Accelerator sticks

My 2000 Nissan Altima’s accelerator is sticking. What might cause this and how do I fix it?

Throttle body needs cleaned.

could be throttle body or the cable itself. Start with the throttle. Get carb cleaner and spray on the throttle, the shaft of the the throttle, and linkages. All while working the throttle back and forth.

If you are talking about that annoying sticking as you start to press on the gas, it’s the throttle body. You can try to clean it in place with some throttle body cleaner, but generally the cleaning will last much longer if you remove the throttle body and do the job right.

I don’t know if this will apply to your situation or not, but my Saturn got to the point where I had to remove and clean the throttle body more often than I changed the oil. The last time, I removed and cleaned out the EGR valve too. Its been about 10k miles since and the throttle hasn’t stuck yet. This may be a one time deal that only affected my Saturn on this occasion and not applicable to yours or anyone else’s situation.

We had a hair-raising experience when our Saturn 2003 wagon [while in cruise-control] began accelerating on it’s own. My husband tried to pull over, and the car would not slow down. He shifted into neutral which sent the RPMs to about 4500, and I was afraid he’d drop the tranny doing that “neutral drop”. Using the brakes and with the car in neutral, he finally was able to pull to the side of the road and shut it down. He restarted the engine twice, and it immediately went up to over 4000 RPMs again and pulsated there loudly, so he shut down. On the third try after several minutes, the car started normally and we were able to drive the remaining 30 miles home. He’s since driven it to work [50 miles each way]twice. He thinks it’s just the cruise control, and believes that if he doesn’t use it, this wont recur. I wonder if it could be the accelerator issue you had… Thoughts? I’m scared to death that it will happen again; it was like being in a Steven King movie!!