Has anyone experienced a scary situation where the throttle was stuck on and would not respond to brakes.

My scenario occured whilst on the Hume Hwy outside Melbourne in my 2007 GT, I was on cruise control and approached a slow vehicle. I touched the brakes and cruise dis-engaged and the car slowed. When the right lane was free, I accelerated quickly to get in front of fast traffic in the right lane, when i backed off the throttle, i noticed the throttle stayed on. By this stage the car was travelling at 125km/hr, by pressing the brakes the car struggled to slow down, and reverted back to accelerating. I tried turning cruise off completely, no response. In my panicked state, I knocked the gear lever side ways rather than forward to get it into neutral.Then, when the road straightened, i pulled to the emergency lane and turned the ignition key back one notch. The warning lights came on, the car stopped accelerating and i was able to come to a stop. Thinking the engine stopped, i tried to re-start, but heard the starter motor make a funny noise, the motor was still running.

I turned engine off completely and re-started and proceeded carefully to see if it did it again and I avoided accelerating quickly. But this has me concerned. Why did it do this, could it happen again. I plan to take it to the dealer as soon as I can, however should I insist the throttle sensor/module be replaced. Car still has 4 month warranty!

needs new pedal.

Sounds a pretty stressful situation georgegeo. I would definitely get it checked by your dealer
Never heard of that on a 380

I've had an accelerator stick wide open - my first reaction was to "punch" the gas pedal with my foot and it the throttle went back to normal.

Turned out the carpet matt had slid forward and the pedal stuck under the edge of it! The mat was binned ASAP. :)

I've had an accelerator stick wide open - my first reaction was to "punch" the gas pedal with my foot and it the throttle went back to normal.

Turned out the carpet matt had slid forward and the pedal stuck under the edge of it! The mat was binned ASAP. :)

That's worth checking in any car with a car mat.
If the mat is of sentimental value, you could always modify the throttle pedal a bit - cut a bit off the bottom edge so it can't foul on the mat perhaps?

Just looked at the third gen accelerator pedal setup. Not likely to get caught in any mat you use, the bottom of the pedal is pretty high off the floor.
Donno about the 380, any Toyotas or VWs though. lol

Heard of simliar happening before. Computer melt down. Was sent this in a text message with an article from the paper so apologies for the crap quality.


http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab231/kif_380/55DC1E09-54FC-4D07-8F7A-6B5848E16189-507-00000049BF8C1390.jpg

Do 380s run a Cable less Throttle..?? If so i would be getting that checked first. It only takes a dodgy sensor to end it all in Seconds..

Sad so many forget about not spamming the tech sections.......sigh

Back on topic, get the car scanned as soon as you can, only 3 areas can cause this, the ECU, the Acc pedal assy or the TB which is driven electronically. Generally these ECU's will retain any error codes so hopefully a dealer may be able to get the code out of the car. This is not something I have heard of before with the 380, other cars have had similar issues and in most were the TB itself reverting to WOT due to faults in the driver motor for the throttle plate

Just an update on the problem. Mitsubishi have had the car for a week so far and have checked all systems, computers sensors, wiring etc and have not been able to find a problem. No error codes were detected within the computer system.

They have indicated that they have not heard it happening ever before. I did mention about the article in the cars guide, but someone mentioned to me that either way the manufacturer/dealer would be reluctant to admit to this due to liability or possible recall issues.

I did ask whether as a precaution they should replace a particular part, hoewever their view is, which part! They have done all the necessary checks and tried to replicate the problem but unable to find a fault.

Now I am left wondering whether it will happen again and what to do next. Thanks for your feed back guys.

JI did ask whether as a precaution they should replace a particular part, hoewever their view is, which part!


Exactly. The dealer mechanics rely on information from the electronics of the car, they are not about to replace random bits in the hope of fixing an unidentified problem (Unlike some people).

Puts you in a bind though, waiting anxiously to cope with the problem should it re occur.