Any full throttle horror stories?

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Hell Driver
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Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by Hell Driver » 24 Feb 2010 01:12 am

All this about the Toyota throttle problems reminds me of an incident I once had in my old vario a good while back. I set off, foot to the floor (as you do when your 18 :lol:). Eased off a bit but the engine had other ideas and screamed to full throttle. Of course, when this happens, instinct is to hit the brakes which I did hard. Car stopped and engine still screaming, rear wheel(s) spinning :lol: Ignition off and end of problem. Other option would be of course to knock it into N but thats not so easy with vario when moving.
On inspection I found that the throttle cable had been routed incorrectly the day before when me and my dad had been working on the engine.

Wouldn't like to be driving a car where everything is controlled by computers. My transit has a fly by wire throttle, it's actually, very good to drive BUT when driving slowly on bumpy ground it gets terrible feedback through my foot bouncing slightly on the peddle. It's impossible to drive smoothly in 1st.
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by jtbo » 24 Feb 2010 04:43 am

Not really, had issue with moped once, but clutch + shutdown easily did cure that.

I have heard that there are some stupid devices in new cars that prevent one to shutdown car unless it is at neutral or P at auto gear version, also some auto gear versions prevent to change to neutral if there is too much RPM, I will never step into that kind of death trap that is for sure, I prefer my main power switch between seats or on dash that should cure car if it misunderstood my commands :mrgreen:
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by whiskeyonesix » 24 Feb 2010 05:00 am

Hired a Ford Scorpio Cosworth years ago when they first came out. I managed to get the accelerator pedal wedged under the carpet whilst doing 140mph racing a Vauxhall Senator up the A38 near Mansfield, it was a bit brown trousers for a moment until I knocked it out of gear :)

Not that you can do that sort of speed at all these days, the good times before speed cameras are long gone..............
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by Speedy88 » 24 Feb 2010 02:08 pm

^christ :shock: :D
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by mickt » 24 Feb 2010 07:22 pm

Hi

Yes with 1.7 340 a few years back at night on A605 in Northamptonshire which being a single carriageway road in each direction it was scary having to reach down to the floor to release the accelerator pedal upwards while still steering the car . Obviously declutching was an option but the revs and clacking noise - I thought the engine would go in pieces

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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by nvdw » 24 Feb 2010 07:35 pm

I had something like it in a Burton (one of those 2CV based polyester retro sports car thingies) which had a habit of a stuck open throttle every time I let it go to change gear. Nothing nasty really, I just tapped the throttle pedal again in order to 'reset' it, and that worked. In the end the pedal end of the throttle cable just fell off, so no unintended acceleration ensued from that point on. :lol:

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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by Chris_C » 24 Feb 2010 08:31 pm

I've had a 300 accel pedal catch on the carpet too ;)

Notice how out of all the people who've had it happen to them, non of us were either american nor toyota owners so the car's havn't been recalled :roll:
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by Speedy88 » 24 Feb 2010 08:54 pm

No doubt this story was started by a leading market contender. Propaganda works annoyingly well.
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by volvosneverdie » 24 Feb 2010 09:12 pm

Speedy88 wrote:No doubt this story was started by a leading market contender. Propaganda works annoyingly well.
I blame 300series carpet manufacturers. :D
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by jtbo » 24 Feb 2010 09:36 pm

It all started when some little less than average sheriff/cop died with family in car because his accelerator stuck, it was some 10-15 years old Toyota, he could of shut down the engine or drive off the road, if there is guardrail he could use that to slow down, however he was not very bright, also he panicked which did lower his abilities even more, so he just burned his brakes and after that waited car to accelerate to 140MPH or something like that where he lost control of car.

Nobody is also asking a question how his accelerator got stuck in first place as he was driving along on highway some 65-70MPH, why did he need to floor it there?

Probably it is just case for Darwin awards competition, situation was nowhere near impossible from what I have heard about it.

However nannying organizations have made their move, even it is not as bad in US as it is in here, they can sometimes be quite strong at making things idiot proof, like individual should never have any responsibility about actions. Maybe floor mat should been just pulled back which he did not do?

Should be really easy fix to anyone do by themselves, much worse is this more modern car fault where accelerator pedal pot goes crazy...
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by nvdw » 24 Feb 2010 10:48 pm

jtbo wrote:Probably it is just case for Darwin awards competition, situation was nowhere near impossible from what I have heard about it.
Yes, according to all the theory books there's a number of solutions to a car with a stuck open gas pedal. Having your brother in law call 911 while heading for an intersection at speed wouldn't be one of them, but for one moment, consider the situation.

1) The car wasn't his. He got the Lexus ES (a tarted up Camry) from his dealership as a loaner car for his own vehicle was in for a service. The Lexus has a starter button, no conventional key. Turning the engine off in an emergency while driving can be done by pressing it down for three seconds. I wouldn't have known. Would you?
2) The car develops an alarming problem which is initially out of your control.
3) You have your family with you, who also notice something is wrong and start to panic.

Why he needed to floor the pedal in the first place? Maybe he was accelerating up the motorway?

The first best response would have been to put the car in neutral. That is not much of a deal on a conventional automatic car, and would have made braking so much easier. But that's all 'would have' now isn't it.

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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by jtbo » 24 Feb 2010 11:08 pm

With button started cars, I would presume shutting by force should be like that, it is same with all computers, so worth a shot, imo.

I don't know if that car also prevents one to put it in neutral above certain RPM, some modern shitty cars do that too, very stupid anyway.

He still had options to slow down by driving off road, using other cars to slow down, cause car to spin does slow it down too, which of course is bit dangerous, but nothing compared to high speed sudden stop, when one fails, one gets award, many other persons could have done things differently, but that guy was not very bright, so nature took it's toll, cruel but reality.

It think that last car was made 1998, after that they have made only shit on wheels, I demand mechanical controls and especially full control to vehicle :lol:
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by Hell Driver » 24 Feb 2010 11:27 pm

At least with a key turn ignition you know where the damn thing is. Theres so many buttons in these new cars that in an unfamiliar car (and with the 3 seconds requirement) I suppose things can get out of hand very quickly. Once you start accelerating you have to concentrate on avoiding traffic etc and keeping control whilst finding the button. Even so I can't understand why he couldn't just put it into N. Maybe the car wouldn't let him?
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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by nvdw » 25 Feb 2010 12:07 am

No, as far as I know every transmission can (or at least should!) be put into neutral while driving. It's actually the preferable option, as shutting down your engine would also deactivate steering and braking servos.

As far as this officer is concerned, I wouldn't even think of nominating him for a Darwin award. Was he willfully stupid? Or was he just out of thoughts on what to do in a very tense situation?

Every jear hundreds of people die in their car after they - rather innocently - veered off a paved road into the shoulder, and crashed horribly because their first response to the situation was applying full lock steering to get the car back on the road. Once the car regains its grip, it just veers off to whatever the front wheels are pointing to - a tree, a building, a lamppost on the other side of the road. They just didn't know the right thing to do, ie keep calm, let go of the throttle and/or declutch and gently let the car roll back on the tarmac. That has nothing to do with stupidity.

You drive along on the motorway @ 80 mph when suddenly your nearside front tire goes out with a massive blow. What do you do?

As you drive on a small road @ 50 mph with both oncoming traffic and cars behind you, some geese walk into your path, only a few yards from your car. What do you do?

As you exit the motorway, your front brake circuit cuts out @ 55 mph, and you're only 150 yards, maybe less away from a queue of cars waiting for the traffic light. What do you do?

I guess you and many others could come up with all the right answers on these ones while sitting behind their desks. And still many drivers would do it wrong if it would happen in real life. In their case, that blowout tire would result in a massive accident. They would rather swerve around the animals or just hit the brakes, endangering themselves and other drivers, than hit the geese and let only their car suffer the damage. They will helplessly plow into the traffic at the end of the motorway exit while hopelessly pumping on the brake pedal with the two measly brake drums they have left, because the situation was so overwhelming, it wouldn't have come into mind that the armco is a very effective auxiliary brake in emergency cases.

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Re: Any full throttle horror stories?

Post by jtbo » 25 Feb 2010 12:45 am

It is stupidity if one crashes because veered off the road a bit, driving is not very difficult, just using brain instead of without control by emotions would save millions of lives in any activity, but no, it seems to be too hard.

Case 1 shift neutral, gently let car to come to halt, if car tries to act funny countermeasure accordingly, switching back to gear and booting if needed, but generally one blown tire will not cause big trouble. However it is not allowed to drive 80MPH, also it is bad judgement to use tires in such condition that can suddenly blow up, driving to sharp object rarely gives big boom.

Case 2 At 55Mph car travels quite many yards each second, it is better observe and prepare before geese gets so close as when geese gets so close driver can only keep car under straight line and stop to safe location to see what damage did happen.

Case 3 usually both side of car queue there is plenty of space, often in that kind of location is also guard rail, so shifting lower gear, braking with what brakes one has and if necessarily use road side objects to slow down. In old cars one can use handbrake to certain factor, but with new cars it is useless in slowing down.

In any case to even get into those situations one must be ignorant fool, observe, keep car and tires serviced, when driving think ahead, play game of what if when you drive, has saved many times my life, even when brake servo did fail when closing intersection at steep downhill.

Have had car coming from sideroad on icy road, had 50MPH speed and no chance of stopping, so ditched car between guardrail and car that did come from smaller road, cars suffered, lives saved and no need to start with Mooses in dark rainy autumn evening, when one can see no more than 50 meters, moose is black, surroundings are black, if not prepared no chance to avoid one, certainly no any chances to stop before one if it comes to road with bad timing.

When 64ton lorry comes against you from opposite direction and when you are almost next to it's front bumper some idiot from opposite directions starts to overtake that lorry, I just drove to shoulder, would not been possible if I would not played what if game, I knew instantly what to do.

One tight corner at 50MPH zone I found that behind the corner appeared two lorries side by side, distance less than 100 meters, I just drove off the road without braking as there was enough space.

Simply put, people don't think enough, they just drive and never prepare to unexpected, I have been so much on road, that there has been lot of different situations where I have found being split second from crash and only thing that separates from surviving and failing is how you think.

It is possible to get into impossible situation, however chances to that are very slim when one thinks ahead and prepares for unexpected, leaving feelings outside a car is 1st step, more than half from deaths could been avoided if driver could kept cold head and would not let emotions drive the car, this is very true especially for overtaking.

Certainly that Officer can enter Darwin Awards, he had the training to deal unexpected situations, he had training to car handling much more than any average person, he just was not sharp enough to use what he knew.

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