dlq04

Turning the car’s ignition off at 90 miles per hour is not the first thing you think of. It is what I should have done.

Coming home from Larry’s Day-in-the-garage MG meet in Fenton, I had just gone past the Ann Arbor Main Street exit on M-14 in my 1997 F-150. Plans were to take I-94 west. Those plans quickly changed. The throttle cable stuck wide open and suddenly I went from 70 mph to 90 mph+. I was slamming the brake pedal to the floor while trying to avoid crashing. I slammed on the emergency brake which helped. My mind raced as I thought I might have to crash to stop. It took me nearly three miles to stop. I put it in nuteral, the engine sounded like was going to blow; I didn’t think that would help. Standing on the brakes I pulled to the shoulder and put it in reverse long enough to come to a complete stop. Smoke and heat poured from the front rotors. Half-hour later when an MDOT truck stopped he said they were still red hot.

I had pulled over just past the M-14 on-ramp from Miller Road. The one and half hour wait for a tow truck was almost as scary. Non-stop high-speed two-lane traffic plus the entry lane traffic. I set out a red triangle road sign my son had given me. There was no safe place to leave the vehicle and experts say to stay in it.

The tow truck driver opened the hood and confirmed the throttle cable would not move. After returning home the thought of turning off the engine occured to me. According to Consumers Report test drivers in October 2022 the steering and brakes will continue to work despite conflicting claims on some discussion groups.

engifineer

Just dont accidentelly turn it to lock

Steering will work no matter what, even if the eps is not powered. May be harder to steer with assist but you can still steer it.

Brakes are the same. If you turn off the engine the brakes wont have brake boost so will be harder to depress but will still work.

Glad you got it safely off the road!

You wont find a throttle cable for an AP1 unfortunately, but I believe I saw another person on here confirm that one from an RSX or RSXS does work. Search around on here and you should be able to find that thread.

noodels

And a change of underwear needed

sam_spider

Yikes. Really glad you're alright Dave, that had to be a scary moment.

zeroptzero

Dave you've had some adventures in those MG's of yours. Glad to hear you are safe. My first instinct would have been to put it into neutral, but everyone reacts differently. Hopefully you get the gremlins worked out of it and you can enjoy many more safe miles with the car.

sam_spider

He was in his F150, not the MG.

Lainey

Scary stuff, Dave. Glad you are well. What kind of repairs with the truck need? Anything besides the throttle cable?

dlq04

Ford dealer in Ann Arbor said there are 35 cars ahead of me. They won't be able to even look at it for a week and half. I contacted two other shops in the area. The first was booked until Oct 17th and the second said I would not find any in the area that will work on anything older than 2005. Since my MG is minus a rear axle currently maybe you could loan me one of your cars since you have extras.

Joey, I did put it in neutral and it sounded like the engine would blow up. Thankfully I did not hit anything in the 3 miles it took to stop. I now know I could have and should have turned off the ignition and even if its a one in a million chance of happening I wanted to share the story for others safety.

S2KRAY

That is very scary. Glad you are of Dave. Cars can be fixed but not many people that crash at 90 mph. Thank the guy above buddy,

boltonblue

That's one of the multitude of issues that pop up with older vehicles.
Technically not really complex but really annoying.
I think I would have followed your path of neutral and gotten it to the side of he side.

I had a weird case while driving a rental jeep. It got bumped into neutral from drive.
While moving the transmission would not go back into drive until I stopped and restarted.
So we had the fun of navigating traffic on the Denver 470 loop from the left lane over to the breakdown lane while coasting.