Workhorse! Please take notes on how Toyota is handling their recall!

[DriVer]

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Originally Posted by az bound We plan to wear the tires out before they are dated.

With an attitude like that I don't expect that you will be disappointed one bit! Congratulations and you go out and enjoy that motorhome! Now make sure you do get listed as the owner of record. If you have any problem with that, just drop me a line.

[edgray]

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Originally Posted by az bound Thanks for the information. I am probably not the ownrer of record yet as we have not taken delivery. We plan to wear the tires out before they are dated.

I hope you do!

You should know that will require around 10,000 gallons of gasoline and lots of seat time.

The seat time will be more fun than the pump time.

Congrats on the new coach. ED

[wa8yxm]

Quickly and efficiently? Toyota at first blamed the floor mats. even though it's the linkage that is the problem on the accelerator.. So they tried smoke and mirrors. Just like every other company faced with a mega-recall

And wait, there is more.. They have brakes on some of their cars too,, alas, they don't have brakes on all of 'em.. here are two stories:

1st story on WDIV Detroit

Second Story on WDIV Detroit

[dezertcamper]

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Originally Posted by powerboatr how can you say Toyota is handling it proactively? they recalled cars only after the G got involved, and then said it wasnt a big deal, recalling cars from the past 8 years or so is yes hitting the problem upfront remediable them denying the floormat was sliding under the pedal, this past year????

The government is involved only because Toyota is a 100X bigger company and has 100X more vehicles on the road vs. Bosch has brake calipers in service. And last I checked Workhorse and Bosch did not do anything until the NHTSA got involved. And who is the NHTSA? An agency paid with government money.

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Originally Posted by DriVer dezertcamper, Don't know why you wanted to start this thread however if I were Toyota I would be very much apologizing and getting this 9,000,000 vehicle recall completed as quickly as possible because they already killed over 100 people. In the past many years (10) that are covered under the Bosch recall there has not been 1 injury and you can check the NHTSA reports. There remains a group of experts that are doubtful that Toyota is fixing the problem with a 1 inch square piece of steel called a shim. They remain of the opinion that when Toyota switched over to fly-by-wire that the electronics is creating the problem and not the gas pedal. I don't expect that this situation is over yet.

I started this thread because I feel that Toyota is taking this much more serious then what Workhorse and Bosch have and I bet if you ask 20 people dealing with WH/Bosch brake issues they will all feel the same way. Call Workhorse and you get no info. Bosch cant even be contacted. Maybe if Bosch sent out a letter apologizing and giving us current weekly or even monthly info we might feel more comfortable that they are going to resolve this. Maybe Toyota is being more proactive because hey are on the news every night. Maybe that is what has to happen with Bosch? That is why I said maybe Dateline or 20/20 needs to do an investigation on Bosch and Workhorse. This could light the fire we need to see from them.

And your right as of this time no one has been reported as being killed over the Bosch brake caliper. But is that what its going to take for them to get off their butts and figure this out and let us all know what is really happening. And dont say the second letter sent months after the first letter gave us anymore info then what we all already knew. I want a date and to be told what the final fix is going to be. Maybe this shim is not the fix all for Toyota, but aleast they are being vocal and letting people know they are figuring things out. Does Bosch even have a fix yet? Its only been since April of 2009 since they posted this recall.

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Originally Posted by DriVer az bound, The calipers on your 2008 motorhome will perform well and you have no reason to be alarmed or concerned.

How can you say this? The fact is his MH has the same defective Bosch calipers on it. And why is Bosch and Workhorse still building and using these defective calipers on new units today. Bosch should have stopped production of this caliper last year and contacted every chassis manufacture using this caliper and requested they do not sell that defetive product as their is a recall against it. Why is Workhorse not stopping the sell of any chassis they make using this caliper? Why is it that every Coach manufacture and Workhorse have not contacted the dealers and requested they not sell that new MH with defective recalled brake calipers until the replacement units can be replaced.

Are these RV dealers required by Workhorse to let the buyer know that the new MH that they are buying currently has defective brake calipers on it, and once the recall is started they will be notified to come back and get them replaced? I know for a fact the dealers have not been told to tell new customers about this.

IMO once the recall was announced all sales of MH with the 66mm Bosch caliper should have been suspended just like Toyota is doing.

[DriVer]

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Originally Posted by dezertcamper I started this thread because I feel that Toyota is taking this much more serious then what Workhorse and Bosch have and I bet if you ask 20 people dealing with WH/Bosch brake issues they will all feel the same way.

It won't be at all difficult for me to find the same number of people that feel comfortable with the response however they would be as anxious as we all are to get the campaign behind us.

You still need to review all the evidence provided here by all parties. There is nothing mechanically wrong that will endanger anyone while they are using current build (brand new) Bosch 66mm calipers. These calipers are being used in the "Interim" and have been approved for such use by the government until the campaign launches and the new calipers can be installed.

This event can only be billed as a non-catastrophic event that may under the right conditions evolve into a bad situation if all the ducks line up in a row. All conditions met, you will see a degradation in performance and most likely a hot wheel end. As you previously stated no one has received an injury over the past 10 years that these calipers have been in service whereas new Toyotas are crashing and killing the occupants. Now we are told this morning that the Prius has bad brakes and Toyota knew about it all along for as much as 3 years? Is that possible?

Given the situation as it is right now and that a resolution for this issue is forthcoming soon by Bosch, I won't be a signatory that puts thousands of people out of work due to a suspicion that something may happen 4 to 5 years from now.

[EngineerMike]

Here is the difference as I see it:
Toyota- hundreds of failures out of millions of vehicles. Call it 800 failures out of 4 million vehicles, tho I think the millions are now higher than 4. That's 5000 good vehicle experiences per failure.
WH/Bosch- hundreds of failures out of tens of thousands of vehicles. Call it 800 failures out of 50,000 vehicles, or 63 good vehicle experiences per failure, before counting multiple brake failures.

The 800 for WH is a guess, the 800 for Toyota is an educated guess on the high side from what I have read, and I think the recall is well over 4 million at this point.

The Toyota problem is also greatly more complex. I'm pretty sure Toy is still scrambling to get an idea of what their problem(s) is(are). The failure modes reported do not square w/the "mat" explanation very thoroughly. It could be out of millions that there are mat problems, and that there is also a programming problem that is pretty obscure. I was discussing this w/a rocket scientist over the weekend; he worked on various highly complicated control systems for 3D maneuvering (Toyota has a 2D maneuvering system). He related an interesting event series on preparing a new man driven control system-
The Squints (as Booth would say) did all their systems design, programming & error vetting. Then just to make sure they had covered interactive error problems they did random variation simulations for control inputs till they had ironed out the goofy bugs that logic did not predict. Then they did a mock-up simulation and put a man in it. Within minutes the man had wrecked the whole setup via human reactions. Seems we animals in the driver's seats can come up w/some pretty creative ways to screw stuff up. Toyota's problem(s) appear to be within the realm of control system(s), and the mat may contribute or in some cases override, but the number of non-mat problem occurrences still leads me to believe there is a buried program interaction that causes at least some of the racing engines. Not like the more simple over-tolerance of pistons combined w/under-tolerance of cylinders in aging calipers. I'd still have to say that Toyota is doing a fabulous job at stepping up to the plate w/the teeny error rate and probability that some fair amount of the issues they will be addressing are idiot operator errors. Versus other manufacturers we may have encountered, Toyota called themselves responsible early (perhaps even earlier than they should), and went all in rather than blamed the customers for years.

[DriVer]

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Originally Posted by EngineerMike The 800 for WH is a guess, the 800 for Toyota is an educated guess on the high side from what I have read, and I think the recall is well over 4 million at this point.

Mike the number that you're looking for is 9,000,000 affected vehicles. I expect that will skew your educated guess. How does the mortality rate factor into your line of reasoning and how can that be written off in good PR language when over 100 people have died?

In my line of reasoning 100+/9,000,000 isn't as good as 0/48,0000.

Quote:

Toyota called themselves responsible early (perhaps even earlier than they should), and went all in rather than blamed the customers for years.

In my reporting this event from RVIA in December 2009, I reported that Workhorse has assumed responsibility for this issue and they are doing whatever it takes to resolve this issue. They can not make calipers therefore they remain waiting for parts like all the owners are doing.

As of late press today it was reported that Toyota knew all along about the defective brakes on the Prius however they just kept it to themselves.

[Route 66]

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when over 100 people have died?

Googling "Toyota fatalities" returns hits stating there have been 19 fatalities.

Where did the 100 figure come from?

[dajudge]

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I bought an 06 Allegro Bay on a w22 chasis in April 09 and have not had anytrouble with the brakes. Took two trips, one to Arkansas (1000mi round trip) and one to Nova Scotia (5000mi round trip) and did not have any trouble. I did get two interim notices from Workhorse.

[Bob (WA0MQE)]

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dezertcamper, Don't know why you wanted to start this thread

Driver, why shouldn't he start another thread about it. I and a whole bunch of others agree with "Dezertcamper" that WH dropped the ball on their problem and only AFTER some owners contacted NHTSA did they finally admit there was a problem. Like Toyota, they were hoping this thing would go away. After all the brakes have been an issue since what? 2003 or 04, I believe. Just like Toyota WH claimed one thing and said it was sticking caliper pins, but low and behold it was more then that. And since day one WH has been blaming us, saying we don't know how to drive.

[DriVer]

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Originally Posted by Route 66 Googling "Toyota fatalities" returns hits stating there have been 19 fatalities.

Dirk, You're right about that .. all I can find is 19 fatalities as well in recent press dated today.

Numbers are flying around in this case like crazy and although I don't have it recorded the number seemed to be in excess of 100 in TV News Reports into the matter. I'm hoping that the articles I heard that was broadcast was not accurate in their assessment of the fatalities.

19 fatalities is extreme in any sense of the word.

The Japan Times reported:

Plaintiffs' lawyers claim Toyota knew of the sudden acceleration problem for years before the November recall.

"First they blamed it on the driver, then it was the floor mats, then the accelerator pedal, and now they're shutting down the plants," Edgar Heiskell, one of the attorneys in the West Virginia case, said last week. "Toyota's position has changed at least three times."

In this article they claimed only 3 fatalities.

The Law Review reports:

Though the complaint filed by Hilliard claims "sudden unintended accelerations" have resulted in "16 deaths and 243 injuries," the National Highway Traffic Administration has said no deaths have been reported from a stuck accelerator. However, the article noted, five people have been killed when the cars' pedals were stuck in the floormat.

The data and information is very confusing to say the least.

[DriVer]

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Originally Posted by Bob (WA0MQE) Just like Toyota WH claimed one thing and said it was sticking caliper pins, but low and behold it was more then that.

NHTSA reported that it was sticky caliper pins in the 50401-C recall.

Workhorse fixed that problem with materials supplied by Bosch. That recall will be superseded by the new 50901-C when it gets released. You are right that it was something else and I certainly can't take that out of the question. Now that said they did find that a problem with the ZOPS pins existed and those were changed.

Again Workhorse was only a minor participant in this recall. The majority of the vehicles impacted were commercial and school busses. Workhorse did build some commercial vehicles however most were from other manufacturers.

[dezertcamper]

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Originally Posted by DriVer It won't be at all difficult for me to find the same number of people that feel comfortable with the response however they would be as anxious as we all are to get the campaign behind us.

So you can honestly say that you can find 20+ people on this site that will contest that feel comfortable with Workhorse's response in the two recall letters sent out in a 10 month period? And both letters have only stated that there is a recall and they are working on a fix. Not that they have found one or said a date when this will be resolved. By looking at all the Bosch brake threads on this forum I would be very surprised, and wonder if those 20+ people really read and understand what is going on.

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Originally Posted by DriVer You still need to review all the evidence provided here by all parties. There is nothing mechanically wrong that will endanger anyone while they are using current build (brand new) Bosch 66mm calipers.

Nothing Mechanically Wrong! Seriously, there would not be a recall if there was nothing mechanically wrong. You dont think a sticking caliper causing so much heat that it could cause a fire and burn up your antilock sensors mechanically wrong?

And I would love to see Workhorse and Bosch show us some evidence. All I have from Workhorse to review is two letters that pretty much state the same thing. Most evidence we all see if from the consumer who has had a mechanical failure and has had to spend thousands of dollars repairing his MH to only have WH refuse reimbursement.

I have read where on this forum that at a few club members at some RV shows spoke to Workhorse reps or someone? And has mentioned the fix is going to be a bigger bore in the caliper or a smaller piston in the 66mm caliper. If this is so, why is it not posted on Workhorses or Bosch's websites. Why have they not sent a PR out releasing this info to all Workhorse owners? I will bet you a $1000 I can call my local Workhorse dealer here in San Diego and they will not know anything about this bigger bore or smaller piston fix being talked about as the fix.

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Originally Posted by DriVer Now we are told this morning that the Prius has bad brakes and Toyota knew about it all along for as much as 3 years? Is that possible?

I dont see how Toyota can know for 3 years that the 2010 Prius will be having brake issues unless they can see into the future. Where do you get 3 years? And listening to Fox news this morning they are saying that Toyota of Japan made this announcement as the NHTSA has had just over 100 complaints of brake issues and "possibly" 4 accidents related to this issue. NHTSA said investigators have talked to consumers and conducted pre-investigatory field work. The preliminary evaluation involves about 37,000 vehicles in the United States.

Per Toyota this is what the customers are stating happens:
When the car moves on a bumpy or slippery surface, a driver can feel a pause in the braking when the vehicle switches between the traditional hydraulic brakes and the electronically operated braking system, he said. The brakes work if the driver keeps pushing the pedal, he said. The company says it made a change in the 2010 braking system last month to correct cars in production. The company has not made a decision about cars on the road. And at this point Both the NHTSA and Toyota have yet to decided if they will issue a recall.

So it sounds like Toyota is aware and is working to fix the brakes on the 37000 2010 Prius's already sold in the U.S before even having to issue a recall.

[CoastieSCPO]

Good golly.............if we didn't discuss brake issues, just what would we talking about? It's just about taken over the WCC MH Forum! I wonder why! Keeps my dander up! Just saying, don't you know!!

Bob