CamaroRS385hp

ok yall, i am soo f***in pissed off right now. seriously, i've never been this mad in my whole life. most of yall know that my car was in the shop to fix an overheating problem. well they removed my throttle body in order to get to the bolts that hold down the housing for the thermostat. so they put it back on, call me up, tell me my car's all ready to go.

so i leave the shop..happy that i finally have my car back again. after .3 miles, i'm going 50mph and i see a cop on the side of the road so i press the brake....oh wait, my bad, i TRY to push the break. the damn throttle is stuck wide open. so i try pulling the pedal up with my foot..no good. i try pushing the pedal down farther in hopes that it would go back to normal, but instead, the car locked in at 58mph. so now i'm going 58 in rush hour traffic while everybody around me is going 45. so i'm swerving in and out of traffic to keep from crashing. i finally get a semi-clear stretch of road and pull back on the steergin wheel as hard as i can, and push the brake down with both feet as hard as i can. this slowed the car down to 20mph in about 30 seconds. i turn into a gas station going 20mph, the car still won't stop, and i go past the parking lot and into a little dirt area. well my tires hit the dirt, and start spinning. i pull the E-brake to try to stop it, but it does nothing. i eventually turn the car off, after my rear tires had dug aoubt 8 in. trenches in the sand. (because of all the adrenaline and stuff, you don't think about what you should do, you just do whatever pops into your head) i would have turned the car off on the road when it first stuck, but i would be stuck in the middle of the road in busy traffic, (and it turned out that once i got the car stopped, it took me 5 minutes to get the throttle semi-unstuck.)

so i get out of the car, pop the hood, and check it out. the damn throttle cable is wide open. it took some decent effort to push it back closed. it took me about 5 minutes of pushing and pulling it to get it to quit sticking. even now, when i pull it down and release it, it stops halfway, then slowly closes the rest of the way.

i have never in my life been as scared (and afterwards pissed) as i was today. if the throttle had locked 15 seconds sooner, i woulda hit a red light and creamed somebody going 50mph.

i had new brakes with only 1.5K miles on them, and now they're shot to hell. oh, when i popped the hood, the coolant was close to boiling. also, 20 minutes after i had the car turned off, it was MUCH hotter than when i first stopped it..don't have a clue why.

so what i wanted to know, is what things might have been messed up by this little charade.

**(oh, i've owned my car for 381 days, and it's never had a problem like this. but then today, the throttle body gets taken off (for the first time ever) and once they put it back on, the car screws up.....so there's no way they can deny that they did something wrong when they put it back on. )

so i know for sure that i'm going to demand that they fix the sticking throttle cable, give me 4 new brakes, and i'm not sure what else yet. i know SOMETHING in the car had to f*** up because the engine was trying to spin the wheels 58mph, but because of the brakes, it was only going 20. i don't know if it's the transmission, or the rearend gears, or what, but i figure something has to be stripped pretty bad after taht. (oh, i'm not driving that car till they fix it, so it's still at the gas station). so what else probably went bad on the car? i want to go in there tommorow with some confidence, cause i'm definetly going to demand they fix whatever's wrong for free.

what pisses me off too, is i hate that place, and i only took my car there cause i had a coupon for free AC repair, which is normally $60. but now i wouldn't take my car there if they paid ME the bill (oh, i dont like them cause on my last car, i needed a new starter and 4 days and 6 starters later, it finally worked. i kept taking the car home, and it would die on me. they told me it was just unlucky that i got that many bad parts in a row...yeah ok.)

please help me out, i gotta get them to fix everthing. if they want me to pay for it, it would be anywhere from $200-$2000, depending on what messed up. but if they dont claim responsibility, i'll see them in court no way i'm gettin stuck with the bill.

oh, also, i know brakes don't touch the tires, they just slow down the axle or whatever. does the e-brake actually touch the tires? i didnt think of it till i left my car at the gas station, but if it does, i need to check my rear tires cause they could be screwed up too.

please give me input

oh yeah, and if any of yall have a pic of your throttle body, showing the throttle cable, please post them. i think my throttle cable actually looked a little weird, maybe it wasn't hooked up right.

CamaroRS385hp

i need some imput fast, i have to go down to the repair shop at 7am tommorow

AGood2.8

Its a pretty simple hook-up, not very likely that they did something wrong.

My suggestion to you is to remove the throttle cable clip from the trottle body and then activate the butterfly linkage and see if that is what is sticking or is it simply that you have a frayed cable. (The clip you need to remove is the green on in my pic below)

AGood2.8

Stuck cable or not- there is no reason why your brakes could not have stopped the car within 300ft or so. If you kept driving past that point for a while then you over heated your rotors yourself. You should have tried to stop imediately. I seriously doubt that they will give you new brakes because of that.

Ovrclck350

Why doesn't anyone ever just cut the ignition and throw it in neutral?

F585

Did they put the clamp on the rubber hose to the intake on right? That happened to me once when I was putting on my CAI and it got stuck to the throttle.

CamaroRS385hp

because if i did, i would have been stuck in the middle of the road in rush hour traffic....it took me 5 minutes to get the cable unstuck, so i'd be standing out in the road w/ the risk of getting hit for 5 minutes. i would have to fix the cable before i pulled it off the road, cause opening up the throttle at all would cause it to stick again, and i'd fly off into the woods

1991tealRSt-topGuy

then why not atleast thow it in nuetral?

Project: 85 2.8 bird

cop would've done something. screw traffic, they can go around, and besides, use your hazzsrds & pop hood when stopped. some people do have a clue & would figure somethings wrong. How sis you pay? if repairs weren't done properly, either go back & have them fix it right of stop payment for services non-rendered. if you have proof of neglegence, small claims court.

copperhead110

If you put a car in neutral that has the throttle stuck without turning off the engine, you might waste your engine. You don't want to just put it in neutral.


Sounds like your brakes were a little short of tip top shape to begin with. The brakes should be stronger than the engine. Your back brakes might not be helping.

Stay away from the shop its bad luck for you!

AGood2.8

No you guys, you don't ever want to do that. You'll over rev your motor in a heartbeat and most likely toast it while it revs high for a good bit of time until you get your hands un-full with merging out of traffic and all. Just always leave it into gear and hold down the brakes- A car with normal brakes will stop perfectly fine even if the throttle is stuck on full and you'll keep the engine speed from going through the roof that way- just get hard on the pedal and pull it over as fast as you can (leaving it ingaged in gear) then shut it down, This way you don't accidently lock the steering column by turning off the key in a panic while moving.

I had this happen to me in my girlfriend '86 Turbo Carrera years back- That was an $8000 motor (at that time) that revved real quick. G@d help me if I just threw that into neutral.

85f-bird

if he had thrown it into neautral with the cable stuck, he probalby would havae redlined the motor. I woulda said, cut the engine, put car in neutral, put ignition back to on (not start) then work my way out of traffic and onto the shouler...with the emergency flashers on. Probalby would have been the best bet, but going off of simply reactions to problems, i'd say that i'm glad that u made it out ok. Hope you get the car fixed.

AGood2.8

Too funny- Copperhead, 85bird and myself were all typing at the same time with the same answers.

CamaroRS385hp

yeah, thinking back there were better things that i could have done. but in the heat of the moment, you don't think, you just act on instinct. i think my insticts helped me out pretty good this time, because the safest move would be to get the car off the road as soon as possible, and i think i did. someone mentioned shutting the car off, then turning the key on but not starting the car and putting it in neutral and getting on the shoulder. if i had time to think, i probably would have done that.

i guess my brakes could have been better. i didn't get performance brakes, i just got stock replacements cause of my $$ at the time, but they were only 1.5-2K miles old!! i'd think that even the crappiest brakes that were that new would still stop the car.

but the shop is going to pick up my car tommorow morning and check it out. i seriously think they did something wrong when they reconnected it. i mean, i never had any problems like this until they took the throttle body off and put it back on. but something f***ed up that wouldn't have if they didn't mess with it. i see it as one of 3 things:
1)they reconnected the throttle cable wrong
2) the track that the end of the throttle cable connects to (that helps it move steadily back and forth), might have gotten dirty when they were working on it. maybe some kind of grease or something got on the track, causing the throttle cable to stick when it touched it
3)there was something wrong already with my throttle body/throttle cable that they should have seen when they were taking it off or putting it back on

either way, i really think that it was negligence of some sort on their part that caused this to happen....well hopefully tommorow afternoon i'll have an update for yall....wish me luck with the mechanic tommorow....

TomP

If you hate a place, why the hell would you go back? $60 or not, doesn't matter... common sense and all that.

Yet another good reason to do your own work.

Hopefully it wasn't just your floormat stuck "up" underneath the gas pedal. I had that happen to me once; scared the hell outta me until I thought of the floormat.

CamaroRS385hp

lol, the floormat was the first thing i thought of...right away i ripped it from under my feet to see if it was the problem, and to see if i could pull the pedal back towards me

as for the reason i took it back to the shop....i wish i had a good answer, but i don't really know. i live in georgia, so summer is deathly hot, and i figured they could fix my AC for free, and i didnt think they could screw up a thermo. swap that bad

i thought they had a tool that could take of the thermo. housing w/o removing the T.B....if i had known that they were just gonna take off the T.B., I woulda finished it myself. (i got all the way down to the thermo. housing but then got stuck) i mean, the car was at the shop for 2 days w/o them looking at it, and when they finally got arount to it, they "fixed" it in like 4 hours...hopefully they'll give my car top priority tommorow and not stick it in the back of the line

but yeah, no way in hell my car's ever goin within a 10 mile radius of that damn place again

Doward

If you want something done right....

hey wait... I said that in another thread, didn't I?

CamaroRS385hp

yeah yeah i know...live and learn i guess, shoulda gone with my gut feeling

TomP

You really might want to cut your losses and try to fix it yourself, or, bring it to another shop. I think AGood2.8 had a great idea... did you try unclipping the throttle cable from the TB, and seeing if the TB stays stuck open?

Do you have a temp gauge in your dash? I wonder if the shop maybe didn't change the t-stat at all. They might've tested your old one and put it back in.

The engine would be hotter after sitting because the coolant in the engine has nowhere to go. It just sits in the motor; and since it's not moving thru the radiator, the coolant just gets hotter and hotter.... it's for that reason, if, on a hot summer day, I pull into a parking lot and my temp gauge is near 230 degrees, I wait until the fan kicks on and brings the temp back down. I try to never turn the car off with the temp gauge that high.

Let us know how it goes!

copperhead110

Brakes: if your back brakes are drum brakes they might need adjusting. My 88 has drums on the back and they don't seem to self adjust like they should. I have to pull the drums and adjust them myself. Your description seemed to indicate the rear brakes weren't helping as much as they should. And remember that diagnosing things via the internet is very hard to do. I am guessing.

My main reason to respond was to point out what others have. Don't put it in neutral first.

I doubt that you hurt anything on the car. Your brakes might be a little unhappy if you rode them hard for long time. You might have experienced some fade when you finally tried to stop.

Before you drive away from the place you'll probably want to try full throttle w/ the engine off.

Good luck.

Ovrclck350

I didn't say just cut the engine and stop right there. If you were goin ~50 you coulda put the blinker on and tried getting as far right as you coulda.. and either coasted into a parking lot, or onto the shoulder.

1991tealRSt-topGuy

hmmmm motor or your life?

last time i checked i valued my life a hair more

Quick_Trans_Am

iTrader: (2)

Anyone think the cruise control servo or cable could be sticking at all? I wonder if that would cause this kind of problem.

9D1BURD

Funny you should say that, i had to do that last week on my way to route 66.

I gunned playing with a friend on the highway, throttle got stuck wide open.

No problem, throw it in nuetral, kill the engine(that is a very important step, or good bye engine) roll to a stop, and fix the cable.

Sorry to hear about your bad day, i doubt they will fix your brakes cause of it. You could of stopped the car by killing it.

CamaroRS385hp

well guys, i found out what went wrong. the half-assed mechanics put on the wrong damn gasket. they put on a throttle body gasket for a different car!!!! they said it looked like it would fit just as well. the mechanic test drove the car before he gave it to me yesterday, and it ran fine, but he never took it past 45mph. once it hit 50mph, the throttle cable caught on the gasket and wouldn't shut.

so some dumbasses effort to save time and money nearly killed me. yet another reason to never give them my car again.

oh, also, he said the brakes were worn, but he doesn't think it was caused by yesterday, even though i know yesterday's incident must have taken off half my brakes life, but oh well what the hell, i just want my car back at this point.

thanks for the help yall

89cmrodriver

after the throttle incident, would u want them to even touch your brakes??

ya i didnt think so

CamaroRS385hp

nah i guess not...well i wish they'd replaced the brakes, then i'd just check 'em out myself to be sure they weren't put on backwards or something....sound like something they'd be prone to do

Nixon1

Your brakes are probably fine....I doubt trying to stop the car with the throttle stuck open at like 50 mph would be too different from trying to stop a car from maybe 90 or 100....either way the pads are hitting the rotors, the shoes are hitting the drums....nothing's different, it's just taking a longer distance and more pedal to stop the car that's all. Now this might've overheated your brakes....but I doubt it would've damaged much. Except of course causing brake fade til they cooled. But if you really mashed on them you might've warped your rotors. Factory replacement rotors are, what, like $30 or something a piece? And they can be resurfaced for cheaper and in most cases salvaged anyways. No sweat.

With the engine doing higher rpms than it should, it was probably putting stress on the transmission. Same effect as doing a 'brake stand'...this is where you raise the rpms of the engine, in gear, while riding the brake to keep the car from moving. The engine is doing a certain speed...and so is the transmission...but it's not being translated to the rear wheels in movement.... But still, I honestly don't think any harm was done. For reference.. Brake stands are bad for the transmission and probably the rear end. Powerbrakes are bad for the rear brakes....and MAYBE the rear end...since the non-drivetire isn't moving...but that depends. Doubt it would hurt it.

And as far as what the shop did... Idiots.