When Acceleration Isn’t Your Friend

Hello friends and neighbors. This week is the start of a new column in The Norfolk Boomerang dedicated to all things auto­motive.

The column will often be written in a question-and-answer for­mat. You ask the questions and I will write the answers. You can ask questions regarding car purchase decisions like “I’m thinking about buying a new car, but I’m not sure if I need all-wheel drive...” or you might have a car repair or maintenance question like “I recently noticed that my check engine line comes on when I start the car. Could this be caused by the windshield washer fluid my son poured into the gas tank?”

You can send your questions to me here at norfolkboomerang@gmail.com. I’ll only use first names and last initial to identify the person asking, so feel free to ask anything you like, silly or seri­ous. In addition to the question and answer column I’d like to hear your car stories and turn them into articles. Does your family have a great classic car passed down through the generations? Do you own an interesting collection of cars? I’d like to hear about it. Con­tact me through email, or if you know me, stop me on the street. Q. Jane G asks “Is there any truth to all of these stories about Toyotas? Are the cars safe?”

A. Excellent Question, Jane. By way of answer let me tell two short stories to illustrate what a tough time Toyota is in for trying to re­gain the public’s trust: My dad was once coming out of a tire store back in the days of wooden ships and iron men with one of his friends. He had just bought four new tires that had a higher value than the car did. As they turned right over the curb onto the street a motor mount broke and the engine dropped down a few inches, pulling the throttle linkage taut. The engine roared, the brand-new tires smoked, and the car took off “like a batattahell on two wheels” down the street until he put it in neutral. His pal yelled something like “Yeah, all right!” assuming he had done it on purpose.

Once, in my first car, a 1969 Plymouth Fury III, all my bud­dies were piling in and since it had a front bench seat I had two of the guys jump in next to me up front. Suddenly, the car lurched forward and even though I was standing on the brakes, that V8 wanted to run away from me. One of the guys in back reached over the seat and grabbed the “three on the tree” and stuck it in park, where I should have had it to begin with. The guy in the middle next to me had accidentally swung his foot over the transmission tunnel when he hopped in and had his foot planted on the floor with the gas pedal pushed down under it.

None of these stories involve floor mats, gremlins in the soft­ware of an electronic throttle, or the old Audi myth of “pedals too close together.” Each could have ended badly.

Only Toyota will ever know if there is a single, identifiable,problem with Toyota cars that can be fixed. Toyota’s hardest job will be to sort through all the claims and filter out those that are not related to some design flawor quality problem.

I own a Toyota and I offered my wife this advice if she has any sudden acceleration problems. “Brake as hard as you can, bump the shifter into neutral, steer to a safe place, and put on your haz­ards.” I continue to trust my Toyota with my wife and kids’ safety, but I would suggest all owners of a recalled vehicle to get to the dealer­ship as fast as practical.