IStreefidy

I'd sue haha

phatboyc

Glad to hear your fine JiggaWATT. I also believe you should check you floor matts. What brand where they? Where they on top of the carpet one? If they’re OEM, was the hooks holding them in the proper holes?

If this would happen to me, I would first put the car in neutral and then quickly shut it down (if our cars doesn’t permit this with the start button I believe we have a problem.) Then to stop I would be pressing/pumping the brakes and gradually pressing the foot brake. In neutral the car steering will not lock. I have driven my last car with the engine off before and this maneuver is possible. I was being towed back home with cables.

On the other hand if at the same time the traffic would be too heavy or come to a stop in front of me then the neutral/brake with engine on is necessary. But you can bet that the second the car is stopped I would turn it off immediately. Even with all that excitement going it would hurt me hearing that engine freely hitting the rev limiter.

ff_

Uh, I don't know of anyone that watches their rearview mirrors for cars with their hazards on, so they can know that something isn't quite right. In this situation, by the time someone is going to notice that you have your hazards on, you're past them, and long gone.

Buds

I disagree. I am constantly aware of my surroundings. If I saw a car with its hazards on, regardless of whether that car was in front or behind me, I would be more cautious towards that car and I would assume something was wrong.

I just have one question for JiggaWatt, why do you have the all season/winter mats when you live in Houston? Much like Dallas, it snows there maybe once a year if you are lucky, and even then, it's melted the very next day. Just curious.

KKelly

Hmm, you get the skeptics no matter what you say. My first thought on your post was that you only mildly depressed the accelerator and the car went to full throttle-that isnt' the floor mats but more likely an electronic problem. If a car is drive by wire, what is to prevent a processor error from causing this?

My mom had the infamous Audi 5000 incident happen to her. No way it was driver error. I heard it happen. We had a sloped driveway, she starts the car, puts in it in reverse and the engine goes to redline. At least she missed the neighbor's house.

My old M5 was sticking not too long ago before I replaced the cable. However, it would only stick where I left it and not go to the floor on its own. With a manual transmission it is easy to avoid any issues and with a smack of the pedal I was usually able to free it up. BTW, I much prefer the direct linear feel of a cable vs. drive by wire.

STIG

That was indeed scary experience, and sorry to hear this happend to you.

But I do have a few questions for you.

1. You stated that the gas is completely depressed. But I believe all IS350's are drive by wire. So, your scenario was probably caused by the floor mat being stuck between the gas and the floor.

2. You said that you pulled over to the right shoulder and slowly stopped the car and shifted to N. Did you check the gas paddle at that time? Was it still stuck?

3. You also stated that the car was still wanting to take off even thought it was at a complete stop. But when you **** to N, if the gas was depressed, the engine should rev up to the limiter (around 5K rpm i think). Did that happen to you?

4. Last how did you finally able to stop the car? kill the engine?

I am asking you not because I dont trust you but just wanted to be prepare if that happens to me.

The best thing is take it to the dealer.

Good luck, Sir.

Bichon

He said that the pedal was stuck down. The electronics have no way of holding the pedal down.

Were you looking at her feet when it happened? This problem was analyzed by scores of engineers, and all concluded that pedal misapplication caused the problem. The normal reaction when the car is accelerating out-of-control is to jam hard on the brake; unfortunately if your brake foot is hitting the gas pedal instead, it will cause the car to redline.

The only hit Audi eventually took on this relates to the spacing of their pedals, which may have contributed to the driver error.

Threxx

While a problem with the car is possible, it's just flat out much more likely that it was your floormat that was causing the issue. I've had it happen to me in a COUPLE of cars of mine, though only moderately... it wasn't flat out floored either time - just a little bit of throttle applied when my foot was nowhere near the accelerator. I looked down and noticed my floormat was 'propped up'.

Having your OEM mats clipped down at the anchor points will help - but if you have aftermarket all-weather mats then you might want to rig up some clips for them (if they didn't come with any) and/or trim the area away that's near the accelerator pedal.

As a side note... the gas and brake pedal in my GS400 were annoying close together to the point where I would often times lightly depress the accelerator when trying to brake - this did scare me a couple of times that I was in a hurry to stop and the second or two it took me to realize that I needed to reposition my foot further to the left might have been a very bad thing if it occurred during a rare panic stop situation!

Before anyone says anything - I wear a size 10.5-11 normal width shoe, so I don't have abnormally large feet, and I had this issue with my GS more times than I can count but never once have with any other vehicle. So I really think it was a bad design.

ff_

That is sometimes done on manual transmission'ed cars to make heel-toe driving possible. Why it was on a wankermatic-equipped Lexus, I'm not sure. But since Lexus only designs perfectly engineered and precision executed machines, I'm sure there must've been a good reason why they did it that way.

Buds

Give it up already. Seriously.

Ramon

I agree... ff's cynical attitude throughout this thread as well as his flawed points of view are getting old.

Buds

Can we get a Moderator in here!? Quickly! haha

ff_

Flawed points? Please explain.

Mr. Jones

this thread needs moderation

james6290

you deff. shoulda have shifted into neutral and pulled to a shoulder then turned your car off...but good thing you didnt get hurt...