Crazy California malfunction

I recall the final disposition was inconclusive with respect to Toyota liability... there was owner fraud in at least one situation and other disputes that owners had with Toyota where they piled on the acceleration thing to resolve their disputes

 

I am an engineer and so I am probably a little more aligned with the service department. I had to work on production anomalies at one point in my engineering career (F15/F16 avionics systems). I worked on stuff that failed during production testing for a year or so during my career. It was called burn in testing or shake and bake. It included temperature cycling, shock and vibration and intermittent power switching while the new systems were operating. Any failures in the self-test diagnostics had to be reported. A failure had to recur three times to be considered a real problem and then a design fix had to be implemented.

Those failures were difficult to replicate, I worked on one that took me three months to come up with the correct combination of factors that produced the diagnostic error. Once I could repeat the problem I then was able to understand it and try to come up with a fix. That was even harder because there were two ways to go, retrofit or replace. Retrofit meant changing out parts and putting wires on a board whereas replace meant an entirely new unit and that was costly. So retrofit was the preferred solution and that meant my design fix had to work in all cases. Pretty tricky and most of the times, retrofit wasn't a solution. Management hated that.

These cars have been pretty well tested over time now by the owners as well as the manufacturer. If they had actionable information, it would be in the database and the designers would be working on it. Right now, this all seems pretty anecdotal. More details and occurrences are needed before this rises to a problem as opposed to just anomalous behavior.

 

Getting back to this particular car, what could be the mechanism for the unwanted throttle input?

The driver states he was braking and not applying throttle input by pressing on the accelerator pedal.

Does the Electronic control module for the DCT have the ability to give throttle on its own?

If so, what inputs does the control module use to inform these decisions?

This particular car is fairly old. I'd venture to suggest checking and probably replacing theses actors in the system to be reasonable starting point.

 

I see from your profile that it's an '11 Cali. How many miles, might I ask?
T

 

Toyota said, not surprisingly, that they analyzed "black box" data from 58 crashes. Perhaps not surprisingly, Toyota implied operator error in the majority of cases they studied. Regardless, do Ferrari have such black box devices? I assume this is the gizmo being hooked up to some diagnostic device for the engineers in Italy to comb through, as indicated in a previous post?
T

 

12k at the time.

 

The car in question is 8 years old.
It did not misbehave when new, only now.

I would bet this is an age related problem. It should be correctable provided you have a competent technician.

 

Where I am in Canada is somewhat warmer, more temperate, compared to Sweden and Norway but even so April was not a good month here for driving on Summer tires.

AFAIK, there are only 2 Ferrari dealer locations in all of Sweden, in Stockholm and Malmö. 3 weeks before your first post on May 15 was April 24 and here are the archived actual temperatures for Stockholm and Malmö. The Malmö area is more likely where you are located as the only authorized bodyshop in Sweden, Autocenter Lack och Karosseri AB is just 100 km outside Malmö.

At any rate, if you look at the archived temperatures for Malmö and Stockholm for April 24, the maximum temperatures for Malmö and Stockholm were 10°C, minimum temperatures were 2°C and -4°C respectively. The temperatures for the other days during the week were as cold or worse. I would not call these "great" conditions for driving. These were marginal temperatures for Summer tires, assuming you did not have Winter tires on.

It's interesting that you experienced this problem at this time of the year in Sweden. There are not that many Ferrari Californias in Sweden or in fact, in all of the northern climes. How long have you owned this 2009 car? If you are not the original owner, you may want to check the service records in case there was previous mention of issues from a previous owner. Otherwise, it would seem odd that the problem would suddenly arise after 8 years. 30,500 km is a good mileage for an 8-year-old Ferrari that has seen regular but not excessive use. If there is a problem with the car, given what you described it would seem more likely to be a software or electronic/electrical issue and not a mechanical one. However, those issues should have been evident much earlier than 8 years.

At any rate, I still believe weather and driving conditions had something to do with what you experienced.

BTW, how new are the tires on your car?

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Sorry my question comes a bit late... had a helluva day.

You say "...my car shifted down and up a few times in rapid succession...", so I take it that it shifted UP as well as DOWN? Were you driving in AUTO mode and were you braking, accelerating or just driving at an even pace at the time?

 

4th...I'm not following how conditions/tire age might have contributed, and made the engine "rev up" when dropping from 2nd to 1st gear. It may have exacerbated the situation by retarding braking force when Simon tried to apply the brakes. Thanks for your thoughts.

Regardless, I would be in the same mind frame as Simon. Don't think I could enjoy the car after an accident like this.

T

 

My mileage almost exactly. [emoji51]
T

 

The car is 8 years old and age has caused one or more things to malfunction

Some things to check are DCT , control module, throttle bodies, variators, etc

I logged 65k miles on a 2010 Cali. Never had a run away experience like this.

 

Tom, I didn't say conditions/tire age caused Simon's car to "rev up" when dropping from 2nd to 1st gear. I said it contributed to (had something to do with) the mishap (his experience). Please be careful not to inject (unintentional misleading) interpretations into our discussion.

CONDITIONS/TIRE CONTRIBUTED BUT DID NOT CAUSE THE MISHAP
Go back to what I wrote and read it carefully, I said ...

So I said "weather and driving conditions" had "something" to do with what happened to Simon, BEFORE I asked about his tires in case they may be old. So if you read my words correctly, I was reiterating my contention that Simon's car skidded.

Old rubber also tends to dry out and get hard, making them less grippy on cold road surfaces - I think we all know that. The (tire) industry norm is to change tires every 4 years regardless of visible tire wear and mileage, because tread compound age and the resulting changes in performance, unlike wear, are not visible unless you check the adhesive properties of the rubber.

Driving on cold road surfaces and cold tires, especially if the tires are old would greatly increase the chances of a skid.

If I am correct about the ambient temperatures when Simon had the accident, these factors would definitely have something with why the accident occurred. That's why I researched the probably location and actual temperatures of those locations.

WHAT PROBABLY TRIGGERED THE MISHAP
As for why the accident occurred at all, cold weather conditions and expired tires would only contribute but not by themselves cause the accident.

DON'T AUTO-DOWNSHIFT TO A STOP BEHIND ANOTHER DRIVER
In this regard, I pointed out an aggressive 60 mph - 0 mph stop at a stop sign (probably on a country road) especially directly behind another, stopped car, would likely garner a speeding or dangerous driving ticket where I live. While I do perform hard aggressive stops on country roads I never do them when there is another car in front of me. It's too risky and the guy in front would rightfully not find it funny at all.

INADEQUATE WARNING ABOUT WHEN IT'S SAFE TO USE THE FEATURE
What I think happened is that the system is/was not designed or tested thoroughly enough to work safely under marginal braking conditions. Ferrari probably didn't expect or tested for this scenario. If you have driven manual stick-shift sports cars you will understand.

Have you ever tried to downshift from 2nd gear to 1st gear while the car is still going at a high rate of speed? It's generally a bad idea, even under good traction conditions, because you may do a nose-plant on the steering wheel and at best the engine will race and you wonder if you might have over-revved the engine. The car needs to have already decelerated to a slow pace before you rev-match and shift into 1st gear. Downshifting into 1st gear is very hard to do smoothly in a hard stop.

According to test data, the Cali can reach 43 mph at 8,000 rpm in 1st gear and 67 mph at 8,000 rpm in 2nd gear. I would guess Simon's car was probably still going at around 30-35 mph when it downshifted into 1st gear. Assessment of the damage from the collision will probably give a good idea of the terminal velocity at impact. Simon also said ...

Simon says his car was too close to the stopped car for even Schumi to save so Simon may have been only 10 meters (33 feet) from the stopped car. What does that tell you? If even Schumi could not have avoided the collision would braking harder have been in time, a moment before Simon realized this? Minimum stopping distance for the Cali was tested, at least on one occasion, to show the car can stop from 60 mph in 106 feet and the test almost certainly only involved braking using the brakes, not engine-braking from the drive train.

So would we expect Simon's car to stop from 30 mph within 33 feet to avoid a collision under cold road/tire condition, even without the possible skidding caused by abrupt engine-braking downshifting from 2nd to 1st gear, on cold tires and cold asphalt?

As evident from the weather conditions I posted, if Simon was driving in Stockholm or Malmö on April 24, the conditions were clearly not compatible with the regular Summer tires of the Cali. If so, he should not have attempted the auto-downshifts under those conditions. One should never, regardless of conditions, perform such stunts behind another driver who did not give consent to potentially be put in harm's way. If you feel competent, you should instead downshift manually while braking. That will give you much better control of the pace and tire traction. By the time you downshift into 1st, the car would simply be rolling to a stop - that's the way I do it. And lastly, I think Ferrari should warn drivers not to attempt the auto downshift maneuver at high rates of speed when tire and road traction are not suitable.

 

^ Thanks for the expanded discourse, 4th! I think I better follow your argument now…T

 

I understand you loud and clear!

Something is wrong with YOUR car. (A run away issue)

YOU need to get it fixed. Glad to hear you weren't hurt. But for your safety get your car fixed.

No offense, but you obviously are not a mechanic.

So you need to find a service technician to help fix YOUR car (Lets not assume that this run away problem affect all Cali's)

 

It's good your tires were new but I'm not sure why you would release the brake pedal, even while doing the auto-downshift. Auto-downshifts are supposed to be matched with a braking effort (foot on the brake) so theoretically, if you (briefly) lift off braking while downshifting, the car may not reduce engine revs (any more) since it senses you no longer want to stop. It's a bit confusing, if you see what I mean. This is another reason why auto-downshifting needs to be done in a careful deliberate manner, or one should do manual downshifts instead and control the pace manually.

I believe by regulation, our bumpers are designed to survive 8 kph (5 mph) collisions so the actual damage seems more than one would expect. At any rate, while your car may have impacted at 5-10 kph, it was not going at 5-10 kph when it downshifted from 2nd to 1st gear, unless contrary to what I read, your car only downshifted from 2nd to 1st at the moment of impact.

As for your comment about your car being stopped, I think you meant when your car hit him a second time. Here's what you wrote...

You said the car revved when it downshifted from 2nd to 1st. The 1st gear in your car will only race (rev higher) if the engine was rev-matching in high rpm to match the speed of the car. I said the Cali will do 43 mph at 8,000 rpm. So let's say your car's engine had to rev-match at 5,000-6,000 rpm when it shifted into 1st gear. That would easily indicate your car was going between 30-35 mph.

You also said...

So your car hit the stopped car after it shifted into 1st gear while it was still moving and you were still braking. Your car then lurched forward again after the initial impact and pushed the car in front one more time.

I was hit once on the passenger door by another pickup truck driver when I was driving my old truck. She had merged into my lane without adequately checking. After I was hit, I just coasted. She then hit me a second time, now from behind. I am not sure why her truck lurched forward again but perhaps she was dazed after the collision and tried to stop her vehicle, applying the wrong pedal.

OTOH, if you are sure your foot was still only on the brake pedal then it must have been the reaction of the car. However, I think moments after a collision can be quite hazy. It's hard to say what caused your Cali to lurch a second time. Hopefully, your dealer can pull pertinent data from your car to clarify the matter.

 

Simon, what you've reported happened to you has a technical name which is "Unintended Sudden Acceleration" and if you're interested in reading about it, you'll find in the web many driver's reports with descriptions identical to yours but with other vehicles like for instance Hyundais and Toyotas just to mention a couple.

Because Unintended Sudden Acceleration in principle can be caused by an electronic defect but it leaves no visible traces in its path and unfortunately, automakers have seized upon that fact to blame the drivers and Ferrari will be no exception.

 

I always thought a car had to have more braking power than moving power. Unintended acceleration would mean a brake failure along with full power applied. Back to my younger days, power braking my muscle cars I could make the engine overcome the front and rear brakes and the car would slide forward slowly.
Hope you find the problem.

 

Let be logical. What systems or software could produce the acceleration?

Since you did not cause the double acceleration accident, attention should be directed at your old car.

DCT sensors control modules variaters throttle bodies tach and speedo sensors.

(Your brakes are perfect and so are your driving skills )

Get on it!

 

Simon, I'm sorry if I mistakenly continued to assume you were doing an aggressive braking from 60 mph to a stop sign but you did say...

As for aggressive braking, you said ...

Then when Tom suggested to you to select neutral to stop the car from accelerating, you wrote...

So at least to me, you painted a picture where your braking efforts left no room for making alternate maneuvers, even to pull back both paddles to select neutral. I hope you can see why I thought you were doing an aggressive stop, leaving no room for error.

At any rate, after reading all the above-mentioned messages I then posted in message #14 in this thread my first message on this topic where I said...

Since you did not comment on or refute my suspicion I subsequently assumed you agreed.

Most people would do the auto-downshift for the sound effects which work much better if you brake hard, triggering loud rapid downshifts. If you brake slowly, you wouldn't get the effects.

That's not true, and here's what I actually said...

At any rate, I hope you realize your accident is case in point. It wouldn't have happened if you had not done the auto-downshift braking behind a stopped car.

Again, not true. Here's what I actually wrote

In short, you can do a safe auto-downshift stop, if there are no stopped cars in front of where you are aiming to stop. Otherwise, you are unnecessarily putting at risk the safety of the driver in front.

Again, I pointed out to you that the bumpers in our cars are required by law to survive a 5 mph (8kph) collision. You claimed your collision was at 5-10 kph and said...

and you also said later

Sorry but I think you hit the other car at a higher speed than 5-10 kph. At any rate, it's not only the speed of impact but your comments about being so close to the other car when your car lurched forward in 1st gear that paints a picture of an aggressive stop.

I'm also sorry to be so blunt but your "facts" are not consistent with your claims. People on FChat tend to rigorously check the validity of newcomers who make serious claims.

Here's my suggestion: it would be better to share the details of your police report with us. It would provide a lot more details and perhaps include a diagram showing how the accident occurred. That's what police accident reports look like where I live.