Car Accelerates On Its Own problems of the 2004 Subaru Forester

The contact has 2004 suburu forrester. The contact stated that in January 2010 she was backing up the vehicle at 5mph. The vehicle began accelerating in reverse up to 60 mph. The vehicle crashed through a buildings metal garage door and part of the south wall. Within a few seconds the vehicle zoomed across the empty garage space and then crashed through and interior metal wall and into a large open work space. The vehicle did not stop until it became wedged between a large heavy work table and another object. The whole episode took only a few seconds. The vehicle caused a lot of property damage and the vehicle was destroyed. The contact feels it was a sudden acceleration problem. The failure and current mileages was 69000. The VIN was unavailable at the time of the complaint.

While parking my car in a museum parking area on a slope, I shifted the automatic gear shift from reverse to drive and the car suddenly accelerated and took off down a crowded parking lot driveway at very high speed. The car was at a standstill at the time of the gear shifting. I could not slow or stop the rapidly accelerating car by braking. I was focused on not hitting people and other entering cars and didn't think to try the emergency brake or shifting into neutral. The car kept accelerating, despite my foot being heavily on the brake, and I aimed it into a tree rather than into an oncoming car. The car was "totaled". The airbag deployed and I was wearing a seat belt. I was very badly bruised with no concussion, whiplash or broken bones. I was taken by ambulance to the local hospital emergency room and discharged after a few hours. The steering wheel column was sheared off and the dashboard totally deformed by the force of my impact into them. The whole front end of the car was smashed in. I later checked the car at the impounding site and found no evidence of the driver seat floor mat being out of place or even touching the accelerator pedal. I am the sole driver of this car and had no prior similar problems. The weather at the time of the accident was cold, sunny and dry.

Owner was pulling into a parking space at a grocery store parking lot when vehicle suddenly accelerated forward bumping the concrete parking post. When put in reverse, it again suddenly accelerated bruising a pedestrian. Similar behavior while parking occurred in the same lot a month earlier but only causing damage to the license plate cover. We believe the drivers side floor matt slipped and have removed it. We did take it to the dealer to have the throttle computer board cleaned at the pin connector and map sensors, as had been suggested in an earlier NHTSA report for this car year and model. However, the mechanic said they were not dirty.