On April 12 I exited my drive onto the 55 mph highway in front of my house when suddenly the car began to shudder. I jammed the gas to get up to speed to prevent oncoming cars from hitting me which made the problem much worse. It was violently shuddering and wouldn-??t accelerate. I took my foot off the gas which stopped the shaking. I gassed it slowly and I could accelerate to speed much slower than I would have liked. It wasn-??t smooth. One half mile later it suddenly and violently began again. Taking my foot off the gas it smoothed out and I could accelerate again. I changed plans and went to the service garage to see what the problem was. It seems the problem is a known issue that hasn-??t been addressed. I-??m glad there were no cars coming from the opposite direction which could have impacted the drivers side while I was floundering out of my drive. I will enclose the garages assessment.

- Burton, OH, USA

The contact owns a 2008 Mercury Sable. While driving approximately 60 mph, the engine, throttle, wrench, and air bag indicators remained illuminated simultaneously. The vehicle was pulled over to the side of the road and the engine was turned off. The vehicle was restarted and the gear shifter was placed in reverse, and the contact heard a loud knocking noise from the transmission. The vehicle was driven to the dealer, but was not diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was 85,000.

- Bowie, MD, USA

The contact owns a 2008 Mercury Sable. While driving various speeds, the vehicle would suddenly hesitate to accelerate. The contact indicated that the failure occurred on multiple occasions. The cause of the failure was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 55,000.

- Puyallup, WA, USA

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.

- Richfield, WI, USA

Accelerator stopped responding and vehicle stalled shortly after.

- Guttenberg, IA, USA