Sudden Acceleration Problem and Solution
Hopefully, this page will help if your car has accelerated on its own, and especially if people do not believe that you have a legitimate mechanical problem.
I found many helpful web pages while dealing with my own problem. They are listed further below. I thank those people by adding my own research to the web. Please use this information and share it with others, especially mechanics, lawyers, and members of government. If it helps you, please let me know!
Pardon the raw appearance of this web page, but my intent is to make the information publicly available, and then to get on with my life. If you would like to jazz up the presentation, please do so and repost it on the web.
If you have further information or links that you think should be added or linked to this page, I encourage you to email me at Nessim1@comcast.net with the subject heading “Sudden Acceleration”.
I am a 30-something male owner of a 1995 Honda Accord EX with automatic transmission and cruise control. I am not a mechanic. I am not an electrician. I am not a lawyer. But I am a heavily educated college professor in an unrelated field, with a knack for doing independent research whenever a problem presents itself.
I believe that information should be freely reproduced since reproduction carries no costs. I believe that ordinary citizens should link up to patch the holes where our federal government formerly had the interests of its citizenry in mind, but now makes the error of working to protect corporate interests rather than the public interest. I believe that the Internet is and will be a primary tool for citizens interest in helping each other. I believe you should hit Print.
For the past few weeks (Oct-Nov 2003), I have had what feels
like cruise control coming on by itself.
Usually on a cold New England morning, while going about 35mph the car
will start self-accelerating. This
usually happens just after I release the gas from a fairly strong acceleration
(like after a red light turns green).
I haven't been worried because it always responds to the brake pedal,
just like cruise control. However,
my cruise control is always off, not on.
I've since read that a faulty switch could negate the on/off
distinction.
On 11/10, the weather was especially cold, and I experienced the odd surges in acceleration at 4pm as well as at 8am when it usually happens. I don’t know how or why cold would be related to this, really.
On 11/12/03, the usual occurance happened, the car self-accelerated from about 35mph upwards, but the brake pedal had to be pressed VERY very hard, and the engine revved to full throttle this time. I made a right hand turn onto a side street and I shifted to neutral, which worked but didn't stop the uncontrolled revving. I then removed the key from the ignition (while moving) in order to stop the car. Removing the key while moving is the only thing that stopped the car. I then put the gear in Park and restarted the car. It revved fully and by itself, while in park, with my foot on only the brake pedal (yes I'm sure it was the brake pedal). I turned off the engine because the rpm meter looked (and the engine sounded) ready to blow. I turned the car on and off a few times to get it to return to normal, and then I called a tow truck. Luckily there was no damage or injury.
The situation had several mechanics stumped. They could not reproduce the effect
after repeated test drives, even after letting it get cold overnight. They checked the transmission and
reported it was fine.
I did a huge amount of web
research on my own and managed to get these details to the mechanic at Honda
only by writing them in a letter.
Links to that research can be found below. The front desk employees disregarded any info I spoke to
them about and were reluctant to give my letter to the mechanic. Ultimately they did, and I’m so
glad. The mechanic at Honda said
he has never seen this problem before, but he did manage to solve it and
explain it to me.
Under the hood he showed me the
cruise control unit, and the cable that leads towards the throttle body. (If facing my engine and superimposing
a touchtone phone pad over it, the cruise control unit is at the #1). A "cam" on the throttle body
(under #2) had broken, and so the cable was not held correctly in place. He thinks that explains the throttle
changes I've been getting.
The “cam” seems to be
a small springloaded knob, that when turned opens the throttle to create
acceleration. One of the two cams
being broken meant my cruise control cable was not held in place correctly, and
the cam was not moving correctly.
The cable or cam was occasionally touching the throttle and causing the
surges in acceleration I was experienceing for several weeks. The “cam” may have broken
by being brittle in the cold.
My frightening incident of sudden
uncontrollable acceleration on 11/12 likely occurred because the loose cable
got caught in the path of the cam, preventing the cam from turning and closing
the throttle. Hence, sudden
unintended (and uncontrollable) acceleration, and the reason why it would later
rev fully while in Park.
The cheapest solution was to
disconnect the cable, so no more cruise control from me. A fair trade for my safety and the
safety of others. (The other
option was to replace the whole throttle body that the cam was on, costing
$200-300 in parts alone).
I'm told that the cruise control
unit is made by "Jideco" a subcontractor hired by Honda and other car
companies. But I don’t know
who would be at fault. Jideco
building the units to Honda specifications? Is Jideco cruise control the missing link across all the
different car brandsw that suffer sudden acceleration? Is Honda at fault? Or is the age of my car at fault (i.e.
no fault)? It is a 1995 car with
150K miles, living in New England its whole life. I would hand that question-set to a lawyer.
Even if you don’t have a cruise control unit in your car, I would suggest that you have a mechanic look for “something touching the throttle” and “the possibility of broken cams on the throttle body”.
I found an interesting discussion of sudden acceleration, particularly in Honda Accords. Go to Google.com and click “newsgroups”.
Then search for the “rec.autos.makers.honda” newsgroup. Then search for “unintended acceleration”. You may also be able to simply search the google newsgroups generally for “Honda Accord unintended acceleration”
What I found was a discussion mainly of car-fanatics that reached the same conclusions I found in other parts of the web. At least 70% of research and information efforts done by car-fans and the NHTSA itself attempts to identify the kind of person who makes a sudden acceleration complaint (rather than the kind of car). This could be interpreted as NHTSA’s attempt to protect automakers over the public (a common federal government syndrome since Reagan). Or it could be interpreted as the result of frustration in identifying a particular brand of car. Indeed it seems that sudden acceleration complaints are made about many different cars and car brands.
In any case, what most people conclude is that sudden acceleration complaints come mainly from female drivers or older drivers of either sex, from people driving less than the national average, who are not overly familiar with their vehicle, and who have an automatic transmission. The sexist and age-ist nature of these conclusions should speak for itself. It is assumed by many people (and many courts, judges nad juries) that the victim in question in fact pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake and is either too ashamed or too unknowledgeable to admit his/her mistake. This sentiment is so strong, that members of the newsgroup feel the Audi company was unfairly penalized for their self-accelerating car incidents several years back. (The fact that these Audi cars often had no drivers is apparently lost on the newsgroup posters). They may be misguided, but they also provided a very valuable clue to the analytical eye…
Most interesting is the comment about automatic transmissions. Among car fanatics, having an automatic transmission is the sign that you know little about cars, and so other assumptions follow. However, it is also true that cruise control units can only be installed on cars with automatic transmissions, yes? So seeing this led me to investigate the cruise control possibilities further.
I found most of these via Google.com search using various combinations of the following terms (the last 3 terms identify my particular car): sudden acceleration, unintended acceleration, acceleration problem(s), cruise control problem(s), Honda, Accord, 95. You might want to plug in your own vehicle instead, but little of what’s listed here seems too specific to Hondas. The theme is sudden acceleration.
http://www.safetyforum.com/sua/
General story of sudden acceleration in Chrysler Cherokees. A good starting point.
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:zGUG1_Xs3OQJ:www.rdaweb.com/jeepsa/nhtsaresponse.pdf+cruise+control+and+acceleration&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Official NHTSA reoprt showing the logical process by which a petition for defect investigation was denied. Read back to back with Antony Anderson’s analysis below.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1039054548679
National Law Journal article from Jan 7, 2003 reports that GM must pay $80 million to Constance Peters of Missouri, the victim of a sudden acceleration accident. Winning prosecution lawyer is Mark Evans of Missouri. “Peters vs. GM No. 01cv20591F (Jackson County, MO Circuit Court)”
http://www.tarorigin.com/ARNews/ARNews6-99/0191.html
Computer Science PhD explains how acceleration can occur via computer error. Points to Korean research. This is a response to two stories, found by changing the “0191” in the http address to “1263” and/or “1375”.
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.25.html
See posting “Posible Reasons for Unexpected Audi 100 Acceleration”. Points to Swedish research reproducing the cruise control to full throttle sudden acceleration effect.
http://www.antony-anderson.com/cruise/4-modes.htm (Excellent)
Engineering PhD Antony Anderson explains in detail how specific cruise control failures can result in sudden acceleration. Notes that if the switch to a cruise control unit is faulty, the on/off distinction becomes invalid, allowing the unit to affect the vehicle even while “off”. Also notes how water in the crusie control unit can conduct electricity in undesireable ways…
http://www.antony-anderson.com/cruise/5-sa.htm (Excellent)
Same Engineering PhD Antony Anderson criticizes NHTSA for narrowly defining sudden acceleration in a way that results in easy remedy for auto companies.
http://www.2carpros.com/topics/cruise.htm (Very good)
Browse questions about cruise control. Look for the question and answer about a “1991 Ford Escort Wagon 1.9L” Suggests that a bad vehicle speed sensor could cause cruise control problems like those described as sudden acceleration. Look also for the 1997 Chevy Cavlier question and answer, which points to cruise control as causing sudden acceleration from 45 to 90 mph. A 3rd question and answer in here points out that speedometers and cruise control are related. Since I did have my speedometer replaced, this caught my eye.
http://www.complaints.com/august2002/complaintoftheday.august17.1.htm
http://www.complaintcenter.com/Complaints_Auto/page4.htm#2000%20Honda:%20Sudden%20acceleration
Look for “new 200 Honda Accord” post.