Suzuki Samurai was Re: [geeks] SPARC proprietary (waaaay off topic)

[R. Lonstein]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 07:16:01PM +0000, wa2egp at att.net wrote:
	[snip]
> Was that the incidents where the Audi 5000 used to jump forward and
> their comment was that the people couldn't tell the difference between
> the brake and the accelerator? 

IIRC, Car & Driver (or was it Road & Track? or both? I used to read
them) turned up NHTSA data showing that this happened in nearly every
other make (a similar claim cropped up in the 1990's around Jeep). I
remember that they proved that there was no production car in a safe
state of repair that had brakes unable to completely stop the vehicle,
including from speed and even with the gas pedal fully depressed. The
drivers panicked and stomped the wrong pedal. Some people have claimed
the vehicles had "fast idles" or faulty brake interlocks or problems
with the automatic transmissions but none of it was ever proven. I
seem to remember reading that Audi increased the distance between
pedals and changed their shape in the next (1987?) model year, but
that might be rumor.

> One little known fact was the Audi was very sensitive to RFI and that
> was the effect. There was a QST magazine article where some one had to
> completely sheild the "computer" or it would accelerate evey time he
> would transmit. Hmmm......

Interesting. I'd be surprised if that was always the effect. I
remember hearing about someone using a linear amp on a CB and frying
the "black box" of their ignition system but that sounds apocryphal
(or is wishful thinking).

- Ross