Recently I was driving and my boyfriend pulled the e brake while I was driving about 25 mph there was a lot of grinding noises and it made me concerned. I have no idea if it’s related but the next day I went to drive and my gas pedal is fairly loose. The gas pedal is loose to the point where I have to press it down much more firmly in order to accelerate. I can even wiggle it up and down when I put my foot under it. Can I simply have it tightened?
I don’t even want to know why he pulled the parking brake but that has nothing to do with the accelerator pedal. Any decent mechanic should be able to fix it.
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He may have damaged the parking brake system with this foolish stunt. As @VOLVO_V70 said, have a mechanic check the parking brake system for problems. It seems more likely the parking brake is stuck on the wheel. I also think that your boyfriend should pay for all the damage he caused. A friend would pay for this, even an immature friend like this one. I’ll bet he is under 25, and maybe way under 25.
I agree with jtsanders that there’s a good chance that some part of the parking brake system is stuck. Driving it in this condition could overheat something and cause even more damage.
What year is this Liberty?
Tester
It’s a 2006
I too agree. Get it checked.
And make your BF pay for it. You have the power.
I can’t see how the parking brake event would affect the accel pedal. More likely those are separate issues. The accel pedal is actually an assembly of parts, and so something could easily come loose, like a bolt, or a spring, and cause that looseness feel. A shop that specializes in Jeeps should have no trouble to fix the accel pedal problem. Be aware that until you get it fixed, you may find yourself stranded, or worse, unable to slow the engine down if it fails entirely. So some urgency is needed in getting the repair done.
On some newer cars the accel pedal ass’y has a small computer too, so it can be costly to replace if that’s needed.
The parking brake noise is probably just that the mating parts are a little rusty and what you heard was the rust being ground off. If the parking brake continues to work as before, I wouldn’t worry about that.
My guess is that the parking brake is dragging.
Ok, I see what you mean there TSM, if the parking brake is always on for some reason, it’s holding the car back during accelerating , so the OP has to press on the accel pedal more than usual, which might be interpreted as the pedal being loose. If the PB is on, that wheel should get hotter than the others, so that might a way to test.
Great suggestion George.
To the OP: you can do this by feeling the wheels, but do so CAREFULLY! A wheel with a dragging brake behind it can easily exceed 250F, and you don’t want to burn yourself.