Posted on 07/14/2012 7:53:22 AM PDT by smokingfrog
The Toyota sudden acceleration debacle may be a thing of the past, but one U.S. Senator thinks the government investigation is worth another look. Sen. Charles E. Grassley claims the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, along with NASA, may have let what he calls a “serious issue” fall through the cracks.
In a letter sent to NHSTA administrator David Strickland, Grassley raised questions about the investigation, asking whether vehicles were tested for a very serious defect called “tin whiskers,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Tin whiskers, as described in a NASA report, are “electronically conductive, crystalline structures of tin that sometimes grow from surfaces where tin is used as a final finish.” According to Grassley, who reportedly received tips from informants, a NASA report found evidence of the whiskers in one Toyota pedal assembly, causing a short circuit. A short like that, Grassley wrote, could cause the electronic system to become vulnerable to another fault that could “theoretically lead” to unintended acceleration.
(Excerpt) Read more at wot.motortrend.com ...
Thanks ROHS and lead free solder.
i've heard of them being an issue on circuit boards, but on accelerator peddles??? 
We had similar issues on the space shuttle program as well with “tin whiskers” “growing” on circut boards for the main engine controllers. Not a good thing. And, I don’t know for sure but, do modern vehicles actually still have cables that go straight to the fuel supply? (Man am I gettin’ old or what?) ‘69 Road Runner had direct linkage to carb but do today’s cars just send a signal to a controller that sends a signal to the injector supply module or whatever? If they had a “volt” they probably wouldn’t have had this problem. Mainly because the battery would probably have crapped out before this could have happened. LOL! In addition, my scrip to motor trend just ran out.
Helping keep mankind warm for 65 years
I do not think it was coincidental that Toyota was being investigated, Obama was railing against them, at the same time he was bailing out Detroit. And then the final report where they didn’t find anything wrong with the Toyota was mentioned as an afterthought, after Toyota’s reputation was trashed.
The gas pedal has a postion sensor on it that tells the computer how far down it is pushed. I had to replace mine on my truck, and the new one is much touchier than the old one.
i'm pretty sure they are all rheostats now, but aren't the peddles rubber???
Bingo, lead-free solder strikes again.
It is my understanding that the switch to lead-free solder has made the tin whisker problem many times worse.
Aren’t “tin-whiskers” only a problem in space?
There ya go!!! EPA and do-gooders have done it again.
PUT THE LEAD BACK IN.
No, tin whiskers were first seen in telephone equipment, long before the space program started.
Solved with lead in solder, which unfortunately has been declared an environmental “problem”.
When I first read that NASA was investigating “tin whiskers” on cars, I thought it was a joke, now I understand the problem.
A sincere thank you to the auto and mechanical “geeks” who have explained the problem.
Except, now I’ll have another thing to worry along with “chemtrails.”
As a child, I played with tiny spheres of mercury (from broken thermometers) in the shadow of the pollutant belching steel mills and Standard Oil refinery in Cleveland. Our house was slathered in leaded paint and as a teen I pumped thousands of gallons of leaded gasoline working at a gas station.
No way should I have lived to be 64, LOL.
Me too! Plus, we drank from a cool garden hose on a hot day, made un-govt-inspected lemonade for our stands, had no seat belts in the early 50s’ cars, shot BB guns and ran with sharp objects in our hands. Somehow, we survived (I’m only 62) to today.
Yeah, we did all of the above....and rode in the back of many pickup trucks.
Yup. Remember “three-on-the-tree” shifters? LOL.
We always went downtown in Washington DC on the weekends so my mother could go shopping.
My dad would drop me off at the Smithsonian castle and pick me up there at 4 pm when the shopping was done. I was 12 at the time. I knew the castle like the back of my hand, and the quonset hut out back that was the air and space museum.
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