I was sitting at a stoplight this afternoon, waiting to make a left turn, when my car tried to commit suicide.
I had my foot on the brake when I felt the car kind of lunge forward a bit. I held my foot firm on the brake, and I'm glad I did - because the engine revved up to redline and stayed there. I tried cycling through the gears, finally putting the car into neutral to keep it from going anywhere, but it wouldn't calm down and kept wanting to throw itself into oncoming traffic. I tried revving it a couple times, but that did no good. Finally, I just shut the darn thing off, waited a minute (enjoying the cacophony of people behind me honking their horns), and started it again. It sputtered a bit, then came back to life and idled at the normal speed.
I cycled through the gears again, then drove it very slowly until I got somewhere so I could put the hood up. I didn't notice any leaks underneath the car, the oil and transmission fluid were fine, and nothing seemed like it was amiss (granted, I didn't take the whole car apart to do check). I immediately took it to my Nissan dealership. They looked it over and couldn't get it to give an encore of its little show, so they sent me home.
I've driven it about forty miles since and everything seems normal. What could cause something like that? My Topaz used a throttle cable that would stick at WOT if it wasn't properly lubricated but it could be dislodged by kicking the accelerator pedal a couple times. I'm not familiar with the GA16DE or Nissan engines/transmissions at all.
The car just received a tune-up about 6,000 miles ago, and an oil change last month. It's a clean car; the only thing I've had replaced is the oil filter, the air filter, and the Brake-Shift Interlock Switch, which went bad and kept me from shifting at all...
Two pretty far out there ideas. Maybe it did get stuck, but why would it rev up. Its not like you came to the stop light WOT.
Another posibility could possibly be a major glitch in the cruise control? Its sounds pretty far out there but it might happen. who knows. Mabye the cpu sent a bad signal to the cruise control.........lol ok nevermind that sounds almost imposible. I wish i could be of more help.
Something similar happened to me before...except I was on the Expressway doing over 80. The little rubber cap fell off my throttle (or maybe cruise control---I was using cruise control) cable and kept it stuck wide open...my brakes couldn't stop the car so I turned it off....on the exit ramp....after going 80 mph....(scary).
Question though....were you stopped for a while before it happened, or did you cruise to a stop, then it happened?
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on my girlfriends hyundai it would sometimes rev all high when started or going down the road they too couldnt find anything but then they replace the throttle position sensor as a precaution I guess this happened to other people maybe this is your problem
I was at a very busy intersection, so the lights tend to be fairly long there... I'd venture to say I was stopped for a good minute or more before this happened. There were at least ten cars behind me, queued up.
I'll pull the codes later today and see if anything comes up. I didn't have the Nissan dealer do it because they're terribly high on diagnostic charges. The car is five years old, with 60,000 miles on it... but judging by your responses, I'm thinking this isn't a common occurrence. Oh well, I'm used to weird problems on my cars...
I'll post again if anything else happens or if I find something out. The cruise control thing is possible, Nostrodomus, but it is a factory unit, it was switched OFF at the time, and there haven't been any recalls on it to my knowledge. I'll call the dealership and see if any TSBs have been listed matching these symptoms, nevertheless.
this happened to me once too, but in the shop, when i snapped wot several times, the cable got stuck and looped around the bracket to hoist the engine, got out, undid it, re-adjusted the cable slack, didn't happen ever since......almost scared the crap out of me......dang i get scared a lot nowadays.........
Jmm, never happened to me but sounds like the TPS wiring or sensor. Could have been something with the cruise control also since it is vaccum operated ...could be some solenoid vaccum valve sticking.
could be 2 things. 1 the cruise control(if it was on) or 2 the throttle cable coming out of the housing and sticking like someone else mentioned. i highly doubt it is a TPS sensor. if the voltage change, it would turn the idle speed DOWN and richen the mixture and would make the car stall since the throttle plate is still closed.
check the throttle cable with the engine off!! hey, some people just forget at times! but i already assume that you wouldnt do that anyway. Just a precaution.
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That happened to my dad once when I was in the car....We were stopped at a railroad crossing and for no apparent reason, the car's RPM just shoot up to redline and stay. Eventually we had to restart it and everything was fine, just like in your case. We never took it to the dealership and probably have driven 12,000 miles after the incedent....it never happened again. Good luck though.
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