Has Toyota been a victim of sabotage?

By JR Dieckmann

Sabotage surely seems like a possibility in Toyota's unexpected acceleration problem. It would be hard to deny that there is plenty of motive for such a dastardly deed that has been blamed for 34 deaths.

First, we have the political motive. Obama's takeover of GM and Chrysler — both companies failing in large part due to Toyota's lion share of the American automobile market. If these companies cannot be made successful under government ownership, then this failure will be the responsibility of Obama.

Next, we have the United Auto Workers Union AFL-CIO. Their hate for Toyota — a non-union shop — cannot be understated. The UAW has lost tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to Toyota. They would like nothing better than to see Toyota go out of business.

What better way to drive an automaker out of business than to scare the public into thinking that buying their products could cost you your life. And what is the value of a few innocent lives to the UAW or the Obama administration — a division of the AFL-CIO? Not much. We've seen plenty of examples of this in the past. People tend to disappear under the Chicago based thugocracy.

Then we get Henry "nostrils" Waxman with his House committee raking Akio Toyoda and other Toyota executives over the coals in their public spectacle to publicize the problem. These congressional Democrats are devoted to making Obama appear successful in spite of his repeated failures. Bashing Toyota executives only helps to support Obama and his union allies.

How difficult would it be to commit acts of sabotage against Toyota? Really not that hard if you could get an operative hired into the right position, either at Toyota or at their supplier, CTS Corp. of Elkhart Indiana, which provides the Electric Throttle Control for the American made cars, where he would have access to the software or electronics that control the engine throttle. Personally, I don't want a "drive-by-wire" car that doesn't have direct linkage between my gas pedal and the engine throttle. That's just asking for this kind of a problem.

However, after doing some research for this article I have decided that although sabotage is still a possibility, it is highly unlikely that it was a factor. The electronics in the Throttle Control system are pretty much failsafe with redundant backups built into it so that the engine will return to idle at anytime the output to the small motor that controls the throttle valve doesn't match the input from the gas pedal.

To see how the Electric Throttle Control works click here.

Having said that, there still remains the possibility of a flaw in micro-electronics known as a "tin whisker," which has caused malfunctions in numerous electronic devices ranging from home entertainment electronics to jet aircraft. When an electric current is introduced into printed circuit boards, the metal alloys used in the conductors, known as "land patterns," sometimes tend to grow "whiskers" on them. Since these lands are just micrometers apart, these whiskers can bridge the gap and cause the microchip to short out. Should this occur between a power conductor and the throttle motor conductor, the result would be full power to the motor regardless of what the sensors are saying. However, once this bridge occurs, it doesn't go away. That means that Toyota would have been able to find the problem by now.

To see how the safety features of the Electric Throttle Control work click here.

But Toyota has still not been able to put its finger on the problem and this only raises suspicion. The cheapest way to address customers' complaints was by blaming it on the floor mats. That is preposterous to think that out of 2000 unexpected acceleration complaints, no one would have noticed that their gas peddle was stuck on a floor mat.

Toyota's second attempt to address the problem involved installing a shim at the throttle control motor to provide a little more space and alignment of the link between the throttle motor and the throttle valve. The idea is that the link might be getting stuck on the assembly body.

This is a real possibility when you consider that the problem has been occurring only on American made Toyotas using the CTS Corp. throttle control. Toyotas made in Japan use a throttle control made by Denso Corp. and do not have this problem. The only difference in these two devices is the assembly housings were manufactured to a slightly different specification. This could be where the problem lies.

There is one other possibility that goes back to the sabotage theory; the software that drives the throttle control microprocessor. It would not be at all difficult for someone with the knowledge and access to the software to install a bug that would be triggered only rarely under certain conditions. I'm not going to go into how this could be done, but it wouldn't be at all difficult. It would also not be difficult to hide it where it would be unlikely to be found without the original programmer going through the software line by line. Even then it could be hard to spot.

In conclusion, I tend to rule out sabotage as the cause of Toyota's unexpected acceleration problems but it was an interesting thought. For Toyota's sake, I hope the shim will solve the problem of the accelerator and they will quickly resolve the braking problem with the Lexus.

As for the Waxman inquisition, I doubt that it served any useful purpose other than political grandstanding. The expense and financial impact of the Toyota recalls alone were enough to convince Toyota to correct the problems. Perhaps they procrastinated on it previously to protect their bottom line, but now they are paying the price. Toyota has always had a good reputation for building a safe and reliable car. They need to restore that reputation and I'm sure that they will.

If GM and Chrysler really want to compete against Toyota, then they are going to have to do something about their major cost problem — the UAW union. Subsidizing GM and Chrysler with taxpayers' money is un-American and will never address the problems of union corruption and abuse of the industry — it only encourages it to get worse.

I have owned GM cars all of my life. Until GM is returned to private and investor ownership and the UAW is eliminated or brought into line with private, non-union, industry standards, I will not buy another GM car. I don't want my money going to pay for these extravagant and excessive retirement, healthcare, and work benefits being demanded by the UAW, which are draining our pockets and our economy dry.

I want to see manufacturing return to America, but that isn't going to happen as long as industry is held hostage to excessive union demands. Just look at what they have done to Detroit. And they're doing it now to the rest of the country as well with the full support of our White House and Congress.

I want my country back! How about you?

© JR Dieckmann