The curse of the Laguna

[beko1987]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/13/french-driver-200kmh-car-chase

 

Brilliant, although I imagine highly terrifying if it caught you unawares. I'm surprised more bits didn't fall off it!

[Volksy]

Could he not put it in Neutral, I assume as it was 'adapted for disabled' it was an automatic?

[beko1987]

I presume you can't take the keycard out and kill the engine? I'd be tearing whatever I could apart to try and kill it! Fuses, Wires, Plugs etc!

[Bobthebeard]

What is a "speed dial" and how did it jam exactly? Odd.

Cruise control?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I wonder why he crashed into a ditch upon running out of petrol instead of just rolling to a halt?

[Bobthebeard]

I wonder why he crashed into a ditch upon running out of petrol instead of just rolling to a halt?

All sounds a bit bollocks to me! Unless North Korea/Muslims/Tesco/Findus are making Lagunas now.

[Pillock]

Sounds completely tosh! Either it's been badly translated, or the guy's an idiot. The brakes failed at the same time as the "speed dial" jammed? Every time he tried to brake, it accelerated? Perhaps they mean cruise control but anything you touch on a cruise-equipped car will turn it off - brakes, the buttons, clutch on a manual or the gearlever.

 

In his position I'd just scrape it down the armco, losing speed until it ground to a halt. In an auto, can you shift into N at speed? Is it the same effect as putting a manual into neutral, i.e. it'd just rev it's tits off?

[Bobthebeard]

Sounds completely tosh! Either it's been badly translated, or the guy's an idiot. The brakes failed at the same time as the "speed dial" jammed? Every time he tried to brake, it accelerated? Perhaps they mean cruise control but anything you touch on a cruise-equipped car will turn it off - brakes, the buttons, clutch on a manual or the gearlever.

 

In his position I'd just scrape it down the armco, losing speed until it ground to a halt. In an auto, can you shift into N at speed? Is it the same effect as putting a manual into neutral, i.e. it'd just rev it's tits off?

 

Sounds like utter tosh to me too... Although I have never owned a killer Laguna.

[Spiny Norman]

I always view these runaway car stories with a fair degree of scepticism. How is is not possible to stop a car with a jammed throttle somehow?

How common is brake failure in any half decently maintained car nowadays?

 

Can it not be taken out of gear, or put in a lower gear, or the engine switched off, or do 'OMGMODERNCARZISALLSHIT' electronics simply forbid all these things? In which case would it not be an idea to fit a kill switch that executes the driver's commands no matter how much the car thinks it's a bad idea?

 

Still, kudos to a Laguna for maintaining 125mph till the petrol ran out without going boom, which I guess would have solved the problem a lot sooner. Maybe they're not as shit as we like to think they are?

[dollywobbler]

Note that apparently it was fitted with 'disabled' controls. Might not be Renault's fault at all! I imagine that if you tried to brake while the car is accelerating, you'll just end up very swiftly with no brakes. Knocking into neutral does sound like the obvious thing to do, but perhaps it's only obviously because we drive around in old shite and always need a back-up plan...

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Since even the Renault engineer couldn't come up with a way to stop it, I'm wondering if these disability modifications are suspect.

 

What could you do in that situation?

I'd try and put it in neutral first. I've never had an auto so I don't know if they can be wrenched out of drive at 120mph.

Then try pressing the engine stop button. I don't know if that lets you turn off the engine at 120mph but why wouldn't it?

The keycards get locked in the slot while the car's moving, and pulling it would activate the steering lock anyway so best left alone.

[Spiny Norman]

Surely a car's brakes could overpower the engine, couldn't it?

When I first got the Saab and was still being confused by the pedals all being on the left hand side I'd regularly catch the brake as I went to declutch, and even those brief stabs would knock 20mph off the speed.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'd need to be in the position of trying it myself but I just can't accept that you couldn't stop a car with the brakes, even with the engine running full bore in top gear.

 

Possibly in this case there is a fault with what are presumably hand controls, but I'm still suspicious of this, and all the other cases you hear of this happening.

[Pillock]

Depends how firm you are. At 100mph+ with standard road brakes, I suspect the pads would overheat pretty quickly if you pressed lightly whilst the car was accelerating. You might have more success stamping on them to get the car stopped before the pads became too hot. He said the brakes had "failed" but quite probably due to using them over a long period, maybe even boiling the fluid?

 

My experience (at 80mph) of a pad overheating is that the friction material falls away from the backing plate, resulting in metal-on-metal and less braking action.

 

I'm also reading it like the disability mods are to blame

[trigger]

I suspect it's more to do with the disability modifications then the actual cars fault also.

 

I know I've told this story before but it seem appropriate again, years ago I collected a automatic Jaguar XJ6 from a car sales garage to have some bodywork done, As i tuned and accelerated into a country lane the car wouldn't slow down, no matter how much I stood on the brakes the it kept accelerating, I ended up doing over 60mph down this narrow village road and being only 18 or 19 and not having been driving long I was shitting myself.

 

After about 3-4 minutes but what felt like hours I had the brain wave of slipping the box into neutral, some how it jumped neutral and slipped into reverse instead and snaked the rear to a stop outside a tiny village church, I got out the car shaking, opened the bonnet and to find the garage had been using a pair of brake pipe clamps to hold the throttle open whilst working on it and had forgot to take them off, meaning as i accelerated the cable would come out but couldn't go back in again.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Scary.

 

Here's mine: Driving my dad's Laguna some years ago, accelerating onto the motorway the pedal gets stuck. I put the car in neutral and the panic was over because it was a manual and manuals are great.

[R9UKE]

Peter that happened to me in the Avantime. Went for kickdown and the pedal jammed under the mat. Shat myself to say the least.

 

I wouldn't say this is Renaults fault at all. It'll be the Chinese mobility adaptations. Wasn't there a few cases of Prius' doing this?

 

When you press the start stop button nothing happens if you're not stationary. However ten clicks in quick succession (which is Shirley what your natural panic reaction would be to do in this situation?) is supposed to overide and kill the engine when you're in motion. Never tried it under those circumstances but I can tell you it doesn't work in the middle of a dCi moment

[Barry Cade]

To me, this is the best argument ever for only even putting a fiver in your tank at a time.

[catsinthewelder]

Sounds a bit worrying whoever was at fault

 

I had a bit of a moment as a teenager, I had blagged a job as a mechanic/track marshall at an indoor go-kart circuit up in Durham. A few weeks in, I had a kart in front of me which was carded as dangerous but with no explanation so I started going over it, doing the usual weekly checks and came up with the idea that it needed a new brake cable. Asked the boss for one and was told that we'd just run out so was handed 3' of bowden cable and an electrical choc block together with brief instructions. After a bit of head scratching this was fitted and the rest of the checklist covered and it was time for a test drive.

 

I accelerated up the short straight then lifted off to brake for the first hairpin, except I didn't because the throttle pedal was jammed down due to accident damage that I hadn't seen and my new brake cable arrangement was less than satisfactory and let go with a ping of flying brass bits under the panicked pressure

 

I managed 3 laps of sideways screetching before knocking the kill switch at the start of the long straight and coming to rest in the barriers at the far end of it*.

 

*Karts have solid rear axles with no diff so only corner by skidding one or both rear wheels. This saved me on the first 3 laps by the fact that flicking the steering would skid me round any of the corners on the track bit caused the eventual prang as they won't really corner at all without power.

[Ben_L]

I've never had a throttle jam... But on this new fly by wire crap that's all the rage where there's actually no physical connection between the throttle pedal and the engine, I'm finding more and more cars are losing their engine braking predictability/feel/urgency when you remove your foot from the gas. The new Astra being the worst offender.

 

Also, now Toyota and Mercedes want to bring in digital steering which removed the connection from the wheel and steering box. Another company wants to make a digital brake pedal that can sense the urgency of the stab that's being applied so old Mother Hubbard can lock up/stir up the ABS using maximum force of her triple replaced hip...

 

I'm not convinced and I don't think it's a safe way to go. Anyone remember that Fly By Wire BMW that did this Laguna'esque trick on the A12/A14 about ten years back?

[bub2006]

Don't know if its just me but the drive by wire in our vectra c seems very unresponsive. Can weld your foot to the floor on the bypass in fourth and it don't do anything.

[Ben_L]

Don't know if its just me but the drive by wire in our vectra c seems very unresponsive. Can weld your foot to the floor on the bypass in fourth and it don't do anything.

 

That could be anything, I know Citroens of late had a sensor on the brakes so that if the car thought the brakes were on, it would restrict the throttle or some nonsense like that... Seems it'd have done this old giffer a right old turn if Renault had the same system!

[bub2006]

That's why I like my little three wheeler. Nothing to go wrong on it. If anything like that happened to the vectra I think is be stuffed though. All busy areas round here usually around half a tank always in it. It be in side of a macdonalds or home bargains before long

[theorganist]

Its frightening and it is lucky he was on an open road. I can imagine the carnage that would insue if that happened on Stourbridge Ringroad!

[HillmanImp]

The DAF had an ignition key on the dash and a seperate steering lock key.

 

 

This was because if you only had 1 key for both, if the accelerator got stuck and you could not wrench it out of gear there was no way of stopping it without turning off the ignition. By turning off the ignition, you could end up allowing the steering lock to engage which is not ideal when travelling at speed.

 

After about 3-4 minutes but what felt like hours I had the brain wave of slipping the box into neutral, some how it jumped neutral and slipped into reverse instead and snaked the rear to a stop outside a tiny village church,

 

This happended to me too in my old GT6. The spring on the accellerator pedal got stuck on the floor on Worthing seafront and my forst instinct was to simply put my foot on the brakes as hard as possible. It took about 20m of the car driving itself forward with me having both feet on the brakes until I realised I just needed to pop my foot on the clutch.....

 

I have also had it happen to my Imp where a rusty spring on the carb rusted up but I did not panic then and namaged to sort it and also in the Audi last year where the accellerator got stuck on the carpet on the A66. It initially scared me when I eased off to go round a corner and it just carried on but once aware of it I looked at it as a form of cruise control. If I wanted to slow down I just popped it into neutral and lifted the pedal manually. When I wanted to speed up again, I stuck it in gear and put the pedal to the floor where it would stay.

[Pillock]

I'm told one of the reasons the drive-by-wire loses the "feel" is that the ECU takes over how hard the throttle is released - you lift right off, the ECU feathers that signal. Why? To mask the fact that the engine mounts are as soft as cheese, and the massive flywheel will throw the engine around if you lift off suddenly. That bang you hear when you stall, if that happens when you're a bit rough on the throttle it makes the car feel cheap. Smooth cars are expensive cars