Car Accelerates On Its Own problems of the 2004 Ford Ranger

While coming to a stop (twice) the Ford Ranger engine accelerated suddenly to a point it could not be completely stopped with the brake system. Had any traffic been coming I would be a dead man. I did not have my foot on accelerator nor are there any floor mats in this truck to get stuck under the accelerator. I'm scared to death to drive this vehicle and I know that if I bring it to the Ford garage that its going to cost tons of money and they are going to say they don't see anything wrong. There is obviously a serious problem with a control mechanism somewhere. This has happened twice. Once after driving the vehicle about a mile. The second time (today) after driving for hours. Can you please help me out I really am scared to drive this truck.

The engine controller tends to hold the engine speed between 2000 and 2500 rpm when my foot is not touching the accelerator pedal. This behavior is most obvious when the clutch is depressed while changing gears. The engine rpm is held artificially high (way above normal idle) for as long as I depress the clutch, up until the point that the vehicle has coasted almost to a complete stop. I believe that the computer also does this when the clutch is engaged. For example, if I remove pressure from the accelerator pedal and allow the vehicle to coast with the clutch engaged while in third gear on a level road, the vehicle never slows down below approximately 30 mph (corresponding to approximately 2000 engine rpms). Also, while descending a hill in a low (2nd/3rd) gear using engine braking (not touching the gas pedal), I can feel the truck spontaneously accelerate. I first took the truck to the dealer for this complaint on 10/22/04. The technician confirmed the behavior, inspected various sensors, probed the computer for error codes, and eventually resorted to resetting the computer in hopes that the problem would magically disappear. This of course did not fix the problem, so I returned to the dealership on 11/16/04 with the same complaint. They researched the issue and found that it is a "normal characteristic" of the vehicle, supposedly added to the computer program to improve emissions. Aside from being annoying, I believe that this "feature" could pose a safety problem because it reduces the effectiveness and predictability of engine braking on down-hill grades. Engine braking is very important in my area because of the steep, frequently snow-covered roads.

While driving vehicle suddenly accelerated on its own. This sudden acceleration occurred more than thirty times since ownership of the vehicle. Four different dealers examined the vehicle, and none of them could find the cause of the problem.