Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | |||
| 06/02/2009 | 42300 | 1 | |
| The event involved driving at moderate speeds in a small city environment 25-30 mph. i had just turned from a busy street involved with construction to another busy street and needed to accelerate quickly, so i firmly pressed down the gas pedal, but instead of going faster, i heard a loud snap and the main (dark gray plastic!) pedal fell to the floor of the car, leaving me vulnerable to traffic--which politely backed off when i unexpectedly slowed down in front of them. after turning on the emergency flashers i was able to coast to a safe place on the shoulder of the road, and called for assistance. i was able, after some experimentation, to find a one inch stub of accelerator pedal over the potentiometer, which i was able to use to move the vehicle to a repair shop. the pedal, on inspection, has a factory built-in circular and two triangular holes that penetrate the shaft--the break occurred here--and two grooves beside these holes. i had to purchase a replacement accelerator assembly--same flawed design--warranty did not cover this item and it was installed 6/5/09 at a local repair shop. at my request, i obtained the entire damaged part. i have both pieces, and can photograph them if requested, or can mail them to someone for inspection. my issue is that this item's failure could have resulted in a collision if the other drivers hadn't politely slowed to allow my emergency pull-over to take place. it also is a structural weakness that could render the vehicle non-drivable at a moment's notice. the entire pedal broke off completely without any intermediate partial breakage to warn me this was coming. i believe this pedal assembly should be replaced with a redesigned pedal without the structural weakness i described above at the expense of the manufacturer. i hope they use something a bit better than plastic. *tr | |||