scary moment

[gt-83]

the moment was yesterday after i rooted myself out of bed for a days fishing that ive been promising myself for the last two years!...its six in the morning and not a soul around, on the way to the fishery is a long straight road, so leaving the bend onto the straight i push my peddle to the floor (right to the floor), the car drops down a gear (or two,im not sure).....then at the speed limit, i lift my foot of the peddle, trouble is its stuck down, my car is continuing to accelerate, i can honestly say its the most scared i have ever been in my own car, my foot would not get underneath the peddle to lift it back up.....in a blind panic i jumped on the brakes while the car still wanted to keep going....all i could think of was to turn the key.......car now stopped and me a quivering mess, i was still shaking when i got to the fishery......the thing is i cant seem to replicate it today , by that i mean with the engine off.......ive slowly pushed the pedal, hit it hard, played with all linkages under the bonnet and it wont do it again.......having said this ever since ive owned the car there has always been a delay of a second or so from lifting the throttle to the car responding (only when i push the peddle hard).......any idea guys?......

 

[davidjpowell]

have you got any floor mats that may have got involved anywhere?

 

[gt-83]

i was going to mention that , i am 100% that the mats are not involved , i had to pull the peddle back with my hand after i had stopped

 

[whitenemesis]

Wow! Glad you're ok.

What is the recommended action in this situation? What you did worked (clearly) but is there an advised way?

 

[owensmith]

Wow that is scary it happened to me once but i was in a diesel c class manual i put my foot right down on the peddle and it would not come back up. I could get it up with my foot thou only happened once. luckly i was on the motorway in the overtaking lane! I know it didnt get caught in floor mats!

 

[Will]

Pop it into neutral and come to a halt?

Must be quite scary though nonetheless. I'd not be happy driving it until I knew exactly what had gone wrong, and knew that it could not happen again.

Hope you get it sorted and I'm glad that you escaped unhurt!

Will

 

[whitenemesis]

Pop it into neutral and come to a halt?
.......
Will

I thought that too but wouldn't the engine race? I suppose all one is concerned about is stopping, any potential engine damage pales into insignificance to what could happen

 

[gt-83]

the engine has a cut off at 4000 revs, so it would work......it all happened so quickly, that my instant reaction was to brake then kill the engine

 

[Will]

I thought that too but wouldn't the engine race? I suppose all one is concerned about is stopping, any potential engine damage pales into insignificance to what could happen

As said above - there's a maximum rev limiter in gear anyway, and in park or neutral it's set around 4000RPM in most modern MBs AFAIK.

I guess regardless of that, stopping safely would be my priority - no good having an intact engine and a bent car, or worse still. By knocking the lever into neutral you'll also have the benefit of ABS brakes and the servo assistance, plus power steering etc, no risk of key coming out and steering lock engaging either (unlikely that last part I grant you, but in a moment of panic!)

Will

 

[Niks]

A stuck pedal and a steering lock engaged = a super bad combo! Nevertheless, thats a really scary thought though and im glad nothing happened to you. In a way it sort of sits at the back of your mind the next time you go to put the pedal to the metal after you've read its happened to someone else already!

I read several cases of "runaway cars" where the accelerator pedal had become stuck in american cars. For the ones it happened to, some were lucky and some weren't.

 

[imadoofus]

I had this once, many years ago. It turned out that in the car in question, the distributor was loose, and would turn slightly, advancing the ignition, and causing the car to over rev. It felt like the accelerator pedal was stuck.

Not too frightening for me cool, because the car was a Skoda Estelle. Not mine, I hasten...

PJ

 

[SilverSaloon]

I had this once, many years ago. It turned out that in the car in question, the distributor was loose, and would turn slightly, advancing the ignition, and causing the car to over rev. It felt like the accelerator pedal was stuck.

Not too frightening for me cool, because the car was a Skoda Estelle. Not mine, I hasten...

PJ

similar thing happend to me once - my shoe lace got tangled with the acc pedal so i went to brake at some light and my foot was "stuck" to the pedal!! i left foot broke in the end and was ok but was a bit scary.

no idea on your model, but maybe check all foot mats etc for clearance and also the pedal cabling and maybe grease etc all the mechanical elements of the pedal (ie under the engine bay where the cable adjust the rods etc).

 

[ceejay]

Very scary! Similar thing happened to me once when a screw on the side of a carburettor decided to come loose and jam the throttle. I de-clutched to stop accelerating, engine revs went through the roof and there was a loud bang as the header tank went bang...

 

[normanr]

I have a Lexus GS300 and I had this happen to me and as you say it is scary,I don't know if this is significant but I hit the pedal quite hard when it happened to me so I am inclined to do it a bit more gently and it has not happened since.

How hard can you do kickdown should it not cause this if you kickdown hard?

Norman

 

[popuptoaster]

happened to me years ago in a tuned up 2 litre auto cortina as i gassed it round a bend, handling was marginal in it anyway and i was going for the sideways exit already, course full power was far more than it needed and i had to fight it round before i could turn it off as i was worried about the steering lock coming on, turned out a screw had come loose in the airfilter and dropped into the top of the carb and jammed the butterflys wide open. :S

 

[Ted]

Happenned to me twice.
Once on the Tiddington road out of Stratford in an XJS V12. Quickly turned off the ignition and coasted to a halt. This was due to a badly fitted floormat.
The other time was in a VW Passat in Coventry. Again, dipped the clutch, and turned off the ignition. That time there was a split between the heel panel and the carpet, and the pedal had got jammed in there.

Scary stuff....

 

[car1tref]

happened to me years ago in a tuned up 2 litre auto cortina as i gassed it round a bend, handling was marginal in it anyway and i was going for the sideways exit already, course full power was far more than it needed and i had to fight it round before i could turn it off as i was worried about the steering lock coming on, turned out a screw had come loose in the airfilter and dropped into the top of the carb and jammed the butterflys wide open. :S

Glad you were O.K. but it sounded really funny!!

 

[jaymanek]

Happened all the time in my W123...fortunately its not that quick and ive now perfected the art of getting my foot under the pedal..
I recently discovered it was due to the MBClub pedal mod.. this made it stick at the ends so have simply removed.

 

[lynall]

Newsflash MB Club Pedal mod kills members



Lynall

 

[popuptoaster]

Glad you were O.K. but it sounded really funny!!

looking back it was, the road i was on is on a hill and houses on the outside of the bend are quite low, upstairs windows level with the road and probably close enough to leap a car into one given a bit of speed, becuase i'd put my foot all the way down from quite a slow speed the box had dropped into first, it changed up into second half way round the bend and was pushing me along as i tried to brake when i got onto the straight bit again, i didnt want to drop it into neutral with no rev limiter and an expensive (back then it was to me anyway) modified engine in a car that actually belonged to my sister, whole episode cant have taken more than about 15 seconds but that was waaaaaay longer than i wanted.


I had a Merc W115 many years ago that had a habit of very occasionally letting the brake pedal go all the way to the floor and doing nothing to impede progress when you pressed it, only happened maybe once every couple of months but that was quite scary. lol