unintended acceleration

["Andrew D.Mendez" <AMENDEZ@xxxxxxx>]

Michiel is 100% right here. Ooh, this topic really
gets my dander up (down boy). This unintended
acceleration stuff is the biggest load of crap.
Car & Driver did a great story on it years ago. Of
course, their audience is 1/1000th that of "60
Minutes," which single-handedly trashed Audi's
reputation and sales for a decade with
irresponsible reporting that looks like it was
paid for by the plaintiffs' lawyers. Not even Fox
Mulder would believe the allegations the UA
"victims" made. 

These people always claim they were standing on
the brake, but the car kept accelerating. The
brakes are always found to be working fine after
the wreck - they just mysteriously stopped working
during the unintended acceleration. C&D stated in
their article that every auto-trans vehicle they
tested (incl. Audis) had brakes strong enough to
bring the vehicle to a dead stop at WOT; stopping
distances barely go up at all at WOT vs. having
your foot off the gas. I tested this in mom's car
& they're right. Even w/ throttle stuck wide open,
you can still stop the car efficiently w/ the
brakes.

C&D did find Audis had brake & gas pedals closer
together than any other car on the market (auto
trans). I think (only drove 1 auto-trans Bimmer
for 2 days) BMWs have them pretty close together
too (esp. versus GM cars; you need two feet to
launch one of these w/ auto trans by brake
torquing). Here we go again. . .

Andy '95 M3 
CCA