On 8/10/05 our 2005 3 month old 800 mile young (she's coddled) mini s, automatic was being driven at a low speed in a parking area, when it began accelerating, ultimatley to near 60mph, as it the operator had the presence of mind to steer the vehicle away from the highway and other cars in the parking lot, out into a field, they pulled their feet back to look at the pedals to see if any foreign object was against them. Luckily the car came to rest in a pond and apparently no serious physical injury was inflicted on the driver but I am not sure what the outcome will be for the car. It was submerged in a good 4.5' of water. I am curious to know of possible causes. I have seen mention on other forums of a fly-by-wire throttle arrangement that is used in the mini and the potential for that to fail and default to an open position. I have also seen another mention of an accelerator pedal sticking down and needing to be freed by the toe of the operaqtor to prevent a catastrophy. Any feedback would be very helpful and guidance about how to proceed. Any New England based examiners that can be recommended? Our fear is that if the problem was caused by a computer malfunction the data may be lost to water damage.
The dealership/salesman was cold as ice when informed and absolutely not interested in discussing the issue.

 

Ok, I'm stunned. The driver had the presence of mind to look into the footwell but not to apply the brakes and/or turn off the ignition?

Or is there a lot more to this story?

 

Oh, I am not familiar with any other position for the accelerator in my MINI. Mine goes to the floor with suprisingly little force and I have gotten pretty comfortable navigating various roadway obstructions intended to decrease speed with little or no application of that other pedal. Im not completely sure what it does but my smile seems to turn down a bit at even the slightest application

Seriously though....These things happen, they happen alot more with mechanical linkages than electronic ones. In either case there would probably be no "data" lost. The only thing any data would tell you is that the accelerator was in the wide open position, not that there was a malfunction. I could be wrong but that is my understanding of any sort of data logging system. Which the MINI my or may not have. The dealer must be cold and not discuss the issue because this is a legal matter, or no doubt will be very soon. As a one car accident this will really fall on your insurance, so your issue is probably going to be with them not MINI. They will decide based on the circumstances to immediately make it right with the customer and persue the legal action with MINI, Or decide that the circumstances are fishy and deny the claim. In almost every case they err on the side of the customer and a judge at some later date will decide who was at fault and whether the insurance company gets to recoup their costs.

 

The "more to the story" is a simply that the driver of our mini was coasting into the parking space under the car's momentum when it began to accelorate. They tried to apply the brake but got the sense the car was being agressively propelled and instinctively did a quick visual of the accelerator but time was not on their side and had no chance to turn the igition before hitting the pond. Googleing produces other reports of similar incidents. One in particular involves a driver needing to hook their toe under the pedal and pull up. It is contained in a blog and adult language is used but I have censored the relevant portion and inserted here:


"Wednesday, October 22, 2003

closet conspiracy theorist
i wouldn't say that i'm naturally a paranoid person; on the whole, i tend to be either completely blase or completely oblivious, but rarely paranoid.

that said, my mind has been given to making horrifically long leaps of faith, and today was a perfect example. i was driving along a particular stretch of road where the speed limit is thirty; i'm pretty conscientious about my driving, and i'll always try and stick to the limit, give or 5mph or so.

so, i'm driving along, and notice that i'm doing thirty-five, and going down a hill, so i tap on the brake to slow down a little. my speed drops for a fraction of a second, then i'm immediately back up to thirty-five. must be the incline in the road. i step on my brake a little harder. i slow again, but only for a second, and without my foot being on the accelerator at all, my speed immediately climbs back up to thirty-five. and i'm heading for some lights. i take my feet completely off the pedals; i'm now on a flat straight, and my mini cooper isn't slowing down. at all. it's driving itself.

so, in those few seconds, with my feet nowhere near the pedals, staring dumbly at my car's interior, wondering just what in the holy blue *** is going on, the following possibilities run through my mind:

a: there is a tragic mechanical fault with the car, and it will keep driving itself forever.
b: someone has made alterations to my car so that it cannot be stopped, in an attempt to assassinate me.
c: someone has made alterations to my car that allow them to drive it remotely, and are deriving some form of masochistic pleasure from driving me at a steady thirty-five miles per hour.

i changed down into third, the engiine constantly revving, despite the fact that my foot was still nowhere near the go pedal, and it slows down to thirty. and that's all. fortunately, having been blessed with a brilliant mind and intuitive, lightening-quick reactions, i hooked my foot underneath the accelerator and pulled up, despite the fact that it didn't appear to move at all. problem solved! and it only took me about three minutes to figure out, all the while the car not under my direct control."

If anyone is inclined to read the uncensored blog it is at the following address:

http://www.indextwo.net/2003_10_01_archives.html But as I said beware the language used.

I suppose more time would have allowed for a different response. The other incidents included on Googled pages and searches lead me to believe accelorator issues/events are not totally unknown.

 

Wow, that is an odd story. A lot of options, turn key, take out of gear, emergency brake, and hitting the brakes period on a front wheel drive car would do a lot. Too bad it's an automatic cause you could have just done a Days of Thunder, "Just push in the clutch, and let the Som B*tch Blow Cole, it's over"

Hey, how did the pedal get to the floor in the first place? Or, did the engine just go full tilt without the pedal being floored.

I'm kinda with Vader on this one, needing more to the story. BUT, we will all be interested in how this develops.

 

The "more to the story" was sent before I hit send on my last post.

What about cruise controls. If a cruise control freaked out in a car, could it possibly tell itself to speed up to the last chosen speed. Maybe not in this one example in a parking lot, but was just wondering.

 

My first thought would be that the resume speed function of the cruise control was activated.

The brakes should have disengaged the CC, but without all the details it's hard to make any sort of diagnosis on a web site.

My A4 has drive by wire, and I've never had any issue with it sticking etc (it has some non-linear spots in it, but that is most likely programmed into the system). Someone previously mentioned that manual/cable systems are probably just as likely to stick (maybe even more so).

As always, the first action should be to steer the car and avoid, the second should be to put the car in a lower gear, or neutral/ depress clutch in a manual (the rev-limiter will save the engine most likely). The third (if not at high speed) would be to turn off the engine, I say high speed because power brakes and steering would be lost with the engine off.


I'm glad that everyone was ok. After all, cars can be fixed or replaced. Although it's harder on you if it's a MINI.

 

I just had this exact problem a couple of days ago. It started with one incidence, then another, and then would not stop accelerating. It also depended on how much throttle I was using...3/4 throttle and release of the peddle would just keep accelerating at 3/4 throttle, 1/4 throttle and release would continue accelerating at 1/4 throttle. Very weird and scary, mostly concerned about my brakes and clutch, but keep your wits about you and it's not a big deal. After garaging the car in the meantime, I disconnected the battery and took it for a quick spin. No problem. We'll see tomorrow...

 

Are there any legitimate/verifiable claims of throttles sticking on R53s? It would be great to hear from some of the aftermarket gurus about this.