Gas pedal stuck while driving

[JFleming]

I was driving my Z4 the other day and had the gas pedal stick wide open. Luckily I was not in traffic and was able to stay composed enough to pull the pedal back with the tip of my shoe (while standing on the brake, steering, and panicking at the same time) The brakes did help to hold the car back enough to avoid a crash but this was a very scary thing to have happen. The worse thing in my mind is what if it had happened to my 18 year old daughter? She is not very mechanically inclined. I think there would have been a big problem.

I notified BMW-USA they were so concerned (any ever hear of a company called Toyota?) that they never even responded to my complaint.

Next I ask my dealer, they said to bring it in and they would look at it, but they never heard of it before.

I removed the pedal myself to inspect what was causing it to stick in the wide open throttle position. Here is what I found, and this could be reproduced on any BMW that uses this pedal (which is a ton of them). If the base of the pedal where it hinges, gets slid over to the right (away from the brake pedal) it will cause the angle of the rod behind the pedal to change and this change along with the odd shape of the back of the pedal and the pedal base, cause it to stick perfectly!

The thing that’s hard to believe is what BMW relies on to prevent this action. It is a small bump of plastic that fits into a slot on a plastic tab. It is nearly identical to what holds most plastic wire connector halves together.

I reinforced this connection with a small sheet metal screw (see picture below) to insure that it wont happen again. I am going to do my 328xi tonight as it uses the same cheesy pedal.

Moral of the story, you most likely will never have a problem with this but be careful not to accidentally kick at your gas pedal or you may be in for the ride of your life!

[Hawkeye]

Hmm, that's a first!