Audi Investigated for Unintended Acceleration

Ford, GM and Toyota Also Suffer from UA Reports, But Audi Gets Top Headline

Recent complaints of unintended acceleration have been bad news for Ford and General Motors, but it could be much more traumatic for Audi.

The luxury brand has come a long way since similar accusations nearly drove it out of business in the 1980s, helped along by fabricated TV coverage courtesy of the CBS news show 60 Minutes.

It looks likely that the nightmare is recurring, but this time its not a corrupt TV series making up stories for ratings, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) heading up the investigation.

Monday the NHTSA stated it is investigating the 1998 and 1999 Audi A6 for a possible defect that could cause the sedan to accelerate “out of the control of the driver.”

Why the need to investigate? The government organization states that 16 complaints have been lodged with the agency regarding stuck throttles in cold weather, normally sub-freezing temperatures. One of the 16 complaints states that the vehicle was “fully accelerating on its own,” while another says the vehicle “suddenly began to race,” which resulted in the car running past stop signs and through intersections before the engine was shut off.

But the Audi cases arent isolated. Over the last two years complaints of unintended or sudden acceleration incidents have been growing. As previously mentioned both Ford and GM have been the subject of lawsuits.

Even the Japanese have been targeted, with the best selling Toyota Camry being investigated by the NHTSA for the same problem.

Looking to the past to make sense of the present, unintentional acceleration cases became more prevalent after 60 Minutes presented their one-sided coverage (actually 17 minutes of coverage) against the 5000, the A6 predecessor.

If youre not familiar with the 60 Minutes feature, it featured a variety of “victims” including one distressed mother, Kristi Bradosky, who had unintentionally killed her six year old son Joshua when her “foot slipped off the brake pedal onto the gas pedal accelerating the auto,” according to a statement taken by Canton, Ohio police officer Steven Zerby. Of course, the 60 Minutes episode that initially ran on November 23, 1986, titled “Out of Control,” and then ran again on September 13, 1987, declined to mention the police report, but rather took an excerpt that featured Mrs. Bradosky stating she had only pressed the brake.

Furthermore, the show went to great lengths in showing a “doctored” Audi 5000, set up to “lunge” forward on its own. Set up? To be clear, William Rosenbluth, an automotive consultant retained by plaintiffs in a suit against Audi, stated he drilled a hole in an Audi transmission and funneled fluid into it. The resulting filmed sequence, which featured the accelerator pedal moving downward on its own, provided 60 Minutes with critical visual “evidence” needed to cite the Audi 5000 with dangerous vehicle status. Rosenbluth said that 60 Minutes requested to film one of his tests, and that the show was fully aware of what he was doing. “My objective was to demonstrate that you could get an [unintended] acceleration,” commented Rosenbluth. Through manipulating the transmission, he managed to get the Audi 5000 to move on its own, but the 60 Minutes feature never brought to light that the car in question had been manipulated. “We were appalled that 60 Minutes put this thing on the air,” stated John Pollard, a principal investigator hired by NHTSA for its study. “It was a stunt…. It does not represent a real-life situation.”

While the 60 Minutes debacle is interesting history, it represented a crushing reality to the Audi brand, nearly driving it into bankruptcy. Even after the brand was vindicated by the NHTSA, and Audi told the world the truth via full-page ads in newspapers and magazines throughout North America, it took over a decade for a return to the sales levels it enjoyed pre-60 Minutes.

It looks likely that the nightmare is recurring, but this time its not a corrupt TV series making up stories for ratings, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) heading up the investigation.

Just like in the 5000 incidents, automakers are stating that driver error is the culprit in the majority of cases. But current plaintiff lawyers allege that the high level of electronic devices and sensors are the reasons behind the recent resurgence of sudden acceleration cases. Either way, incidents involving Ford, GM and Toyota cars will be soon forgotten while those surrounding the Audi brand will long be remembered.