A lesson learned.

[cletus8269]

this is an editorial from a mag subscription i have to Muscle Machines. i thought it was a good read and patiently waited for it to be available on the hemmings site so as not to have to type it up. so without further delay "A Lesson Learned" by Craig Fitzgerald.

I was driving home from work the other night, listening to an interview from Boch Toyota, located down near my old home in Massachusetts. The subject, of course, was the recall of some three million Toyotas to fix an issue with the accelerator pedal that was causing the pedal to stick to the floor in some very rare cases.

Two things came immediately to mind. The first was an issue I had with my 1989 F-150. It had the venerable--yet sluggish--300-cu.in. six-cylinder, so when I left a toll booth, I had to really shovel the coal to it to keep up with traffic. Around the 100,000-mile mark, the linkage must've gotten gunked up, so when you put your foot on the floor, the accelerator pedal would stick wide open. I'll admit that the first time it happened, it was a little surprising. But in a millisecond, I'd figured out what was going on and stepped on the clutch, thereby alleviating the problem. For the next three years, I'd have to do this from time to time. Why I didn't spend $3.99 on a can of WD-40 to spray on the sticky linkage, I have no idea. But I digress.

The point here is that you should always be ready to shift into neutral. I guess in my case, the instinct comes from riding a motorcycle fairly regularly. If you're smart, you fully expect that in that fast, left-hand sweeper, there's going to be a huge slick of antifreeze at the apex, a moose lumbering out of the bushes, and a 10-wheeled cement mixer on your side of the yellow line; you get ready to stand the bike up and get hard on the brakes, rather than just sitting there behind the wheel with your arms folded as you careen through the front door at Dunkin' Donuts.

The second thing that struck me was that if we were talking about three million some-odd General Motors products being recalled for a faulty accelerator pedal, all we'd hear is ''I told you so,'' from the media. Oh, but it's Toyota. Toyota loves us like our own mothers. Toyota would never grind its suppliers so that they used a substandard washer, or make a design choice that didn't result in world harmony.

Therefore, Toyota gets a perpetual pass, and I'm just so tired of it. Everybody gets the warm-and-fuzzies regarding the Prius (which is also having build trouble now, apparently), while the FJ Cruiser and the Tacoma lines turn in abysmal fuel economy numbers. And yeah, those Toyotas seem to run for a good long time, provided the frames don't rust out from under you, as they did in the Tacomas, and also the first generation Tundras in some cases.

I made a list recently of all the cars I've ever owned. Of those, a disturbingly large percentage have come from General Motors. I had a 1976 Camaro, a 1978 Monte Carlo, a 1969 Chevy C20, a 1975 Vega, a 1969 El Camino, a 1983 LeSabre, a 1976 Electra Estate wagon, a 1965 C20, a 1989 K1500 and a 1968 Riviera. Now, despite my last column here about lusting for a Crown Vic, I've found a 64,000-mile 1983 Pontiac Parisienne Brougham. Of those, two have been truly lousy automobiles that I only had for a short period; however, I will say that both of them had undergone backyard engine swaps before I ever got hold of them, so I don't necessarily find GM at fault.

The '83 Buick was the real eye-opener. When I bought it from my brother-in-law, Steve, it had 200,000 miles on the odometer. At that time, Steve was driving a 1984 Olds 88 with 230,000 miles, while my future wife drove a 1986 Olds 442 with 180,000 miles showing, though the odometer had been on the fritz for at least a year. And my father-in-law was driving a 1985 Cadillac Eldorado with 125,000 miles, which was a feat, considering it was powered by the HT4100 V-8, quite possibly the most under-developed engine ever built by General Motors.

All the while, I heard nothing but dire warnings from my friends and family that whatever GM product I owned would eventually succumb to some mechanical catastrophe along the lines of the Hindenburg disaster. Oh, the humanity.

The truth is that I've had 11 GM cars, for a total of about 15 years of driving, traveling about 150,000 miles on the conservative side. I paid about $16,000 for all of those cars combined, less than the price of one four-cylinder Camry. I lost some money on a few, but I broke even on others, and even made a few bucks' profit on two. I recouped about $9,500, total.

With those 11 cars, I've needed to call AAA a grand total of twice. Leaving out the '68 Riviera (which was non-running when I got it, and which I invested about $5,500 in to mechanically restore), over those 150,000 miles, I've spent maybe $2,500 in various and sundry radiators, water pumps, alternators, starters, not including batteries, exhaust, tires, shocks and other normal wear items.

In 150,000 miles, my grand total would be $9,000. Show me where the economics of a Toyota, any Toyota, work out better than that. The resale value of a Camry is good, but a 150,000 mile, 15-year-old Camry ain't that good. You'd be lucky to get $4,500. In that time, would it be out of the ordinary to experience two breakdowns in your average Camry? You'd have bought at least two timing belts, and it's not uncommon to hear of head gasket failure. A friend of mine just traded her 1999 Camry in for that very reason.

So Toyota's gotten a black eye these last few months. I say that's a good thing. Maybe it will convince the average car shopper that no mechanical product is infallible, and that no corporate entity is above falling asleep at the switch every now and again. Maybe it'll wipe that smug look off the average Toyota owner's face for a while.

a little background on mr fitzgerald is that he is the former Editor in Chief for Hemmings Muscle Machines and i believe the current EIC of Sports and Exotics.

http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2010/04/01/hmn_opinion2.html

[ocnblu]

Very good article. Common sense still exists! Thanks for posting.

Edited April 12, 2010 by ocnblu

[daves87rs]

Good read...

[Drew Dowdell]

Something to remind the author, however, is that on many Toyota products, you can't shift into neutral if the engine is above a certain RPM. That's part of the reason for the California crash that started this whole thing..... the driver couldn't shift into neutral because neutral was locked out by the car.

[Robert Hall]

Something to remind the author, however, is that on many Toyota products, you can't shift into neutral if the engine is above a certain RPM. That's part of the reason for the California crash that started this whole thing..... the driver couldn't shift into neutral because neutral was locked out by the car.

That seems like a bad design.

[Drew Dowdell]

It was meant as an engine preservation measure.

[67impss]

and yet it is the best way to stop a runaway train

[ocnblu]

With a rev limiter... what is the point in killing ppl with a locked-out shifter?

BAN TOYOTA.