BMW throttle stuck and then crash at 130mph ??

[Dave P]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2080205,00.html

Why did he not turn the engine off ?

Dave P

[winfred]

he said. “I couldn’t turn off the ignition because it would have disabled the power steering and made it even more dangerous.”

whatta ****ing dumbass, i've had several runaways on test drives and it's not a big deal turn off the engine without backing the key off so far that the steering locks, power steering is only really needed in a parking lot

[Scott H]

hahaha.....the brakes held the car to 70mph for a time being......even though he should have turned the key off, you'd think he would have crashed it at 70 instead of waiting for his brakes to wear out (I assume the pads, hoses, and fluid were smoldering) and have to crash it at 135.....


he said. “I couldn’t turn off the ignition because it would have disabled the power steering and made it even more dangerous.”

whatta ****ing dumbass, i've had several runaways on test drives and it's not a big deal turn off the engine without backing the key off so far that the steering locks, power steering is only really needed in a parking lot

[winfred]

maybe he was waiting for it to run out of gas?!

[ArtemLepilov]

Interesting story - me and my roommate were driving back from a junkyard he wanted some parts for his car - he had an old E30 325E.. And our throttle cable got stuck. To stop the car he stalled it... We just didnt think of turning the key of - I even asked him... maybe you should have just turned it off.. We had a good laugh. In any case - we didnt want to get a AAA to tow us, because he ran out of tows that year/month - something... So what we did was we rigged up a wire that we had out of nowhere... some sort of a heavy gauge amp wire and connected it to the throttlebody directly. Tried it out and it it was working as a throttle cable. So basically - we drove home with a manual throttle that was held by hand and a manual transmission. It was an interesting drive home...

-Artem

[SRR2]

You can only hope that anyone this stupid keeps his genes to himself.

[Alexlind123]

I didnt know a 318 could go 135. Why didnt the police tell him to turn the engine off? He said he will never drive again, thats probably a good thing :)

[Torque]

How could he not shift it into neutral? O_o

[Dave P]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/11/ntrapped111.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/11/ixnewstop.html

Some news reports are saying 140mph. The police say in excess of 100mph.
I heard one so called expert say that if the engine had been turned of he would have lost all steering !!!! uh.
Dave P

[winfred]

probably too dumb/scared to remember to step on the brake to dissengauge the shift lock, i hate those ****ers when they screw up


How could he not shift it into neutral? O_o

[Rory525]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/11/ntrapped111.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/11/ixnewstop.html

Some news reports are saying 140mph. The police say in excess of 100mph.
I heard one so called expert say that if the engine had been turned of he would have lost all steering !!!! uh.
Dave P

No way can a 318i auto do 140mph lol what a joke

[winfred]

"while it is easy to discuss this calmly and rationally on the telephone, it would be quite another thing when you are at the wheel of a runaway car."

been there done that, last two that wanted to run away on me were a 94 540ia and a 89 300d turbo diesel mercedes, i don't really like to go into neutral especially with the engine loaded


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/11/ntrapped111.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/11/ixnewstop.html

Some news reports are saying 140mph. The police say in excess of 100mph.
I heard one so called expert say that if the engine had been turned of he would have lost all steering !!!! uh.
Dave P

[ThoreauHD]

I'm just wondering what would have happened in with a 530/540 powerplant and a turner/EATS chip. Odds are though, if you got that far, you aren't this stupid. So perhaps that's not something we'll ever read about.

Although a newb shooting off into space at 2XX MPH would be interesting to see. This guy really loved his car though. I know how he feels. I love women, but I don't really understand them. And sometimes that ignorance really bites you in the ass.

[SharkmanBMW]

"while it is easy to discuss this calmly and rationally on the telephone, it would be quite another thing when you are at the wheel of a runaway car."

been there done that, last two that wanted to run away on me were a 94 540ia and a 89 300d turbo diesel mercedes, i don't really like to go into neutral especially with the engine loaded


I popped my 540 into N by accident once at 4k rpm... BING! trans program!!!

restart and it was gone!

[Traian]

"I said to the firemen, ‘Don’t cut my car’"

Hehe, poor fellow.

[Incantation]

what a bunch of bs

[Kalevera]

It's obvious that this guy wasn't functioning very high on the intelligence scale.

Read about a similar story...probably 10 years ago...in the states. Happened in GA or SC. Guy driving a VW rabbit, took about 60 miles before the clown crashed the car, with lots of harrowing experiences along the way. There are so many ways to shut off the engine in that kind of scenario -- it only underscores the lack of mechanical aptitude of this female.

I've actually had this happen to me before, on an E39 528i/A. Came in without a working cruise control a short while after we'd replaced the engine. Found that the plastic clip on the ancilliary throttle cable had broken and I replaced it without carefully going over the main throttle cable. Took the car for a test drive and it would hang on hard acceleration, kinda freaky the first time it happened. Thankfully, there's little traffic on the country roads around here, so there wasn't much concern about plowing into something.

best, whit

[winfred]

yea but a rabbit goes like 12 miles a hour, probably took 60 miles of driving to notice the throttle was stuck


Read about a similar story...probably 10 years ago...in the states. Happened in GA or SC. Guy driving a VW rabbit, took about 60 miles before the clown crashed the car,

[Kalevera]

actually, I think it did.

Anyway, it was another case of a mouth breather behind the wheel.

best, whit

[sooty]

Just to update you guys on this, the drivers full time job?

(Try not to laugh)

HGV driver (that would be a Trucker in the States)

[Randell]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006120809,,00.html

bmw have looked at the car and found no fault... this guy can now be officially certified an idiot.

[Evan]

figures he didn't know how to bring the car to a stop... but he sure did know how to talk on his cell phone while he was "driving"

[Derek A.]

I had the throttle sick on a relativley new (1988) Porsche 911. Was running it up through the gears and when I hot third WOT - it stuck. Was moving pretty freaking fast by the time I peeled it off the floor !

[Marshy]

We discussed this on PistonHeads. Quite a lot. The conclusion? Look at the picture of the guy. Tells you /all/ you need to know.

(I'm currently driving around in a 1994 Mondeo - Mercury Sable-a-like - that's got no PS fluid in it. It's perfectly steerable.)