As I have mentioned previously in and around this forum... I bought a brand new 2005 CAMRY SE V6, two years ago. My friendly neighborhood salesman prompted me twice to ride the car and check it out first, because he said some folks were not too content with the VVT-i engine and its drive-by-wire antics.

Anyways... ever-since I have bought the car... when I drive out in 1st gear, the car behaves as if the brakes are on. It doesn't want to budge. As the speed increases... everything smooths out though. On the highway, it's well-behaved... Just the starts are bumpy and resentful. My research indicates this is a common phenomenon with other CAMRY owners too.

Recently (yesterday), I crossed the 29,999 mark and rolled onto 30K. The car gave a lurch and the RPM needle danced unusually. I was like hmmmmm! But since then, the transmission has become extremely smooth. The brakes-on feeling has totally vanished, and now things are more responsive. Even when I purposely mess with it a little, the transmission is ultra well-behaved.

So what's the problem you ask? Nothing really! But could there be a possibility of the car being programmed to chill out after 30K miles (seems to be an awfully long time for running in the engine/transmission). Is this the calm before the storm, or are things going to be just fine?

Electronically dampened break-in? Odd concept. The again, so was the concept of fuzzy logic auto trans.

My moms mazda has drive by wire and it pisses me the fuck off.
When I hit the gas I want to go, not wait a 1/2 second and then go.

Thatll teach you not to buy foreign then, huh? My dad was quite surprised when he got to drive a Caddy with a Newstar 3.6L V6 with VVT and electronic throttle.

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^ he'll be surprised when the damn thing breaks and the car is in a garage for 3 weeks and costs $500 to fix.

throttle cable ftw. Old cars ftw.

Care to make me think twice about dropping one in my Fiero by providing some failure rates? One of the guys on the Fiero boards is seriously cnsidering starting an open source project to design ECMs for GMs newest engines.

GM built the Newstar to over 1600 hp. Mmmmmm, streetable engines from hell.

Plus, I REALLY want Cadillac's diesel V6.

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Heh I don't have any failure rates. They're probably way more reliable than the old cable throttle linkage system (mine damn nearly fell off of the pedal once...) but at least with my old bangers I can fix basically anything by the side of the road if it does go wrong.

I got a workshop manual for my Avenger and I was dismayed to see that it has a printed circuitboard controlling the dials behind the dash. I can't fix a PCB with pliers! Although, it does seem like a car designed to be easy to maintain, because the dash section with the dials pops out after you undo some electrical connectors and screws. So you don't need to take the whole dashboard off if you need to replace one of the dials. A far cry from my MG - if you took off the oil pressure dial you had to clamp the pipe under the dash to stop oil pissing out all over you and your interior hehehe... a car designed so that men could own toolkits

Wow, thats cool about the oil pressure gauge.

I'll try to not derail the thread anymore, sufficing to say I would rather like a drive-by-wire throttle than an 8 foot long cable.

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I can't speak for other manufacturers, but Ford has used drive by wire on their diesel powered vehicles since 1995, and on some gasoline applications since 2004 with very low failure rates. The most common issues have been TP sensor failures.