Well, hello there Unintended Acceleration.

??? What the heck is "Toyota's fancy engine-kill?" Never heard of any such creature, thing, or entity.

 

OP doesn't really understand it himself. They put it on all models after the unintended acceleration debacle. Basically, if the engine is under throttle and you apply the brakes, it sets the throttle back to 0. That way, if you push the brakes and gas at the same time, it couldn't accelerate.

OP: Every vehicle I've owned has a big warning not to leave the cruise control on when not in use for this exact reason. Should've just used the brakes or turned the cruise off.

 

Maybe you only thought you turned it off. A good tap on the brakes is what I use, until I feel the engine stop pushing. Or plan B is just turn off cruise. And I notice climbing hills, Tacoma won't cruise at 70, has to push itself to 75. You probably shut it off before letting it settle.

 

This.

 

Your problem sounds like the Normal CC? Have you had CC before?

 

I don't use cruise control much. Since you didn't actually shut it off (you said the cruise light was still lit on the dash) could it be that after you get back to the speed it was set at it automatically resumes?

 

if there was a connection problem in the clockspring or switch and it activated resume, but didn't change from that problem condition, it would accelerate the truck because resume also functions as accelerate.

Not sure how exactly that would happen though. Somehow the on/off, set, resume, and cancel all control the computer with only 2 wires and the details of the system are beyond me.

 

This story goes right up there with my own truck's Gremlins.
Just driving alone and the radio starts full blast by himself. Till I realized that I was
touching the controls on the steering well.

 

Yep, it's not instant. I just don't understand why OP was afraid to tap the brakes, even if it had throttle, worst case is you turn the cruise control off with the brakes and slow down a bit till you can put your foot on the gas.

 

Why not put the truck in neutral

 

FYI, The dealership is going to do nothing. Whether or not it happened, is irrelevant. What is relevant however, is whether or not you can duplicate it on demand.

They are going to take it on a long test drive, then say they couldn't verify anything. Just be prepared.

I spent a long time working at one, and you get things like this all the time.

"every 3rd Wednesday of leap years my muffler bearing makes noise."
"yeah sure, we will take a look at it.........................could not verify, sorry."

 

The OP seems paranoid about the "unintended acceleration" myth in the first place, or he wouldn't have been afraid to tap the brakes due to "engine kill".

Cruise control can be stupid sometimes, but the cruise on my 4.0L 2nd gen Taco is significantly better than my 3rd gen 3.4L 4Runner. That thing would randomly fall 5mph below the set speed and then downshift and get to 10mph over the set speed. WTF?

 

Got it. Thanks for explaining.

 

Brake override software

 

Not-so-useful-update: dropped it off at the stealership last night. Haven't heard anything yet.

Yeah, I get that when cruise is active, the speed can vary +/-5 mph depending on incline and stuff. Except when it happened to me, I had deactivated cruise. It was not active when this occurred.

As for the salt possibility, I live in Florida (so no salt trucks), and the closest I get to any coast is still about 15 miles away.

Ok, well, this is my first Toyota after the UA shit hit the fan, so I can only go by what the sales pukes told me. I understood that the engine returns to idle (no shut-off), but one sales puke in particular indicated that if the computer senses both inputs, it not only cuts throttle but adds additional pressure to the brakes past what you would normally feel at a given pedal position. FWIW (and it's not worth all that much), I've never seen a warning like you mention. Though, I can honestly say that I've only cracked open my taco's manual once to get the correct oil weight and volume. My previous car's (Audi A4) manual was almost falling apart due to how many times I had to open it. Then again, the car was getting to that same point

Can anyone confirm this? Is this in the manual?.

I don't think so, else I would have already experienced it.

Yeah, I expect this has a good 75% chance of happening. However, there's something useful about having it documented. In fact, I couldn't reproduce the issue on the drive from work to the dealer, and it's the exact same route I take to work every morning (in reverse, duh).

Paranoid? Eh, not exactly. Do I want a vehicle that likes accelerating on its own? Hell no. It's still pretty damn new. If it had, say, 60k on the clock, ok. That's a different story. I'd be on here looking for instructions to replace my CC stalk or something. But this thing still has remnants of the stickers on the tire tread from when they were new. I paid for a vehicle with expectations that anyone else would agree with. One of those is that it won't accelerate on its own, whether caused by a wonky cruise control system or the ghosts of squirrels I may or may not have purposely driven over.

 

You really want us to believe you thought that it would be better not to tap the brakes when your trucks accelerating on it's own because you had cars behind you so you used the cruise control to do so which means it WAS ON.

When do you use the brakes then because I always have vehicles behind me when I'm driving?

Your truck has brake lights for a reason.

My guess is driver error based on other things stated in the OP.

 

Please explane "Toyota's fancy engine kill"?

 

RTFF. I don't have any problem brake-checking people - in fact, I have to do it quite often. In this instance, the vehicle behind me wasn't tailgating me, so I didn't think it'd be very nice to brake check him (since I was under the impression that the brakes would be applied stronger than normal). You know, it's called "being considerate".

See post http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/203363-well-hello-there-unintended-acceleration-2.html#post4526299 and my sales-puke-inspired misunderstanding of it which I've quoted above. (Also, fixed that for you.)

 

I use the gas pedal to speed up after cruise has been set and it returns to speed it was set on after removing foot from pedal, I use stalk to coast, I have tapped brakes to cancel, I can cancel with pwr button on stalk, I can accelerate with stalk, I have left it on after cancelling setting and drove with no issues. Good God people, what are y'all doing, lol. Maybe the automatics just can't handle all this electronic spoofery all fighting with itself for which function is in control. That'd be my guess at all this mysto shit. Who knows? Mine is 5 speed and have never had any weirdness out of cruise control, gas pedal or any unintended shit. Hell, it's a 4 banger, scary intended acceleration isn't even possible much less anything unintended. The cc in the 08 was the one in my 05. I took it out before trading the 05 in on the 08. It's been in 2 different trucks and never an issue.

That would not apply here. The Saturn has a throttle cable and a cruise actuator with another cable as you have described. Tacomas are drive by wire and all that shit happens electronically.

 

You don't have to "brake check" someone to stop the cruise control. A simple bit of light pressure can be applied to the brake for a second while your foot is still on the gas.

I just would never think to "think" in a panic situation. If my truck accelerates unintentionally I would brake, not "think" while performing an on road diagnostic of what I should do.

Just seems goofy IMO.