Car Accelerates On Its Own problems of the 2003 Toyota Matrix

I was slowly pulling into my garage (in the basement of my house), gradually braking as I had done many times before. I was stopping the vehicle in its usual position when the engine suddenly began racing and the car accelerated forward. It struck some shelves I had against the wall of the garage, crumpling both the shelves and the front of the car's hood. Everything happened so fast at that point that I am not sure just what happened, but I ended up with the car stopped up against the garage wall and the car in park. I believe I threw it into neutral, then applied the brake since it was still moving, then tried to back up, and finally put it into park. The car was declared a total loss by my insurance company. I experienced the same problem of sudden acceleration when stopping several times previously, but none of those incidents caused any damage. In each of those situations I was able to get the car into neutral, stop it with the brake, and continue on my way. In this instance there was not enough space ahead of me to do that successfully. I know that a number of incidents of unintended acceleration of a Toyota Matrix have already been reported for a number of different model years.

I have had four instances of sudden acceleration in a 2003 Toyota Matrix xrs over a period of 8 years. In each instance, I was pulling into a carport at a slow speed with my foot on the brake when the engine suddenly accelerated despite the fact that my foot was on the brake, not the gas pedal. In all instances, I was able to press hard on the brake and come to a stop. After the second incident, I took the car into my Toyota dealer and told them what had happened twice. They checked out the car and said nothing was wrong with it. I have had two other incidents since then. I live in a retirement community and have told the authorities here that if I ever drive the car through the carport wall it will be due to sudden acceleration of my Matrix. The incidents are wide-spread -- perhaps every two years. So it is a little hard to get Toyota to pay any attention to the complaint. Please check the electronics -- it is obviously not mechanical. I have given the date of the last incident below.

The contact has a 2003 Toyota Matrix. The contact stated that the vehicle had been having periodic accelelration problems since 2008. The contact stated the sudden acceleration has only happened when the contact is trying to slow down. , while driving at any speed. This failure had been happening more over the past two years. The failure mileage was unknown. The current mileage is 86504.

While traveling on the highway and without prior warning, the vehicle suddenly accelerated. The consumer was unable to read the dashboard lights when the sun was extremely bright.

When at a stop sign or when placing vehicle in reverse engine will race and vehicle will unexpectedly accelerate out of control. Engine intermittently idle up to about 2,000 rpm regardless of temperature. Cause not yet determined. Problem is similar to pe04021.