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There have been stories that the Prius will unexpectedly accelerate.

It's reported here (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/prius_acceleration.html) in www.consumeraffairs.com (http://www.consumeraffairs.com) - don't know about the credibility of that site.

Is this concern real, bogus, or up in the air?

I did not post this as a news article out of concern it may be a Prius-bashing article along the lines of Dust to Dust.

Yeah, need to add that one to my rumor lecture.

I vote False.

These things are almost always traced back to a loose floormat that the car wash guy didn't hook to the floor properly.

When I had my Mustang years ago, I had the throttle stick. Sure enough it was the floor mat catching the pedal. Scared me silly having a 5000cc engine floored in second gear against my will. A quick toe under the pedal solved the problem.

11011011

The guy that orginally posted it is a rather notorious troller and he likes www.consumeraffair.com (http://www.consumeraffair.com) - which makes me think that site may also have dubious credibility.

There is also a "bug" in the shifter. The reports mention that they "couldn't go to N". This will happen if your impatient, which they likely were with the floor mat holding their gas pedal. If you frantically jiggle the shifter from N to D to it's resting position as fast and as often as you can, nothing will happen. You have to hold the shifter in the N position for about 200 - 400 ms before it will actually shift. People new to drive-by-wire might not expect this. It's there as a precaution against bumping the shifter with your knee.

As far as consumeraffair.com goes, I think they are bascially a complaint forum. If you have a complaint you can just post it without any supporting evidience and that is how they accumulate data.

I could start posting that:
My Hummer keeps burning gas. I think it's a defect that GM needs to address

Matter of fact, think I'll go over there and give it a shot.

PS. Bury the article in digg here:
http://digg.com/hardware/Prius_sudden_acceleration_problem (then click "bury")

11011011

There are too many factors in play here. The article jumps
from talking about the "brake sag" [a normal transition
effect that some people never get the hang of] to the stuck
carpets and every tiny complaint in between. Impossible to
get the straight story in that welter of misdirection.
.
However, there's a poster on prius_technical_stuff who's
been there for a while who is now claiming that he had an
unintentional acceleration event. I'll wait and see how
the armchair debugging plays out on that one, but it was
sort of weird to see it coming from a reasonably long-time
poster who's sent decent technical content in the past.
.
_H*

It happened to me once. The car was warm. All of a sudden the car accelerated kind of slowly, but the ICE wasn't on. I thought it was possessed! Oh yeah, the battery went down when this happened. I think I should complain about this too. ;)

:confused::confused::eek::eek::(:(

Now I'm officially concerned, not for me or mine, but for Toyota. If there is actual credance behind it, this could get nasty quickly for them.

It sounds as if I stand thoroughly corrected in this matter :o

11011011

It seems like this has been mentioned for a couple of years.

I'd think Toyota would put their engineers on a death march to remedy this to avert a PR nightmare.

Hi All:

___Just like the Audi’s from years past, brakes will overcome a sudden accel event in anything. Oh, the brakes didn’t work either? Yeah, right :rolleyes:

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Oh, the brakes didn’t work either? Yeah, right :rolleyes:

___Wayne

"But the harder I pressed what I thought was the brakes, the faster the car went!"

Can't remember where I saw that, back many years in some other uncontrolled acceleration article. But... same is same.

-Gren

Looks like it was the floor mats?

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2007/09/30/064769.html

Good Luck
Andrew

Here's a good quote about the lack of randomness of these issues:

"If there were truly human error, there would be a proportional distribution across models," said Clarence Ditlow, who has spent years researching sudden acceleration as head of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. "It's very difficult to explain how some makes and models have higher numbers of complaints than others absent some flaw in the vehicle."

... "If there were truly human error, there would be a proportional distribution across models," said Clarence Ditlow, who has spent years researching sudden acceleration as head of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. "It's very difficult to explain how some makes and models have higher numbers of complaints than others absent some flaw in the vehicle."

Herd journalism and public hysteria can seriously color a random distribution.

I've triggered a 'problem' once each in my (now retired) Honda Accord and (still present) Subaru Legacy. The Accord was clearly Pilot Error, a pedal misapplication during extreme fatigue. The Legacy has a creeping floor mat that I tug back every month. I haven't heard any media reports of these models having a systematic problem. Fortunately, both were/are manual transmissions, where the clutch allows an independent and instant disconnect.

My Prius is too new to have had much probability of encountering any rare embedded problems. But if it does, at least I'll be able to compare it to first hand experience with both of these other causes.

Oh it's real. Believe me, the Prius acceleration glitch is as real as the 'sudden unexpected braking glitch' encountered when driving any automatic transmission after driving a manual transmission. Automakers are conspiring to kill automatic transmission owners, I know it!

The Prius has creeping carpet too, but not if you use the
retaining hooks under the front of the driver's seat correctly.
Aftermarket mats are still a problem.
.
_H*

My civic has creeping mats too. I just adjust them every time I get in. No problem now, but there was a little trouble at first. There's a TSB to install a hook on the floor mat. I haven't bothered.

Distribution across Other makes and Models not present?

May i please present Exhibit A - TRUETV - any of the "Wild Video" clip shows.
Not a single show goes by where someone does not run a Non Hybrid into a Bank - Gas Station - Mini Mall - or other establishment.

I can remember at least 20 of these clips over the past month or so. All non hybrids and all sited "Driver Pedal Confusion" as the result. ( some were Elderly - Some were Distracted - heck some were not even in there car ( left in D and exited )

So Is there a fundamental Flaw in the system? I do not specifically know - but from the simple sampling of silly video clip shows - it seems more likely that driver error is the cause.

Steve

Here's a good quote about the lack of randomness of these issues:

"If there were truly human error, there would be a proportional distribution across models," said Clarence Ditlow, who has spent years researching sudden acceleration as head of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. "It's very difficult to explain how some makes and models have higher numbers of complaints than others absent some flaw in the vehicle."

I seem to recall that in the '80s the Mercury Grand Marquis had a substantially higher rate of UI than the Ford Crown Vic LTD.
Same car, but the MGM had a much older average driver..........