http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/this-guys-car-got-stuck-at-125mph-for-an-hour/273140/
I would have very carefully turned the key from "ON" to "ACC" at some point...
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/this-guys-car-got-stuck-at-125mph-for-an-hour/273140/
I would have very carefully turned the key from "ON" to "ACC" at some point...
I'm pretty sure that at some point within that hour that had to have occurred to someone and it didn't work.
i don't like the way they ended the story... kind of has a little bit of a "slant" to it..
the last line of the story said: The man and his vehicle and his communal, ad hoc escort ended up traveling more than 100 miles together before they got their Hollywood ending -- an ending made possible not by individual heroics, but by collective effort.
but, yeah, i suppose that's way better than shutting the damn thing off 10 seconds after it took off.. or does Renault have one of those keyless systems where the ecm decides if it wants to obey the command to shut the hell off when the driver is bashing away frantically at the "start" button?
well.. they said an renault engineer was involved.. so I assume they tried to shut it down
From Wiki
Wikipedia said: The Laguna featured a 'keyless' ignition system which, instead of a key, used a credit card style device to unlock the car and start the engine
Ah good ol' keyless ignition strikes again...doesn't start your engine when you want it to start and doesn't stop your engine when you want it to stop.
Too easy. According to the map he should have drove into the water.
These stories are always outside the USA. Coke drinking lady too.
What happens if you throw the 'credit card' key out the window?
What if you select 'N' on the gear lever? DOH!
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: What if you select 'N' on the gear lever? DOH!
Probably fully electronic, so "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that".
It's Skynet, man.
Could also have been a DBW malf.
"...with each tap on the brake leading to more acceleration."
"Emergency services patched Lecerf through to a Renault engineer who tried -- though failed -- to help Lecerf get the speeding car to slow down."
"Finally, it did....running out of gas."
This should be interesting.
Fast Frank
BTW, car is modified for a disabled driver so perhaps not that much of a stretch that some electrons went rogue. It is ridiculous that there isn't a simple mechanical hard intervention like turning a key, hitting neutral.
I hope these people don't wear out these excuses before I get a chance to try it once myself. 
oldtin wrote: Fast Frank BTW, car is modified for a disabled driver so perhaps not that much of a stretch that some electrons went rogue. It is ridiculous that there isn't a simple mechanical hard intervention like turning a key, hitting neutral.
Skynet hates the handicapped.
RossD wrote: What happens if you throw the 'credit card' key out the window?
Nothing, except that you can't restart it after it shuts down. They only authenticate the key at startup time, to avoid a malfunctioning key resulting in a car that stops in the middle of the freeway.
Since it's a hand-controlled vehicle (which is typically an aftermarket modification, rather than OEM), let's assume for the sake of discussion that the hand throttle (almost certainly DBW) got stuck at WOT. On modern automatics, the PRNDL lever is just moving a sensor, and the computer has to decide to put it into whatever gear you selected. Will it honor a request to go into N at WOT and 60 mph? I don't know, but I could easily believe that it might not. It's probably more common for people to accidentally bump the lever than it is for the throttle to get stuck.
Dunno about the car in this story, but I recently had the pleasure of getting deeply involved with a nameless vehicle from an unnamed manufacturer which had a rather important electronic widget crap the bed which resulted in said vehicle running for 3 1/2 hours with the key removed from the vehicle. It could not be shut off, when it was towed the wrecker driver removed the key and had it in his pocket at arrival. And no it was not one of these push button thingys, this one has a turn in the slot type. The only saving grace was the owner had noticed a lot of stuff had quit working, he put the vehicle in a parking spot, put it in Park and removed the key, it continued to run. The shifter could not be moved from the Park position, though.
Call me an old Luddite curmudgeon if y'all want, I do not trust all this electronic crap the manufacturers keep cramming into these cars, such as the recently mentioned electric steering.
Curmudgeon wrote: Dunno about the car in this story, but I recently had the pleasure of getting deeply involved with a nameless vehicle from an unnamed manufacturer which had a rather important electronic widget crap the bed which resulted in said vehicle running for 3 1/2 hours with the key removed from the vehicle. It could not be shut off, when it was towed the wrecker driver removed the key and had it in his pocket at arrival. And no it was not one of these push button thingys, this one has a turn in the slot type. The only saving grace was the owner had noticed a lot of stuff had quit working, he put the vehicle in a parking spot, put it in Park and removed the key, it continued to run. The shifter could not be moved from the Park position, though. Call me an old Luddite curmudgeon if y'all want, I do not trust all this electronic crap the manufacturers keep cramming into these cars, such as the recently mentioned electric steering.
so pulling every big fuse you could find didn't shut it off?
RossD wrote: What happens if you throw the 'credit card' key out the window?
Nothing.
DRTFA, but I am assuming that the trip ended when they ran out of west.
Curmudgeon wrote: Dunno about the car in this story, but I recently had the pleasure of getting deeply involved with a nameless vehicle from an unnamed manufacturer which had a rather important electronic widget crap the bed which resulted in said vehicle running for 3 1/2 hours with the key removed from the vehicle. It could not be shut off, when it was towed the wrecker driver removed the key and had it in his pocket at arrival. And no it was not one of these push button thingys, this one has a turn in the slot type.
Yeah, I had a car that would do that from the alternator field current backfeeding through the ignition circuit. It wasn't a problem with the stock transistorized Kettering ignition since the current involved is too low to power the coil, but I had an MSD which only wants to sense 12V.
I forgot how I fixed that one, since I never had that happen with any of the other MSD installs I've done.
On that note, it's infuriating how many modern cars don't have fuel pump relays, and the underhood fuse box is unlabeled, assuming that there even IS a fuel pump fuse...
novaderrik wrote:Curmudgeon wrote: Dunno about the car in this story, but I recently had the pleasure of getting deeply involved with a nameless vehicle from an unnamed manufacturer which had a rather important electronic widget crap the bed which resulted in said vehicle running for 3 1/2 hours with the key removed from the vehicle. It could not be shut off, when it was towed the wrecker driver removed the key and had it in his pocket at arrival. And no it was not one of these push button thingys, this one has a turn in the slot type. The only saving grace was the owner had noticed a lot of stuff had quit working, he put the vehicle in a parking spot, put it in Park and removed the key, it continued to run. The shifter could not be moved from the Park position, though. Call me an old Luddite curmudgeon if y'all want, I do not trust all this electronic crap the manufacturers keep cramming into these cars, such as the recently mentioned electric steering.so pulling every big fuse you could find didn't shut it off?
Easy enough to pop the hood and block the intake
novaderrik wrote: i don't like the way they ended the story... kind of has a little bit of a "slant" to it..the last line of the story said: traveling more than 100 miles together before they got their Hollywood ending
mad_machine wrote: Easy enough to pop the hood and block the intake
True(ish). But sometimes you do want to spend some time diagnosing what on earth the machine is doing. In which case of it's not menacing people, you just let it keep on running while you try to figure out what on earth is going on.
Wifeypoos car, a 2002 era machine, has only two mechanical connections for the driver to play with. The brake pedal and the steering wheel. Everything else (and I mean everything) is done through various computers as input requests, all of which may be denied.
Appleseed wrote:novaderrik wrote: i don't like the way they ended the story... kind of has a little bit of a "slant" to it..the last line of the story said: traveling more than 100 miles together before they got their Hollywood ending
i don't think Renault makes a car that looks like a Dodge Challenger that changes into a Chevrolet Camaro right before hitting the bulldozers.. but i guess it's possible, since they stole the name of the car in the story from a pretty cool car Chevy sold in the 70's:
mad_machine wrote:novaderrik wrote:Easy enough to pop the hood and block the intakeCurmudgeon wrote: Dunno about the car in this story, but I recently had the pleasure of getting deeply involved with a nameless vehicle from an unnamed manufacturer which had a rather important electronic widget crap the bed which resulted in said vehicle running for 3 1/2 hours with the key removed from the vehicle. It could not be shut off, when it was towed the wrecker driver removed the key and had it in his pocket at arrival. And no it was not one of these push button thingys, this one has a turn in the slot type. The only saving grace was the owner had noticed a lot of stuff had quit working, he put the vehicle in a parking spot, put it in Park and removed the key, it continued to run. The shifter could not be moved from the Park position, though. Call me an old Luddite curmudgeon if y'all want, I do not trust all this electronic crap the manufacturers keep cramming into these cars, such as the recently mentioned electric steering.so pulling every big fuse you could find didn't shut it off?
Here's the point y'all miss: it's easy for someone with a small amount of training to do just that. For someone whose knowledge of cars is such that they try to look at the engine through the key hole, not so much.
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