Faulty BMW cruise controls???

[LINUS]

I was watching Discovery yesterday and there was a show that was the story of Mary Hill, some gal who was driving what looked like a e34 5 series maybe. She was in a wreck that killed her daughter and her daughters' friend. The accident happened in Aug 2000 for those who want to search.
The main point of her defence was a faulty cruise control that made the car suddenly accelerate and that was the cause of the crash.
Her defense failed and she was convicted for manslaughter, and something else, but there were a few people who came into court and testified thier BMW's has done the same sort of thing.

Anybody here ever dealt with this? Is there a common wear type part that we should all be looking at and replacing as PM?
Our cruise systems are pretty contained compared to some cars, so I don't see any real wear part, maybe the bushings on the throttle linkage, but you bust one of those and all I could see happening is your cruise not working, not having your car take off.

[JasonC]

i heard this happing on late 80's early 90's dodge daytona's, and i had it happen once in my Grand National, but i just hit the brake and the cruise turned off.

[rede30]

The only thing i could see is the lever getting stuck being pushed in. I dont know how this could happen but i dont see anything else causing it to pull the throttle. It was probably an automatic and the car downshifted and scared the bitch.

[O 16581 72452 5]

Happens with a friend's E36, he said he'll be cruising along with his cruise on, look down and he'll be doing 90 insted of the 65 where he set it.

[BahnE30]

people need to pay attention, a similar incident happend in europe a few years back, some dudes bmw had the cruise accelerate and couldn't get it stoped. BS neutral, turn engine off, brake to a stop. NP. as for your friend who set cruise at 65 and accelerated to 90, pay the fuck attention, if you can't tell the difference between 65 and 90, you need your lisense taken away....

[E30FreaK89]

ill tell you one thing is, the brakes are more powerfull then the engine!! she should of been able to stop!

[Rennsport]

thats why she lost... you can always over-ride cruise controll.
just be careful if you do shut the engine off not to lock the steering wheel

[O 16581 72452 5]

thats why she lost... you can always over-ride cruise controll.
just be careful if you do shut the engine off not to lock the steering wheel

It's hard to think in a situation like that, i've been there, i know it seems obvious what to do, but it's not.

Similar things you'd think would be obvious happened to me when driving an automatic car, both times i'd left the car in gear, got out and the car started moving. First time i ran inside and couldn't figure out the logical thing to do of hit the brakes, i paniced as it kept rolling towards a large glass window and slammed it in park insted to stop it. The next was when i was driving my mom's car, got out with it in gear because it wasn't rolling in white rock, car began moving, i tried grabbing on to it like i would a manual car that was rolling, didn't work, car hit the large fancy looking light in my front yard and knocked it sideways.

[Ablice]

thats why she lost... you can always over-ride cruise controll.
just be careful if you do shut the engine off not to lock the steering wheel

My iS must have some sort of updated system where if you turn the key off it won't lock unless you remove the key.

Not like my POS 325e...

[TwoJ's]

thats why she lost... you can always over-ride cruise controll.
just be careful if you do shut the engine off not to lock the steering wheel

While using my cruise to accelerate, i had my throttle linkage bind and get stuck at WOT. So you can always over ride cruise, but it can be a mechanical problem too. Also, when that happened to me, I shut the engine off and the wheel did not lock. I had no PS or power brakes, but it was easy to get on teh shoulder and stop my car. just don't pull the key out.

[mikeedler]

to lock the steering wheel, you would need to take the keys out of the ignition. why would someone do that?