A few weeks back I documented the strange double standard that exists in the mainstream (and much of the online) media’s treatment of the major (and unprecedented) recall of Toyota vehicles for a variety of accelerator/braking issues. Why, I asked, does Toyota get the rubber hose treatment when its cars have a problem, but Ford has a lengthy series of recalls involving far more vehicles that spontaneously burst into flames and we hear nary a peep?

Well, as time has gone on, the media circus only got worse, and a funny thing began to happen: as the media published breathless, nearly hysterical story after story, they came out less and less credible. Because, you see, they weren’t doing their jobs. Not even close.

Let’s start with the case of Professor Gilbert, the expert witness who testified before Congress about being able to induce artificial acceleration in Toyotas, immediately after he got 15 minutes of fame by appearing on ABC news in a rigged-up Avalon. While it made for very good television, and the testimony before Congress seems alarming, oddly little attention was paid to the METHOD Gilbert used to make the cars go wonky:

He sabotaged them.

As reported on Friday, Toyota went to an independent testing firm called Exponent to attempt to replicate the results from the Gilbert study. Dr. Shukri J. Souri of Exponent acknowledged that Gilbert did indeed create a scenario that produced what looked like a valid accelerator pedal signal to the electronic engine management system. But before demonstrating how the test was performed, Souri explained how the pedal sensor wiring works and showed how the connector is constructed. As we expected, Gilbert’s testing methods and ABC News’ report are very much in question.

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The Toyota’s normal pedal sensor configuration consists of two independent sensors that produce voltages in different ranges, and there should always be a correlation between the voltages. One of the ways a fault in the sensor system can be detected is if the signals does not rise or fall in the correct relationship.

The wires in the connector are in-line, and Souri’s team actually sectioned a connector to show all the insulation between the six wires. Gilbert’s setup required breaching three of the six wires, attaching a 200 ohm resistor between two of them and then shorting the third line with full power to the resistance circuit.

This methodology provides a voltage input to the two circuits. The presence of the 200 ohm resistor ensures that the relationship between the two signals remains within the parameters the ECU is expecting. If there is more or less resistance, the relationship between the two signals will not be maintained and a fault should be detected.

Gilbert put a *foreign part* into the car to cause it to malfunction. To be more specific, he opened up the control system, stripped three wires, then shorted them together with a 200 ohm resistor to cause it to malfunction. 200 ohm resistors don’t grow on trees, and they certainly don’t place themselves inside your car without your knowledge. What Gilbert did bears no relation whatsoever to real world situations — it’s more akin to when the mob blows up your car by attaching a bomb to the starter.

I asked a friend of mine, currently studying electrical engineering in college, about Gilbert’s work. He stated, after he got done laughing, that while it was theoretically possible for a resistance of precisely 200 ohms to be introduced into the circuit, he’d be hard-pressed to think of how, in the real world. He explained that, maybe if the three wires were frayed AND shorted AND the control system was flooded with mud or salt water that was in just the right proportions to create an extra 200 ohms, MAYBE it could happen. But realistically? Not a bloody chance.

In fact, this dual sensor design isn’t a Toyota idiosyncrasy, it’s an industry standard (though different automakers use different resistances). Toyota’s hired testers Exponent, in fact, were able to rig a number of its competitors cars to do the same thing, using Gilbert’s method:

During the webcast, Toyota and Exponent demonstrated the same scenario on a Ford Fusion, BMW 325i and Subaru Legacy (they also had a host of other vehicles on hand) and each vehicle replicated the racing engine condition without signaling a fault code, although each one required a different resistance value. Like pretty much every modern vehicle available, these vehicles use a similar type of gas pedal architecture.

Toyota is also angry, as documented in their letter complaining to ABC News, that no mention was made of Gilbert’s work for an anti-Toyota litigant; Toyota says that Gilbert is, in fact, a hired gun, and that he was on commission by anti-Toyota lawyers to do this, ahem, ‘testing’. Oopsie. That probably should have come up.

It’s not in his prepared Congressional testimony either, which seems like something of an oversight.

More glaring, not to mention bizarre, was that even with their rigged, distorted story, ABC felt the need to go one step further. The footage they had shot with Dr. Gilbert in the car wasn’t exciting enough; so they rigged that too:

It’s also pointed out in Toyota’s four-page letter, which you can see in its entirety below, that ABC News faked at least one shot of a tachometer shooting from 1,000 to 6,200 RPM, insinuating that the vehicle was speeding out of control with Brian Ross behind the wheel when it was actually sitting in a parking lot with the transmission firmly in Park.

Ouch. Here’s what I don’t understand, though: Gilbert hacked the car. He could have made it do whatever he wanted; they could have gotten that shot ‘legitimately’. Sure, it’s on the level of movie special effects, but they didn’t have to resort to Final Cut Pro trickery. The only thing I can think of is laziness; that, or Brian Ross was too chickenshit to ride in a car accelerating that fast.

Way to put the story first, Brian.

CBS wasn’t content to let ABC ride the Toyota-bashing gravy train alone, however, so when they saw their chance to hop on the bandwagon they took it; fact-checking be damned.

Leading the Monday, March 9th CBS Evening News with Katie Couric was a chilling story: Just hours earlier Jim Sikes, a California Realtor, had lost control of his Toyota Prius, accelerating at times to 94 mph – even while, he claimed, he was standing on the brake pedal with both feet. But in this original story CBS reported that a California Highway Patrol officer put his car in front of the Prius, using the brakes on his larger and more powerful Ford Crown Vic to stop the Prius and save Sikes’ life.

That story was still running on CBS through its Up to the Minute news broadcast with Michelle Geilan at 4 a.m. the next morning. Only by then there was a serious problem with what they were reporting. Now CBS had aerial video of the stopped Prius behind the police cruiser. And, although the cruiser had reportedly gotten in front of Sikes’ car and physically stopped it, the video showed no evidence of that interaction whatsoever on the front bumper of the Prius. No damage, not even a scratch.

Oops again. Seems like they might have asked the cops about the incident, or checked out the police car themselves, or waited to see that helicopter footage, before running a major scare story on the national news, doesn’t it?

Guess not. But wait, it gets better:

Moreover, the evidence didn’t bear out Sikes’ story when his car’s braking system was examined. No, the wear patterns showed that only moderate braking had been applied intermittently. The damage that would have been done had both of his feet been “firmly planted on the brake pedal in an attempt to stop his car” was nowhere to be found.

He also claimed he reached down to pull the gas pedal up, but that is physically impossible to do and keep one’s eyes on the road. Not to mention the fact he said he was afraid to put the car into neutral because it “might flip.”

Wowser, right? So not only did the police not have to stop his car with theirs, he didn’t slam on the brakes either. Seems like CBS got the story completely wrong. But this seems a little fishy, I wonder if there’s more to it… And say, could we get another major network to utterly betray their journalistic standards on this one too, while we’re at it?

What did NBC report?

During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC’s report, Sikes “did everything he could to try to slow down that Prius.” Others said, “Radio traffic indicated the driver was unable to turn off the engine or shift the car into neutral.”

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Well, the patrol car didn’t slow down the Prius; the bumpers never touched. The officers used a loudspeaker to tell Sikes to use the brakes and emergency brake together. He did; the car slowed to about 55 mph. Sikes turned off the engine and coasted to a halt. He stopped the car on his own.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the transmission or the Prius engine button either.

Over a 23-minute period the 911 dispatcher repeatedly pleaded with Sikes to shift into neutral. He simply refused and then essentially stopped talking to her except to say that he thought he could smell his brakes burning.

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The dispatcher also pleaded with him repeatedly to hit the ignition button. Again, he says he was simply afraid to.

Ahh, 911 calls. Boon to actual journalists and William Shatner alike. I wonder why NBC and CBS couldn’t wait to listen to them before running off at the mouth?

Why indeed. So now we know that CBS and NBC decided to join ABC in the fake news fraternity.

An actual federal investigation was conducted, and more evidence piled up against Mr. Sikes and his, ahem, claims:

A federal safety investigation of the Toyota Prius that was involved in a dramatic incident on a California highway last week found a particular pattern of wear on the car’s brakes that raises questions about the driver’s version of the event, three people familiar with the investigation told the Wall Street Journal.

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During and after the incident, Sikes said he was using heavy pressure on his brake pedal at high speeds.

But the investigation of the vehicle, carried out jointly by safety officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Toyota engineers, didn’t find signs the brakes had been applied at full force at high speeds over a sustained period of time, the three people familiar with the investigation said.

The brakes were discolored and showed wear, but the pattern of friction suggested the driver had intermittently applied moderate pressure on the brakes, these people said, adding the investigation didn’t find indicators of the heavy pressure described by Sikes.

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The report says that, according to Toyota’s “residential Hybrid expert,” the Prius is designed to shut down if the brakes are applied while the gas pedal is pressed to the floor. If it doesn’t, the engine would “completely seize.”

My friend confirms and elaborates on that last point:

also the prius does have a shutdown in the controls. if it sees hard braking during requested acceleration for more than about 3 sec, it shits the bed and shuts off the engine and motors

‘Shits the bed’ is probably not the way Toyota would put it when speaking to Congress, but I think you get the drift.

So why did Sikes do it? Well, as it turns out, he had 700,000 very good reasons:

Sleuth work at the Web sites Jalopnik.com and Gawker.com reveals that Sikes and his wife Patty in 2008 filed for bankruptcy and are over $700,000 in debt. Among their creditors is Toyota Financial Services for a lease on a 2008 Toyota Prius, with value at time of bankruptcy of $20,494. The Jalopnik Web site shows a copy of Toyota’s secured claims form, though when Jalopnik questioned Sikes by e-mail he denied being behind on his Prius payments.

Damn, Katie, that has to sting.

So, to recap: an expert Toyota alleges is a hired gun for anti-Toyota litigation goes to Congress and tells them a harrowing tale of how he can hack cars to behave oddly. To be fair to Gilbert, his testimony does make it clear that he was introducing abnormal resistances to the car’s circuitry, though he conveniently leaves out that he did so in such an elaborate and obviously unrealistic manner. ABC was eager to get in on that so immediately before he testified they went out to see his dog and pony show with a heavily hacked car. Only the footage wasn’t jazzy enough, so they faked a better shot.

CBS and NBC didn’t want to be left behind so they both mortgaged their credibility to the hilt to get in early on what turned out to be a ridiculously obvious hoax by a man in desperate need of money. In order to do so they both scrupulously avoided looking at the actual evidence or investigating the case themselves, until after Katie Couric had the chance to blather about it on the nightly news.

But why? Why does the mainstream press want this Toyota story so badly that, in the absence of evidence, they make it true themselves? What’s the motivation?

Perhaps a clue can be found in another Toyota story that has been relentlessly promoted over the past month and seems a little, shall we say, fact-lite: namely, tha Toyota resale values are plummeting in the wake of these engineering scandals.

Other news outlets, citing sources such as the Kelley Blue Book or the Automotive Lease Guide, keep saying that Toyota’s vaunted resale values are plummeting in the market. In case you’re not familiar with how this works, to dealers KBB is not the most respected source for resale values of automobiles, but ALG is. The problem with saying that these media events are slashing Toyota resale values is the fact that they haven’t been compared to the resale values of any comparable model made by another manufacturer.

Let’s do that.

The National Auto Research Black Book is the publication that most dealers use when bidding on a customer’s trade-in. In the Black Book, which derives automobile values from researching recent auctions in local markets, we find that a used Toyota Camry CE has fallen in value by $550 since its January 11th book. But during the same period the Honda Accord LX has fallen by $200. So, if the Camry and Accord have both gone down in value, why report only about Toyota’s drop?

Hmm. Interesting. So they also want THIS story to be true, namely, that Toyota’s taken a hit from their courageous reporting.

I’m not going to go out on a limb and try to deduce the cause of their now patently obvious anti-Toyota bias. Maybe it’s sensationalism. Maybe the fact that Toyota normally doesn’t have screwups like these made the story more interesting, made it front page news. Maybe it’s a nationalism thing, a chance for the so-called liberal media to stand up and yell, ‘America, FUCK YEAH!’. Perhaps they need to feel important, and the damage they think they’ve done to Toyota is reason enough… or maybe Toyota hasn’t been putting enough ads on the major networks.

Regardless of their motivations, it’s now abundantly clear, you simply cannot trust the MSM’s reporting on Toyota. That’s a shame, because they are imperfect, like all corporations, and they do make mistakes. You just can’t trust most of the American press to report on them accurately.