Honda Car Forum

"Tegger" <tegger@tegger.c0m> wrote in message
news:Xns989DC45C5BB79tegger@207.14.116.130...
> Joe LaVigne <jlavigne@hits-buffalo.com> wrote in
> news:elup8l$fmu$4@news.datemas.de:
>
>
>>
>> Thanks for the info. I just responded to this guy in the other group
>> with almost the same explanation that Paul gave. I was not aware of
>> the Audi "issue"...
>>
>> I like learning new things... ;-)
>
>
>
> You're a bit younger than I am, then.
>
> In the mid-'80s, a couple of women drove over their kids while driving
> Audi
> vehicles. Of course, Audi was blamed for something called "sudden
> acceleration", which was alleged to be a defect in Audi automobiles. It
> turned out in court that these women had had their feet on the gas the
> whole time, and didn't realize it. In their panic, they were convinced
> thay
> had their feet on the brake, so simply pressed even harder on the pedal,
> turning Junior into a pancake in the process.
>
> Much investigation ensued, with various testing labs and the governments
> of
> several countries coming to the conclusion that it was entirely driver
> error and that Audi was blameless. The US NHTSA called it "pedal
> misapplication". It further came out that this "pedal misapplication"
> phenomenon was pretty much spread out among ALL automakers, with Audi cars
> not being any more prone to it than anyone else's.
>
> Audi was eventually cleared of negligence or wrongdoing, but by then the
> damage was done. Audi lost millions of dollars in sales and was in
> financial trouble for a while. It took years for them to claw their way
> back.
>
> The experience, and the threat of emormous lawsuits, was so frightening
> that all the automakers were installing brake interlocks by about 1990.
>
> During the fiasco, the TV show "60 Minutes" produced a horribly twisted,
> biased and mean-spirited program on the issue. It was essentially a smear-
> job on Audi, empty of facts or objectivity, and packed with hate. This
> episode colored many peoples' attitudes towards Audi and was a significant
> factor in lost sales. To this day I refuse to watch that left-wing,
> Naderite, Communist program.
>

It was the 'Alar' hoax that drove me away from that unprincipled show, and
from the CBS news department in general.

But the "sudden acceleration" reports continue to mount. The common thread
is that all the cars have automatic trannies and in every case the brakes do
nothing while the car rockets forward. In alt.autos.volvo a while back a
poster complained his Volvo 140 did that. We pointed out to him that the
engine is incapable of overcoming the parking brake, much less the service
brake. The unfortunate chap got his pedals confused.

I have heard of one convincing story of sudden acceleration, in late model
Volvos. They have a known problem with the throttle control module. A poster
reported he was stopped at a traffic light when the engine went to full
power and dragged the car, rear brakes locked, into the intersection. The
engine redlined when he shifted out of gear and stopped when he turned the
ignition. Continuing on, the symptoms repeated at the next traffic light but
the car behaved the rest of the trip.

Mike

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:18:15 +0000, Tegger wrote:

> Joe LaVigne <jlavigne@hits-buffalo.com> wrote in
> news:elup8l$fmu$4@news.datemas.de:
>
>
>>
>> Thanks for the info. I just responded to this guy in the other group
>> with almost the same explanation that Paul gave. I was not aware of
>> the Audi "issue"...
>>
>> I like learning new things... ;-)
>
>
>
> You're a bit younger than I am, then.

Perhaps... 35.

>
> In the mid-'80s, a couple of women drove over their kids while driving Audi
> vehicles. Of course, Audi was blamed for something called "sudden
> acceleration", which was alleged to be a defect in Audi automobiles. It
> turned out in court that these women had had their feet on the gas the
> whole time, and didn't realize it. In their panic, they were convinced thay
> had their feet on the brake, so simply pressed even harder on the pedal,
> turning Junior into a pancake in the process.

In the mid-80's, I was thoroughly enjoying my teenage years... ;-)

>
> Much investigation ensued, with various testing labs and the governments of
> several countries coming to the conclusion that it was entirely driver
> error and that Audi was blameless. The US NHTSA called it "pedal
> misapplication". It further came out that this "pedal misapplication"
> phenomenon was pretty much spread out among ALL automakers, with Audi cars
> not being any more prone to it than anyone else's.
>
> Audi was eventually cleared of negligence or wrongdoing, but by then the
> damage was done. Audi lost millions of dollars in sales and was in
> financial trouble for a while. It took years for them to claw their way
> back.
>
> The experience, and the threat of emormous lawsuits, was so frightening
> that all the automakers were installing brake interlocks by about 1990.
>
> During the fiasco, the TV show "60 Minutes" produced a horribly twisted,
> biased and mean-spirited program on the issue. It was essentially a smear-
> job on Audi, empty of facts or objectivity, and packed with hate. This
> episode colored many peoples' attitudes towards Audi and was a significant
> factor in lost sales. To this day I refuse to watch that left-wing,
> Naderite, Communist program.

I'll agree on that. There are so many examples of their slanted, and
sometimes fabricated, reporting that I just can't bear to deal with them...