There are reports coming out that Floor Mats are getting stuck on accelerators and causing the gas pedal to get stuck and then the inability of the driver to stop the vehicle and either causing an accident with injuries or worse, with a fatality. You can overcome this threat with a few simple steps and ensuring your BMW Floor Mats are safe during the operation of your BMW.
First, ensure that your floor mats are made for your car. If you drive a BMW, make sure your floor mats where made for the model and year of your car. If you drive another car make, make sure that the floor mats are made for that particular car. While some cars have screws to hold the mats in place, other cars don’t. I know that in my older 1991 BMW 318i car, you just put the mats in place and that’s where they stayed. While I never experienced uncontrolled acceleration of my car, I know that there were numerous times in which I pulled back on the floor mats to get it off of the accelerator. These were all weather floor mats with the grooves and can understand how my getting into and out of my car would cause the floor mats to shift.
Once you have the correct floor mats, ensure that the floor mats are properly seated and installed. For instance, on my 2003 BMW car, the floor mats have little screw points to make sure the mats don’t move around. When you are entering or exiting the car, the floor mats could potentially shift causing the floor mat to move up against the accelerator to get “stuck” in a depressed position. While this occurs, your engine may rev higher or the car won’t want to stop. Incorrectly installed floor mats may put you into this position which is not one you may want to find yourself in.
Another potential way to ensure that your BMW Floor Mats don’t get bunched up or pushed against the accelerator is to make sure that the bottom of the floor mat has an anti slip feature or, will not slip easily when pressure is applied onto them as is the case when you get into and out of your car.
Something to watch out with your floor mats is to make sure that if they are long and reach your brake and gas pedals is to make sure that the clearance between the top of the mat and the bottom of the pedals is sufficient so that if your floor mats does get pushed up, the floor mat will merely slide under the pedals instead of push on the pedals and cause a dangerous situation.
A simple method to keep the floor mat off of the car pedals is just remove the mat. Now granted, this does defeat the purpose of floor mats, mainly to keep the floor clean and ensure damage is limited to the floor of your car, but also to keep the debris you track into your car localized instead of rolling around the floor of your car.
If you drive a manual transmission vehicle, you could just depress the clutch so that there is no power being put towards your wheels and therefore allow you to regain control of your car. If your car is an automatic, then you could shift the car into Neutral again, although you may potentially cause damage to your transmission. While damage to your transmission could potentially be expensive, it would probably be cheaper than the alternative which is a ride to a hospital or loss of life for yourself, passengers, other drivers, or pedestrians.
As a general rule though, you should be familiar with how your car is operated. A potential fault with uncontrolled acceleration is the push button starters on cars these days, which BMW does offer on their newer car models. Make sure that you know how to turn off the engine. Some manufacturers require that you depress and hold the button down to ensure that the engine shuts off.
While some evidence points to the potential that this could be only affecting newer cars, be aware that regardless, if you have a BMW 325i, a BMW E30, BMW E36, BMW E90, or any body model or feature of BMW, it could affect you. For your sake, and everyone else on the road, make sure that a potentially easy fix does not cause heartache for people.
In summary, make sure that you have floor mats designed and manufactured for your car so that they don’t cause problems for you when you are driving your car. Also, make sure that you are familiar with the operation of your car and that you know how to get the car out of gear or how to shutoff the engine with the new push button starters. Make sure that you mats will properly fit and are properly installed, to include any devices designed to hold the floor mats in place. Make sure that your floor mats are designed for your BMW, or appropriate make and model, and any devices designed to hold the BMW Floor Mats in place are engaged.
