"Justin Hughes" (justinhughes54)
01/12/2015 at 17:53 • Filed to: Omgwtfbbq
3
10|
"Justin Hughes" (justinhughes54)
01/12/2015 at 17:53 • Filed to: Omgwtfbbq | 3
| 10 |
An old buddy of mine runs a shop and just sold my girlfriend a 2003 Focus he's fixed up all nice and good. She just picked it up. Ten minutes down the road, the throttle stuck open. Think Lexus, Audi 5000, etc.
Fortunately she has a clue, and got the car shut down and stopped safely. It could've been bad if there was traffic around, but she got lucky. My friend immediately deployed for roadside assistance and is thoroughly investigating the issue right now - likely a stuck throttle cable. The car's been sitting as he's been working on it for weeks. I'm sure he feels terrible about it, which is why I'm leaving his and his shop's names out of this. He's making it right.
ttyymmnn
> Justin Hughes
01/12/2015 at 17:55 |
|
What sort of work did your friend do on the car?
|
Justin Hughes
> ttyymmnn
01/12/2015 at 17:59 |
|
He's been maintaining this particular car for years under previous ownership. Most recently it's been rust repair. He replaced both rocker panels, some exhaust parts, the battery... We drove it a month ago while the bodywork was still in progress and it worked great.
505Turbeaux
> Justin Hughes
01/12/2015 at 18:00 |
|
Good on him for making it right. But leave audi 5k out of it! That wasn't the issue with them at all, it was brake pedal not having to be depressed before going into gear. Though I did have a Vanagon that stuck at wot in heavy pedestrian traffic once. Code brown!
|
ttyymmnn
> Justin Hughes
01/12/2015 at 18:04 |
|
Not casting aspersions on your friend. Just wondering if he had done any work that might have affected the throttle.
Boxer_4
> Justin Hughes
01/12/2015 at 18:12 |
|
Also check the throttle body. It seems to be a fairly common issue with these cars. Sometimes carbon buildup interferes with the movement of the butterfly valve. Another possibility is the plastic throttle body doesn't expand at the same rate as the metal butterfly valve, causing the butterfly valve to bind. That seems to be a common issue with the Duratec engines, especially in cold weather.
|
Boxer_4
> 505Turbeaux
01/12/2015 at 18:30 |
|
The Jeep XJ Cherokee and ZJ Grand Cherokee also had sudden acceleration issues, but that was attributed to the gas pedal being too close to the driver's seat centerline.
The relevant information starts on page 5:
http://www.nafe.org/assets/Journal…
|
Justin Hughes
> ttyymmnn
01/12/2015 at 18:55 |
|
The car was rusty all around, which is how it came to be in his possession. I suspect that especially through lack of recent use, the throttle cable just stuck. He lubed the heck out of it and it's working fine now.
|
Justin Hughes
> 505Turbeaux
01/12/2015 at 18:58 |
|
Unintended acceleration can happen in anything, given the wrong circumstances. It happened to my first Miata while a friend was driving it on an autocross run. We autocrossed it a lot, and we spent so much time with the gas pedal to the floor we actually cut a slit in the carpeting. The pedal got stuck under the carpet at full throttle. She managed to come to a screeching halt five feet away from a huge dumpster at the edge of the lot. I had to drive the car off the course for her, she was so shaken up.
|
Justin Hughes
> Boxer_4
01/12/2015 at 19:00 |
|
Yes, I learned all about this while researching the problem for her while she waited for my friend to get there and help. It seems to have been a sticky throttle cable, but I'll definitely clean the heck out of the throttle body if it hasn't already been done.
Transit
> Boxer_4
01/13/2015 at 09:32 |
|
If it doesn't look like carbon deposits are the problem, look for scuff marks from the plate on the throttle bore where the throttle shaft goes through. You might also feel it if you feather the accelerator pedal really carefully. Sometimes the plastic throttles were susceptible to ovaling out if they were torqued down in the wrong pattern (4.0L Rangers were the worst). Could fix it by making sure it's tightened in an "X" pattern rather than going in a circle.