Bought the car about 2 months ago and have put just under 1K miles on it (it has 35K on a 2008).

I was taking a left out of a parking lot last night and when I released the accelerator to put my foot on the brake the car kept accelerating. I naturally pressed the brake almost immediately though so I didn't have a lot of time to diagnose the problem.

Originally I thought my mat might have got stuck and when I checked it the back right clasp that holds the mat was undone. The left one was clasped though so I don't think that was it.

Then the more I thought about it, right when I applied pressure to the brake I could feel the accelerator "disengage". Almost like something was stuck and the application of the brake released it.

Any ideas???

 

FYI- This is the first time this has happened...

 

Was it in reverse at the time?

I have never heard of this happening, would definitely VAG-COM scan and see what comes up. Pretty scary to think of that V10 out of control.

 

In all the years I have working on Audis never seen this happens, and that includes the 5000 model.

 

If you apply gas so that the car accelerates and hit the brakes at the same time it will disengage the acceleration or gas pedal. That is how my old A8 works anyway and seeing its a safety thing I assume they have kept it on the newer cars.

If you apply the brakes first and then hit the acc pedal it will try to accelerate the car.

 

which then basically points back to likelihood OP had the gas pedal depressed, even if inadvertent

 

Agreed w/ the sentiment of your post. FWIW, it did actually 100% unmistakably happen on my 85 5000, with a 5 speed STICK. Car was in driveway when I restarted after an oil change. Gave it only initial touch of throttle to start and it revved and held at 3000+ RPM with no foot on ANY pedal until I shut it down. And before I did shut it down I was completely out of the car and under the hood looking at things since by then the old runaway 5000 stories were old news. Since I hadn't touched throttle yet when I shut it down I inspected things carefully. Throttle, cable and throttle plate were all visually completely at rest/idle. But when I unclamped a few things (knowing the likely suspects) I found the idle air valve (the old idle stabilization and cold warm up improvement from that timeframe) had carboned up and was held partially open--resulting in more air and thus more call for fuel at the CIS air balance plate that regulated the old mechanical fuel distribution head. Cleaned air bypass valve w/ brake cleaner internally, reassembled, and all back to normal. Had maybe 70 or 80K on it at time.

To OP, all the newer Audi's use a completely different (electronic) system than this old mechanical CIS-E stuff. The defaults and overrides are going to trend back to idle or no-run if an issue arises. Most likely, somehow the mat tangled w/ the throttle or you got your shoe on the throttle somehow unintentionally. I've done it once or twice over the years of recent Audi's w/ the current injection set ups and safety back ups.

 

Are you sure you did not buy a Toyota by mistake?

 

I'm going to back up the OP on this one but in my case it was the mat which seems to be a lackluster design. I must push forward with my feet when getting out of the car but every couple times I get into the car I need to re-latch the mat because it will push forward. If I forget to do this a few times it will get stuck forward and I'll notice the throttle is being applied.

The mats have a design flaw. They pop up too easy. My BMW has latches that go through the mat and to the side so to remove the mat you need to lift it and slide it to the side. It's impossible to accidentally move it.