Chrysler Stuck With Stuck Gas Pedals. From CTS

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Chrysler is sending out recall notices to owners of 25,000 Dodge Calibers and Jeeps. The reason: Accelerator pedals could become stuck and cause unintended acceleration, Chrysler said according to a report in Reuters. Sound familiar? Wait, there is more …

Five weeks ago, the NHTSA opened an investigation into potentially sticky accelerator pedals in Chrysler vehicles, based on five consumer complaints, says the report.

The interesting part: The pedals were made by CTS, the same company that was a the center of Toyota’s pedal gate.

According to Chrysler, the accelerator pedal for the Caliber and Compass is a “completely different” design and is manufactured with different tooling than the Toyota pedals.

Chrysler said they don’t have to reflash their computer with brake override, because it already has that feature.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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 7 comments
  • CyCarConsulting CyCarConsulting on Jun 05, 2010

    Well Mr La Hood, besides the sticky thingy, how did you like your Chrysler?

  • Tced2 Tced2 on Jun 05, 2010

    Before condemning CTS as the ill-fated maker of accelerator pedals some questions need to be answered. Who designed the Chrysler/CTS pedals? Chrysler? CTS building a Chrysler design? Who designed the Toyota/CTS pedals? Toyota? CTS building a Toyota design? Were there CTS manufacturing defects?

    • Nikita Nikita on Jun 07, 2010

      Toyota does not tend to design parts in-house and get supplier bids, but give interface specifications and have the supplier design as well as build the part. That is probably how the Denso and CTS units look so different. I have no idea about Chrysler.

  • JimC JimC on Jun 05, 2010

    So where is the big government chest puffing about keeping boots on throats? Ah, but their short attention span already exhausted our beloved fourth estate has moved on to oil slicks and whatever celebrity crisis is around the next corner. Are bloggers evolving into the new watchdogs?

    • See 1 previous
    • PrincipalDan PrincipalDan on Jun 05, 2010

      @TimCrothers, Yeah I assume all of these Chryslers are post 2003 models when they added brake override to each new model as it came out.

  • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Jun 05, 2010

    It might actually be reasonable to assume all five accelerator problems were on post 2003 Chryslers. To an engineer, and I assume Daimler had a few back then, it would be logical to add a brake override at the same time a switch was made from mechanical linkage to an electronic accelerator, for basic cover-your-ass... er, safety. I'm sure somebody could look that up, but not me, since I'm lazy and I don't even know how to "login" on a computator.

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