I have a 96 RL with 168,000, and when I accelerate sometimes the pedal seems to stick when I let go of it. Sometimes I hit the break and the pedal is still down, and car is still accelerated or doesn't deccelerate. I put it in neutral while I was driving to see what what would happen, and the car revs up instead of down. Today on my way to work, I cut someone off at about 80 and the car kept accelerating or at least maintained RPM's. When I hit to brake, the car was still going and the pedal was stuck, and I could of hit the person ahead of me which is very dangerous. If it wasn't for me breaks, I'd be a goner, and I had a problem with break line leaks before so that wouldn't be to good.

It normally happens when it's below freezing temperatures, and the car hasn't warmed up enough, but today the car warmed up for at least 3 minutes and it hasn't been really below 40 these past couple of days so that kind of messes up my theory. I use dry gas, lucas fuel injector cleaner, and maintain my car pretty well. My cruise control hasn't work since I bought the car, and the brake should disable it anyway, right?

Any help or insight guys would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have the car towed to a dealer or repair shop immediately. Before you kill yourself or some one else ideally.

 

Not uncommon with many acuras. My old integra gsr had the same problem but since it was manual it wasn't as dangerous as the situation you described [depress clutch and it's fine]. 95% of the time it's due to a sticky throttle. This can be due to heavy grime build up on the throttle body unit, an improperly adjusted throttle cable, or the actual levers that the throttle uses inside the cabin need grease or get out of alignment. You can research this further using this auto forum search engine. I agree with the above poster to get it fixed asap.

 

This morning it was like 50 degrees and the car ran perfectly. It does seem to be directly related to the weather. Tonight I'm going to put WD-40 on the pedal and around the throttle, and I'll get it looked at ASAP tonight.

What search engine, the one right on top of this page next to your account and find new posts?

 

Is it sticking on the floormat? I had that happen once...woke me RIGHT UP!

 

The link I provided is designed more efficiently than the standard forum's search engine, give it a try if you want. Just type 'acura sticky throttle' or something along those lines. Try this forum's search engine as well if it works better.

 

It's been 60 degrees today and I haven't had the problem since...

I don't think it's sticking to the floormat but I will take a closer look.

I'm going to try to search engine.

 

Have you taken it to a shop yet? Why would fuck around with such a dangerous problem? If it were me I'd have had it towed the first time it happened if I couldn't find the problem myself. I certainly wouldn't drive it that way.

 

I have a back up car, 97 2.2 CL.

If I can't fix it, then I'll take it to the dealer. I don't have a lot of spare time, so I want to do some prework and research potential causes. Right now I'm down to two:

1) Dirty throttle body

2) Bad/gunked up throttle cable

Still think there is another missing factor, since cold temperature seems to be a strong variable. Any ideas?

 

If I had to guess, it'd be mostly on the cable. I'd probably just replace it as they aren't terribly expensive. The TB would have to be really dirty before it would hang open. That spring is pretty strong.

Most likely the cable is frayed inside the jacket. I've had that happen a couple times on various bikes because the cables do so much flexing.