IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Toyota Camry, Uncontrolled Acceleration, Part 4 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I had my repair shop check out the Throttle Position Sensor and the associated harness regarding my suspicion of what might have caused the runaways. They found something.

Figure 1            The Camry's Throttle Position Sensor Cable and Connector

The connector that joins the above cable harness to the Throttle Position Sensor and the cable connector were in pretty bad shape. The connector itself had accumulated some corrosion and the wires attached to that connector were very worn.

My guess is that thirteen years of the harness wires moving slightly back and forth induced metal fatigue and that the crucial wire at the low end of the Throttle Position Sensor may have been intermittently opening up. All of the wires were taken off of the connector, they were restripped and then they were reattached. Corrosion in the connector itself was cleaned out leaving cleaned up metal pins for solid electrical contact.

Figure 2            Repaired Interface, Throttle Position Sensor and Connector

Figure 3            Repair Receipt

Did this really solve the problem? I can't prove that one way or the other, but the harness and connector assembly was certainly in need of remedial attention.

I have not put back the floor mat. I do not intend to.

Toyota Camry, Uncontrolled Acceleration, Part 3 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I have found a possible cause for my 2006 Camry to have gone twice into sudden runaway.

I have put a description of my finding on the EDN website where I have been writing essays under the heading "Living Analog".

The URL for "Living Analog" itself is Living Analog .

The URL for the runaway acceleration essay is Runaway Acceleration .

Comments and suggestions would be most welcome.

 

From Inside An Egg - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I started to make breakfast this morning and took out a box of eggs. When I cracked one particular egg open and into the frying pan, I found the following item:

I picked it up and discovered that it was stable in my hand. It had an outer membrane that did not break as I put it down on a paper towel.

Had this been from a fertilized egg? Was this the start of a chick embryo?

Frankly, I have no idea. I've never seen anything like it before so if someone happens to know, I would very much appreciate being enlightened.

Something To Think About - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Toyota Camry, Uncontrolled Acceleration, Part 2 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I received a phone call from the Toyota dealership to inform me that the Toyota shop had examined the Camry and found nothing wrong with it. They assured me that the car is safe to drive. In response to my incredulous reaction to that assertion, it was further offered that I would not be getting told that if they thought that the car would be any way dangerous.

The acceleration events, so they claimed, were the result of gas pedal activation via the floor mat. I very much doubted that assertion because my foot in both instances had been on the brake pedal alone. The gas pedal was not depressed nor do I believe that there was there any movement of the driver's floor mat during either event.

I fear that gas pedal activation was not an accurate diagnosis but was instead an unsupported supposition. I further fear that if Toyota's test methods did not uncover the true cause of the acceleration events, then those test methods are inadequate.

Since I was not going to get anywhere to my satisfaction with the situation, I had the car towed to my home where I removed the driver's side floor mat altogether.

I have since test driven the car to the local grocery and back several times with no further difficulty, but I am not comfortable nor confident with the situation.

Again, we shall see how the matter continues to unfold.

Toyota Camry, Uncontrolled Acceleration - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My 2006 Toyota Camry has experienced sudden, uncontrolled, extreme engine acceleration. It has happened twice.

In the first event on Sunday, April 7th, I was traveling westbound on the Southern State Parkway at exactly fifty-five MPH and exited at Exit 17N. The exit ramp there is sloped uphill and parallels Taylor Road. There is a STOP sign at the end of that ramp at Hempstead Avenue. Just as I was coming to the end of that ramp at very slow speed and almost to that sign, the engine suddenly sped up with extreme acceleration and the car lurched forward. I slammed my foot onto the brake pedal which kept the car from moving further forward and then before I could do anything else, the phenomenon ended and the engine returned to its normal idling speed of approximately 700 RPM on the dashboard tachometer.

I drove home and parked the car in my driveway. The following morning, Monday April 8th, I made an appointment for that day to bring the car to Toyota of Massapequa.

As I was preparing for that, I started the car and everything seemed normal. I put it into reverse in order to back out when the engine again suddenly sped up to extreme acceleration. Again, I slammed my foot onto the brake pedal and this time I put the gear shift into Park which kept the car from moving further. The tachometer needle was rotated clockwise and well up into the "red" zone which begins at 6000 RPM. In a moment or so, the phenomenon again ended and the engine again returned to its normal idling speed.

Keeping my hand ready at the gear shift lever, I drove the car to the Toyota facility where at this April 11th writing, it remains.

We will see how this situation unfolds.

Lots of Loose Cables - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

There is a big problem afoot in this area. Utility workers are leaving loose cables dangling down, even an entire electronic assembly of some kind at one location. As a result, I believe that passersby are being endangered.

In case you haven't seen it yet, please read the essay on EDN at: Loose Cables 

So far, I have identified and notified the town of dozens of addresses where such danger exists. At this writing, my most recent communications with the town were as follows:

These are addresses which I sent to the town:

Merely fixing the sites I report would not prevent the continued utility worker misconduct that has led to these dangers.

This looks like a major problem. We will see where this leads.

Musical Preferences - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My confession: I don't like most of the music of Beethoven or Chopin or Liszt or  Mozart or Tchaikovsky or Mahler or .......  

While these and other composers are revered all over the world for their musical works which have given generations of people great pleasure, I just don't share in that pleasure and I intensely dislike being compelled  to listen.

Although there are certain specific works which I do enjoy such as Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov (especially the 1964 recording that was conducted by Leopold Stokowsky), Bach's Mass in B-Minor, the opening passage of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (Yes, Beethoven.) and Pachelbel's Canon by Johann Pachelbel, do my likes balance my dislikes?

The world seems to tell me "no".

Whenever the topic comes up, I get asked questions like "But why don't you like ......." which is not really an inquiry into my preferences as much it's my being scolded for being an immature clod with an inadequate and juvenile attention span and a further judgmental assertion that I am in dire need of redemption, re-education and perhaps even psychiatric remediation. Think "the three R's". Of course, no classical music aficionado ever means to say that to me in a "bad" way.

Actually, I spent thirteen wonderful years as part of a choral group called The Armand Sodero Chorale and the sound of a harp is quite pleasing to my ear. However, I find the sound of a violin to be somewhat grating, even the finest Stradivarius.

I have been discovered to have some hearing deficits. Most notably, I have frequency response notches in my right ear's hearing at 3 kHz and 6 kHz. That plus some other hearing issues may have their consequences, but that doesn't matter to my detractors.

When my mother-in-law was alive, she and my wife enjoyed attending concerts at Lincoln Center. Having attended many such concerts myself and having disliked most of them, it became my practice to chauffeur them to Lincoln Center and to have a newspaper handy with which to occupy myself during each concert while I waited in the lobby, reading and doing the puzzle page. I didn't own a smartphone at the time.

I could hear the concert music coming through the lobby's muffled loudspeakers so I knew when it was time to go meet them as concerts ended. Encores would fool me now and then, but the basic strategy was sound. (Yes, pun intended.)

Now, if you'll please excuse me, I feel like listening to some songs as recorded by Ed Ames and Petula Clark.

More Sightings - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Seen at a local supermarket:

 

Wanna buy a used car? (Same grocery store's bulletin board.)

 

Spotted at a garden supply store and no, he did not want to make friends:

 

Somebody really loves Shakespeare:

 

I needed to contact Verizon's customer service for some reason so I dialed and got put on hold. I turned my phone's speaker on while waiting and busied myself with something else. Suddenly, I looked up at the phone display and saw that I'd been kept waiting on hold for over an hour.

 

Paper Lantern - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

What you see being made below is something I learned how to do in kindergarten. Decades later, I made one of these in the office of my then employer and suddenly there were dozens of them all over the place being made by my coworkers. It is a project within the capabilities of a small child, but it can hook adults too.

How to make a paper lantern:

Be careful if you attempt this. It can be habit forming.