Electronic throttle control valve failure

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:41 am

Electronic throttle control valve failure on my 05 CRD yesterday..Wife driving down interstate, passing a semi, car right behind her doing the same and the throttle pedal just disappears from under her foot. The Libby rockets past the truck. She swerves to the right, getting off semi's right and shuts it off. Turns back on the ignition and gets the ETC warning light. WTF?

ibedonc · **Joined:** Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:40 pm **Posts:** 236

floor mat ?

cgass · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:53 pm

ibedonc wrote:

floor mat ?

x2 I've heard about this happening with KJs before. Not sure about the light though. Any codes?

ebbnflow · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 2:30 pm

cgass wrote:

ibedonc wrote:

floor mat ?

x2 I've heard about this happening with KJs before. Not sure about the light though. Any codes?

x3 Happened to my wife in her jeep. Her Jeep had rubber slush mats on top of the carpet mats. I removed the carpet mat and made sure the slush mat is attached to tab in the floor and it has not happened since. I never saw a CEL when this happened though.

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:51 pm

Her ETC light came on. Read my post she said it was like the pedal just fell out from under her feet. We have Xtreme liners and their not really near the pedal

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:11 pm

No codes yet as I just got out of the "assembly line for pain and suffering" (hospital) for cancer treatment. I have heard that a bad cruise control sensor can cause this though my wife wasn't using CC. Whats the trick to pulling the codes without a reader?

cgass · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:28 pm

DieselJeepLuvr wrote:

No codes yet as I just got out of the "assembly line for pain and suffering" (hospital) for cancer treatment. I have heard that a bad cruise control sensor can cause this though my wife wasn't using CC. Whats the trick to pulling the codes without a reader?

You can try setting the parking break and turning the key from ACC to ON three times, the last time leaving it set to ON.

naturist · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:39 pm

I'm not sure what an "Electronic throttle control valve" can possibly be. The foot pedal is connected ONLY to a rheostat that sends an electrical signal to the computer. I suppose that a rheostat might be a valve or sorts; it does control/meter the flow of electrons. Further, diesels have no throttle, in the sense that gas engines do.

Anyway, the floor mat is always the most likely culprit. There is also a spring that is supposed to keep the pedal pushed up, and it is theoretically possible for it to break or come off, so that the pedal's own weight could drop it down like that. It is also possible for the ECM to encounter a software bug or a hardware failure to create the condition. Toyota can tell you a LOT about this very problem.

It is good she had the presence of mind to shut the engine off. Simply turning the key to off ought to do it. But remember not to pull the key out of the lock!

Incidentally, this is the first such incident I've ever heard of with this vehicle, at least the first incident not immediately attributable to the floor mats.

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:24 pm

I'll look into that spring thing. I am absolutely, positively, steadfastly certain it was not caused by the floor mat

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:59 pm

Ok now I'm really pissed. I went out to take a pic of the floor mat for all you unbelievers but my camera's firewire port is broke. :banghead:

I also went out to check codes which it did nothing. perfect. Well what the hell, try to start and it fires right up.

onthehunt · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:25 pm

Throttle is electronic. The pedal doesn't go up and down with the cruise set. It doesn't move unless something pushes it down. The light was on because the throttle pedal and the brake pedal were being activated at the same time. I suspect your floor mats. The pedal just doesn't move on its own. There is nothing attached to it but a wiring harness.

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:40 pm

is it possible a ground fault to the pedal wiring could have given it a really high signal causing the acceleration?

GreenDieselEngineering · **Joined:** Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:10 pm **Posts:** 1111

DieselJeepLuvr wrote:

is it possible a ground fault to the pedal wiring could have given it a really high signal causing the acceleration?

The pedal assembly has 2 throttle potentiometers inside with one reading half the voltage of the other. They must correlate precisely or the system will flasg a fault code and limit you to around 1100rpm. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the ETC light came on most likely due to having the accel pedal pressed at the same time as teh brake pedal. If this is the situation that occurred, the ETC light should turn off after the next key cycle. Is your ETC light now off?

papaindigo · **Posted:** Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:08 am

If you try pulling codes using the key trick, which may or may not work, keep in mind that the resulting code often has the last 2 digits transposed. I know the vehicle is a 2005 but the 2006 FSM "e" copy is a bit more complete on diagnostic stuff than the 2005 FSM. Per pg 8J-117 if the ETC light came on there should be one or more codes stored.

The parts manual illustration is somewhat stylized but I presume there is, as previously mentioned, a spring that holds the pedal in the up position. I'd look but it's a bit chilly this am and I am reluctant to remove the plastic panel above that area while it's cold. It does occur to me that springs can break which I would assume would result in the pedal dropping to the down position (e.g. falling away) and causing acceleration (it's not clear to me from the original post if acceleration occured). In any case OP have you checked to see if the pedal is now in the up or down position?

As to floor mats they do move around if not either 1) hooked to the anchor point on the floor at the left front of the driver's seat or 2) have the "spiky" back preferably both. Looking at the Xtreme mat it should have a hole/grommet to engage that anchor point so hopefully that's not the issue although it might still be if the Xtreme mat was installed on top of OEM mats (not the carpet but actual factory or other mats - e.g. double mats)

I must admit I'm not at all a fan of drive by wire throttles.

naturist · **Posted:** Tue Oct 25, 2011 8:03 am

@DieselJeepLuvr, you have obviously really annoyed the Gods of Things Electronic, enough they've afflicted your camera as well as your Jeep. You obviously have Major Sacrifices to make at the nearest Temple of Electronics (aka Best Buy, Fryes, etc.) Go forth My Son and Sin No More!

Odds are that whatever afflicted the Jeep is limited to the pedal assembly. Hope your silence means you've found it and that it was a simple/cheap fix.

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:42 am

Sorry for the silence. I'm home recovering from cancer surgery and it's a very slow process. If the ETC light would be activated due to both pedals activated that would make sense as the wife said, upon further investigation, she stopped by using the brake pedal. Everything was working fine when I checked it (pedal up, no ETC light) after the incident but I didn't actually test drive it. It would not give ANY codes using the key method. So until I'm feeling better and able to drive again I'm just gonna assume it was a cold evening and her nipples turned on the cruise control then pressed and held down on the accel button. :roll:

infernicus · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:35 am

Hey! I like the attitude! Stay in good faith and keep on laughing.
I'm not sure if your wife would appreciate you talking about her nipply nipples, but only you know her the best! :ROTFL:

Keep on keepin' on my friend!

DieselJeepLuvr · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2011 6:17 pm

Well Well Well. What do we have here? http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automoti ... _accel.htm

Apparently this is not just a toyota problem. I would bet that if you did a search for any vehicle accelerating out of control you'd find some reports. My guess it has something to do with buying cheap parts from China or wherever and them not being tested adequately or maybe there is an acceptable failure rate in the automotive industries profit margin?

Electronic throttle control valve failure

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