Just as an FYI, since I think people nowadays care to know:

I tested on my '09, and holding down the start/stop button while driving shuts the engine off.

 

Umm...ok? I just press (and release) my button to turn off my MINI.

 

While driving? I think the hold down shutoff is for if your MINI goes Toyota on you while driving.

 

If your MINI goes all Toyota on you, don't turn it off, shift to neutral. You can do that much quicker and, as an added benefit, your brakes and steering still keep working normally. The engine will bounce off the rev limiter, but so what? Pull safely out of the road and shut er down.

 

Much safer! And probably less wear on the engine too. But the most important thing is, MINI doesn't use the same components as Toyota. So while there is still an inherent risk of a stuck accelerator, the odds are way off what they are in an 09' Prius.

 

An intereating bit of info, if I ever wish to shut down while motoring I will hope to recall this, don't offhand know when or why this emergency might occur.

 

The mini's are drive by wire I am not sure if the toyota's are or not. Shift to neutral then pull over.

I would let mine continue to run and blow the engine if it tried to kill me, LOL

 

Btw I wasn't saying to do this or not if your mini goes Toyota.

But I will say this - if you have a Toyota, and it goes Toyota, please first just use your foot to pull it back! Why isn't this most obvious advice not being said? It's not held by magic people- it's either a corner caught on mat or the plastic sliders frictioning in their grooves!

 

What he said^

But remember, it's only happening to a very very VERY small number of people - it's not rampant thruout all Toyotadom, despite what the media wants you to believe.....

And Toyotas are drive by wire, almost everything is these days....

 

I would recommend panicking, followed by pulling out your cell phone and calling 911 and yelling "I can't stop my car", then crashing.

That seems to be the pattern followed by those involved in the Toyota acceleration incidents.

 

And remember that the MINI's have a fuel cut-off that activates if the brakes are applied while accelerating, thus no runaway cars.

 

Wrong. There have been accidents where the mats were in the trunk.

 

Two different issues here, hexmonkey.

1) Floor mats hook the accelerator.

2) Accelerator assemblies have too much stiction.....

But either could be made better simply by pulling back on the pedal as mentioned before. In one case, you could fix it completely by putting the mat in the trunk. In the other, I wonder if a bit of WD40 might be all that it really takes?

 

Unless it really is a software problem, as some claim, and the pedal has no effect.

 

I'm not sure pedal travel was the problem.

The video I saw the other day showed some sort of shim being put into the pedal assembly. I'll see if I can find the link...

EDIT: Here's a photo and a link to the story:

 

Going back to the original topic a bit, if you've stalled the car in an intersection or something, holding the button down will also restart it much more quickly. A momentary press just turns it off, and with the delay from the shutdown, seems to take much longer...

 

There are two problems:

Caught in mat -- that, you can always move the mat, pull the pedal back, etc. By the way, anybody realize something (there are videos showing how it gets stuck)?
To get it stuck by the floor mat...

You had to have been flooring the pedal just before! So, if you had enough room, probably, to floor it, I say you have enough time to yank it back.



The other problem, stuck pedals w/out mat involvements, is indeed the assembly picture shown here, also available in the NYT.


Good thing our mini pedals are hinged at the heel eh?

 

Good info....

I'll bet there's a few Camry owners that would like to know if that works...




Mark

 

Indeed. And after this Toyota fiasco, I'll bet that we won't see many more that aren't hinged from the bottom. The floor mat thing can happen to ANY pedal that's got a gap between it and the floor.

 

Absolutely.... I've got carpeted floormats but I also threw the rubber mini floormats on top of the carpeted ones. (don't ask why I just don't use one or the other???) but my point is as I slide in and out, I constantly "push" my rubber floormat up onto the gas pedal.

I assure you if my pedal was hinged at the top, I would have crammed my floormat waaaay under the pedal several times.

Mark

 

Yep, they are.

 

That's wierd.... my mini is drive by sight... couldn't find a wire to follow.



Sorry, bored already at work....


Mark

 

Interesting. I'm going to have to try that.

But can someone elaborate on this?
Is the MINI smart enough to know the difference between "accelerating" and "increasing RPM's"? Otherwise, how is heel-and-toe driving possible?

 

Heel-toe is no problem. It takes a bit of time for the car to cut-off the fuel, but it will cut it out.

 

I did have a early 07 MCa loaner that the cruise control went to full acceleration on a hill. I asked the SA about it and the CEL that was on, he told me it was software problem. No biggie just tapped the brakes and the cruise control turned off. I think the real problem with the Toyota's is software for the throttle control. The pedal getting jammed by the mat, problem is fixed by just cutting off the bottom of the pedal.