My mom owns a Honda Fit.
She says the car went ballistic and started accelerating out of control. She slammed both feet on the brake to stop it. The first occurrence was three months ago and she was able to get the car to stop. The second time, two weeks ago, it accelerated unexpectedly on a left turn and she was not able to brake it.
How many other people are having this problem? I know this was happening with Toyotas and there was an investigation on it by Chuck Schumer.
What's up with this? Very dangerous.
It has the push button start and was an automatic transmission.
Stay away from the automatic transmissions.

 

After this I am not fan of Honda. This was a serious problem with Toyota's a few years back. They referred to it as a "sticky accelerator" but that's not what was happening. The driver was not accelerating the car was doing this all by itself. On top of that the brakes didn't work. That's two problems that can be fatal.

 

How many floor mats does she have in the car?

I have NEVER heard of this from any Honda. I have been posting on this forum over a decade and not heard anything like this at all.

Also, she needs to put the car in neutral if it is accelerating without her input.

Also: details on car? Year, mileage, has it had any major repairs?

 

As Mike alluded to, check the floor mats- make sure nothing's wedged up where it could stick on the bottom of the accelerator.

 

I'll take "Things That Never Happened" for $500.

 

"What Is Honda Braking And Accelerating Issues".

 

DUN-DUN-DUN
I'm sorry, the answer we were looking for is "What Is Horseshit?" Chitown, back to you.

 

A bunch of years ago when the Audi 5000 had reported instances of sudden acceleration, someone (perhaps Consumer Reports?) did a test. They floored the gas pedal then a few seconds later stepped on the brake hard.

The brakes were more powerful than the engine and the car came to a stop reasonably quickly, even with the engine at full throttle.

 

I believe that's a standard(?) safety feature on cars - if you press the gas pedal to the floor and at the same time press hard on the brake pedal the brakes will be more powerful than the engine and the car will stop. That's designed in.

There have been a lot of cases reported of cars taking off and the drivers being unable to stop them by pressing on the brakes. Government investigations have almost never confirmed this. In many cases these were older drivers and the suspicion was that they simply got the gas and brake pedals mixed up. These incidents were never repeatable except in the floor mat cases. I do also remember that many decades ago there was a problem on some car where the gas and brake pedal were too close together and the design had to be changed. When these things get reported in the media mass hysteria tends to become a factor too.

 

^^ That.

For sure since the introduction of the GE8 in 2009 for the US market, Honda implemented a feature across their vehicle range that cuts the throttle when the service brake is depressed. So the chances of that happening are rather slim unless there was a pre-existing VSA/ABS fault, floor mats that weren't properly secured and/or some other "X" factor that we don't know about..

But out the box and everything factory without any fault codes? I'm pretty doubtful this would happen.

 

lol.. Most likely logical cause.. Or new shoes that were contacting the gas pedal.? Odd story really.

lol


Im fairly certain horses shit, so ... lol

 

Actually had two instances of "unintended acceleration" happen, so far none in the Fit.

First was with my dad driving our old Ford Scorpio, on the highway with cruise control on. Cruise control seemingly wouldn't disengage and the car kept going. If you just slammed on the brakes that would've probably stopped it but that's not really your first instinct, instead you just mash the cruise control button again, tap the brakes (which should turn it off too). Eventually he just kept the brakes applied and we stopped. Turns out to be a cruise control throttle cable was repaired with some sort of clamp by the PO, and it caught on something in the engine bay and kept the throttle open.

Second time was in my miata, happened just after leaving from home. It was the floor mat wedged under the pedal. Clutch in, mat out, no problem. Again, PO's mat had nothing to attach it to the floor for some reason.

tl;dr: unintended acceleration is caused by sketchy maintenance and carelessens.

 

The first time was when my father was driving our ancient Ford Scorpio on the interstate while using cruise control. The cruise control didn't seem to disengage, and the car remained moving. You could definitely stop it if you just stomped on the brakes, but that's not your first inclination; instead, you press the cruise control button again, then tap the brakes (which should turn it off too). We eventually came to a halt because he kept the brakes applied. It turned out that the PO had fixed a cruise control throttle cable with some sort of clamp, and it had caught on something in the engine bay and kept the throttle open.

 

"she says..."

First red flag right there. You going off of somebody's opinion that doesn't have a clue about these cars.

Great first two posts by the way. smh