Warning, accelerator pedal stuck !

[carl s]

Just to let other Passat owners know in case it happens to you...

Yesterday I pulled up to a roundabout, went to pull away and the accelerator pedal had almost jammed, it wouldn't open more than about 1/8th of it's travel and felt like it was going to snap !

I limped over to the other side of the roundabout and pulled into a lay-by. When I stuck my head in the footwell I pressed the accelerator by hand a few times with the engine off, there was a loud click and out popped a small stone about the size of a pea from the hinge mechanism. After that everything worked fine.

I was quite surprised how small the stone was, and how such a small stone could affect the operating of such an important component of the car !

The organ pedal type accelerator pedals that VW, and many other manufacturers are fitting these days would seem to be very susceptable to this type of problem by nature of their design. (ie; any debris on your shoes will naturally fall into the hinge mechanism by virtue of gravity!)

So be warned, it really is a good idea to wipe your feet before you get into the car, not just for the sake of your mats !

[Slimbarry]

Thanks for the heads up - I work on a building site so at greater risk..

[Perry]

BUMP

Cheers for that, very handy to know

[Roy]

I had the same thing happen today on my Passat 2.0 TDi (B6 2005.5). Problem is it's also knackered one of the two thottle position sensors.

The pedal felt as if it had jammed, I applied extra pressure (stupid I know !! but I was holding up traffic) and it made a loud snapping noise and jammed about halfway down. The car shot off and I had to drip the clutch to avoid ramming the car in front. I pulled over, engine screaming, and examined the mechanism. I found the offending stone which had caused the hinge to fracture. When I restarted the Glow plug light started flashing and I was in limp home mode for the remaing trip home (140 miles on the M5 at 60 mph !!).

I agree the design makes the pedal prone to this problem and is basically dangerous.

The DTC code is 18041

From the Ross Tech Wiki:

Sensor (G185) faulty

There are 2 sensors in the accelerator pedal, both measure the same except that they are working in opposite directions. This means one counts from 0 to 100, while the other one counts from 100 to 0.

:-(

[Quatrelle]

I was thinking about this after the first post in August last and did nothing, but your post has made me think about putting a wedge-shaped piece of very soft foam behind the pedal to stop anything going there. My drive is covered with a '10-12 mm' sharp stone......

[james_tiger_woo]

It's not fun until a tennis ball somehow ends up in your front footwell and rolls under the brake pedal - It happened to me (not in the Passat), but gave me a brown trouser moment...

[Spudrig]

It's not fun until a tennis ball somehow ends up in your front footwell and rolls under the brake pedal - It happened to me (not in the Passat), but gave me a brown trouser moment...

Lol :p

But I really shouldn't laugh at that as something similar happened to me not that long ago. I cleaned my car and when I had finished hosing it, I took it for a drive to try and get some of the excess water off it. But I came down the hill that I live on, hit the brakes and nothing happened as they were soaking wet and almost sailed on out at the junction at the bottom! The car stopped eventually but it was one of those 'brown trouser moments' as James put it :p