers of Toyota vehicles in at least 35 of 58 crashes blamed on unintended acceleration, U.S. auto-safety regulators said after studying data recorders.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also saw no evidence of electronics-related causes for the accidents in reviewing the vehicle recorders, known as black boxes, the agency said today in a report to lawmakers.
…“At this early point in its investigation, NHTSA officials have drawn no conclusions about additional causes of unintended acceleration in Toyotas beyond the two defects already known — pedal entrapment and sticking gas pedals,”
Finally, the truth comes out, and we know who was lying about this data three weeks ago, and we know that Toyota’s throttles – as we have said all along – are just fine. Driver error is to blame. Read more…
Ask Unichip: Black Boxes and Cracking Codes
We have recently been privileged to discuss the world of aftermarket ECU tuning in depth with Jack from Unichip, one of the pioneering companies when it comes to engine tuning software. This post wraps up our Q & A series with Jack, and we finish things off by posing some questions about the dark and mysterious details of the computer coding required to achieve the outstanding results offered by Unichip’s tuning products. Read more…
NHTSA Blocking Release of Study Says Former Official
Last week, The Wall Street Journal interviewed recently retired National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) official George Person who alleges that:
- NHTSA’s investigation of so-called “runaway” Toyotas is complete
- After studying 40 alleged instances of sudden, unintended acceleration, NHTSA determined 23 of these reports were plausible
- After reading the engine data recorder in each of these 23 vehicles, EVERY recorder showed that the vehicle’s throttle was wide open at the time of the crash
If this former head of NHTSA’s recall division is correct, NHTSA’s study is done…and it has found that Toyota has no electronic throttle problems. Read more…
