USA TODAY: Toyota has quietly made a change in most of its models that could save lives if a car’s accelerator sticks open — and it’s not the one at the center of the $1.1-billion settlement of Toyota’s unintended acceleration lawsuits.
Toyota has modified the start-stop buttons in most of its models so that they shut the engine off after three quick pushes, or after being continuously pushed for two seconds. That’s two big changes from the old policy that required a continuous three-second push in order to shut down the power…
[Brian] Lyons says the changes made to vehicles with the start-stop buttons resulted in part from recommendations from a committee of the SAE, once called the Society of Automotive Engineers, the auto industry’s engineering brain trust. They effect only cars with the buttons, part of the “electronic key” ignitions instead of the traditional kind where you insert a metal key and twist it to the start the engine,… (more)
