Cruise Control problems of the 2008 Mercury Sable

While on cruise control on a 6 lane divided highway the car suddenly accelerated from 72 to 85+ mph. Brakes did not disengage cruise control and could not slow down car. I had to shut the engine off to regain control and with flashers on I managed to get to the shoulder of the road and stop the car. Tried to restart the car to establish if condition cleared up, but could not. Had car towed to Ford dealer who was unable to duplicate the condition the following morning. They changed the mass air sensor but said it was unrelated to the acceleration problem.

There were two separate incidents with this same vehicle. Incident #1 with first driver: at about 5 mph, the gas pedal was pressed significantly down. The gas pedal then stuck down in that position and the car started to quickly accelerate. After a quick tap on the gas pedal, the gas pedal started to operate normally. At no point was the cruise control on. We took our car in to the local Ford dealer. They inspected the car but didn't find any problems. Incident #2 with second driver: a couple of months later (estimated mileage 38,000), we were driving at about 45 mph and I pressed the pedal down almost all the way. The gas pedal stuck again and the car started to accelerate quickly to about 65 mph. I am not sure whether cruise control was on or not. I shifted out of drive into neutral while the engine was at high rpm. After aggressively stomping on the car pedal, the gas pedal started working again normally. I shifted back into drive and the car then drove normally. The first driver was in the car when this happened. Both drivers have about 35 years of driving experience. This is a very serious issue that needs to be investigated! in our case, no one was injured but with less experienced drivers it could have been much different.