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That's when the problem came up in the media, but it also involved Audis a few years older.
I was no longer working for VW/Audi at the time, but when I worked for VWoA I had driven the Audi 5000 extensively. The car used the Bosch CIS fuel injection system, and later I think it was the LH-Jetronic system, the same ones used on most or all the FWD VWs and the Audi 4000. These were good systems, with a mechanical throttle, were not overly complicated and there wasn't a whole lot of electronics involved. Throttle opening was entirely dependent on the gas pedal being pressed. It wasn't a system that lent itself to electrical glitches, and having learned a lot about the system I could never figure out how it could suddenly go to wide open throttle on its own.
HOWEVER, I did experience a high idle speed on a few occasions (in automatic transmission Audis and VWs) where with a cold engine the idle would be a couple thousand RPM while the engine went through its warm-up cycle (emissions control stuff). It was rare, but it did happen. If you put the car in gear --this was before brake-shift interlocks-- it would move right off. I'd had the same experience in several domestic cars and it was nothing a very minor dab of brakes couldn't control. Still, I can see how someone could panic and go for the brake and POSSIBLY hit the gas if they were inept or new to the car. As I recall, the Audi 5000 at the time was shown to have the pedals closer together than some other makes, although it was hardly the only car with tight pedal placement. A couple of Mercedes models and some domestics had similar pedal spacing. (they also had some so-called "runaway acceleration" issues that didn't reach the level of the Audi's). As I recall, the majority of the people claiming this problem in Audis were women of short stature who had recently acquired the car and it was very often their first imported car. Was this a factor too? Or is that a design flaw?
In my opinion, driver error and misapplication of pedals was the problem, not the car, although the high idle issue possibly contributed in some instances.
I can understand the floor mat issue in the Lexus, having had a mat hold a gas pedal down in a car I've been driving, but I don't understand why the brakes can't overpower the engine. Maybe it's like Mike notes, 300 HP is a lot of power to contain if the throttle is wide open.
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