Ram Puts Out a Recall for Cargo Van’s Sticky Gas Pedal
It appears that accelerator issues are no longer exclusive to Toyota, as Chrysler on Friday announced a recall of 9,655 full-size vans in North America due to the possibility of the accelerator getting stuck in the open position, Reuters reports. The majority — 7,935 – are in the United States, 1,437 are in Canada, and 283 of them are in Mexico.
About half of the affected units — which are Ram-branded ProMaster vans from 2014 – are still sitting on dealer lots, and won’t be sold until the necessary fixes have been made. The remaining owners will be alerted of the recall, and repairs will naturally be carried out at no expense to the consumer.
Chrysler added that each one of its vehicles includes a brake-throttle override function that will enable the driver to stop the vehicle by applying the brake pedal to override any simultaneous accelerator input, Reuters said.
At the core of the issue is the pedal stop, a small piece of trim that encloses the accelerator pedal shaft. Rather than reports from owners, however, spokesperson Eric Mayne said that the problem came to light on the company’s test track when a company driver depressed the pedal at an angle and the it stuck in an open position.
Chrysler then alerted Fiat, its parent company and the producer of the Ducato van, which is essentially the same vehicle, but for the European market. “Fiat found no reports of pedal sticking in the Ducato, launched in 2006 and sold in more than 80 countries but not in the United States,” Reuters said. Mayne added that the “affected part was already scheduled for replacement to improve the driving experience before the issue was discovered.”
“Chrysler Group engineers investigated and determined a 3.0-inch stop — which went into production four days after the incident — did not bind, even when force was applied to the accelerator pedal at an angle,” the company said in its press statement.