Crazy California malfunction

My goodness Simon what you described is unbelievable and despite having had issues with my Cali transmission which made the car jump gears several times, I've never experienced anything even close to what you've described. The situation you experienced is a very dangerous one in any car because the last thing we expect when braking while the gear-box is downshifting in automatic, is that the car won't stop and on top of that, starts reving and leaps forward when 1st gear is engaged.
That's the first time I ear of such an anomaly but you have to wait and see if anyone here on Ferrarichat has ever experienced anything similar.

 

With all due respect, what size are your feet?

The reason I ask, is that it is possible for a person with large feet or bulky shoes to apply throttle with the side of the right foot when braking.

I wonder if this happened to you?

 

Yikes, Simon, I hope you nor anyone else was hurt. I've never heard of that in a Cali, or any Ferrari. That almost sounds like the sudden acceleration phenomenon in Toyota cars of a few years back.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration

Did you try to put the Cali in neutral by pulling both paddles? I assume not given the limited time you had to react.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration

Please keep the community informed as to what your technicians say.

T

 

This popped up for Maserati, but was blamed on floor mats.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/luxury/maserati-recall-unintended-acceleration/

This was interesting in the story, which is from 2016. This is not something I have read about in a Ferrari.

"Maserati's cars are equipped with brake override, something Toyotas did not have at that time. With brake override, engine power is automatically reduced when the driver presses on the brake pedal -- even if the gas pedal is still pressed down -- making it much easier to get the car back under control."

T

 

First , glad you and your passenger are ok.

Second, I was going to ask about floor mats and foot size as others have before me.

Lastly, this would be the first time I have heard of this happening as you described, so I would not categorize it as normal in any shape form or fashion.

Any warning lights on now or when it was happening?

I'll keep an eye on this conversation,

I'm curious to hear how it ends.

S

 

In auto-mode, the system automatically will downshift according to your speed. There is no need for the system to blip the throttle in a DCT system. Esp when shifting from 2nd into first.

Even in manual mode, the DCT system downshifts automatically according to your current speed.

I would ask the dealer to pull codes and look at the recorded telemetry. Then ask the dealer or ride with their technician and try to reproduce the phenomenon.

Again sorry to learn of this. Glad to hear no one was hurt.

This is totally unacceptable if it turns out to be a fault of the car.

I would never trust your car again

 

Apparently there is an explanation for a car engine revving without the accelerator being pressed and here is the story of a 94 Galant which I picked from another car chat.

"My car normal idles at ~600rpm, put it in neutral this is where it sits or if you're stopped at a light. Well three times now when I started it up the engine starts revving. It will rev up and down between 1,100 and 1,600rpm. It will shoot up to 1,600, drop down and as soon as it hits 1,100 it shoots back up to 1,600, over and over. It does this when it's in park or neutral. If I sit in drive at a light it refuses to drop below 1,100rpm."

"Yes, a vacuum leak could definitely cause this. "Extra" air would be entering the intake system and the engine will momentarily run lean. As the fuel system tries to compensate the RPMs will go up due to the added fuel in the mixture. It will continuously try to compensate for a lean mixture, then a rich mixture, and will cause an erratic idle. Usually it's as simple as a cracked or loose hose somewhere before the intake manifold."

"An IACV (Idle Air Control Valve) controls your idle. All it is, is a valve that is actuated by the ECM to allow extra air to bypass the throttle blade, as the throttle blade should NOT be allowing air to bypass itself when at a closed position (idle) In a speed-density type system, any additional air that enters the intake only serves to rev the engine, such as when you depress the accelerator....same principle with the IACV. Now, if your IACV is bad (as in its stuck open), when coming to a stop light, its already allowing this extra air in to 'rev' the engine up (to be able to stabilize the idle), but its got no way of cutting the additional air, so it revs up."

 

A Ferrari, which some will argue costs three to four times the cost of a comparable car, like a BMW M3, should not cause you to crash into another car while you are braking.

 

Simon, what happened to you with a Ferrari has happened to others with Hyundais Santa Fé and below are the reports.

"I also experienced Sudden unintended acceleration in my 2008 SanteFe 45K mi. I was in slow traffic creeping along when the engine reved and the car accelerated very quickly. Brakes weren't enough to stop it. I crashed into the car ahead of me. I am terrified. I took it to the Dealer and like everyone else who has posted, they said they couldn't find anything wrong with the car. On another occassion, my husband said he felt the pedal sticking."

"Suddenly my Santa Fe took off like a bullet, jumping the cement parking barrier and crashing onto the building. The front of the building, including window and door crashed down on my hood. When I finally stopped I had taken out the building, damaged a washer and dryer. The engine was still running and I had my left foot on the emergency brake and my right foot on the brake"

 

I had what might be similar symptoms in my Cali. In slow / stop and go traffic, my car shifted down and up a few times in rapid succession and lurched as it blipped the throttle. This happened a couple of times, one time lurching forward, one time almost stalling.
I immediately called the dealer and was told if it only happened that once, it was probably an anomaly, which is little comfort if you rear end someone as a result.

 

Simon, I'm sorry to learn of your scary experience you had with your '09 Cali. I will comment in-line. Firstly, I am quite curious what your (only) Ferrari-authorized repair shop (in Sweden) meant by

"...very common with strange problems with the California...".​

I say this because I've been driving for over 25 years in BMWs, have owned my Cali30 since new for 4 years and have been on FChat for over 4 years... and I cannot say I have come across any car mentioned as having "...very common with strange problems ...". Strange problems occur to people only when they cannot understand what happened. If you do figure out the causes of problems, the problems are no longer strange, even though they may be unfortunate or unnecessary. Perhaps it's a language issue, but strange generally means "hard to understand" in English.

If I were you I would ask your dealer to further explain what they mean by "...very common with strange problems with the California...". It's in your interest to know about the car and the technical competence of your (dealer?) repair shop, the only authorized one in Sweden.

First of all 60 mph (96.6 kph) is a high rate of speed to come to a stop sign. That would be the limit for country roads in my area and I mean usually not "slow enough" to avoid a ticket. Stop signs are not meant to control higher rates of speed.

I see you were using the automatic downshift feature of the car, perfectly normal. I also see your problem only occurred when your car shifted from 2nd to 1st. It appears your car accelerated when the engine was revved (blipped) for the downshift. At that point your braking failed to stop the car and you rear-ended the car that was stopped in front of you.

Simply looking at the physics, I would say your brakes failed. The engine management ECU was probably working correctly. If you are experienced with driving a manual stick-shift in aggressive mode, you will recognize the rev-matching downshifts, which would result in increased engine revs to match the lower (1st) gear when you car shifted from 2nd gear.

I suspect you were doing a very aggressive stop and expecting the car to come to a rapid stop. This is not unreasonable to achieve under normal conditions but in this instance something caused your brakes to momentarily fail when your car downshifted to 1st gear. Essentially, your brakes locked up and your car skidded into the car in front, with the engine revving higher in 1st gear making it feel worse.

The brake failure could have been caused by loss of brake/wheel traction, causing a lock-up and a skid. The sudden engine-brake in 1st gear can sometimes cause a skid if the road surface is slick. I imagine the weather in Sweden 3 WEEKS AGO was pretty COOL/COLD and perhaps also DAMP or WET. The standard Summer tires on the Cali are no good for road temperatures lower than 7°C especially if there is moisture on the road surface. At higher temps they are marginal and not ideal for aggressive maneuvers till temperatures reach well into the teens.

So unless the Ferrari factory in Italy finds something unusual about your car (Ferrari dealers hook up cars to analyzers that allow engineers back in Italy to actually check the parameters and codes stored in the cars. They can update or make changes remotely from Italy), I think you were most likely the unfortunate victim of the conditions.

As for your repair shop, hopefully they can voice their concerns about "...very common with strange problems with the California..." to the factory and have their unresolved experiences sorted out. Since no changes are currently forthcoming from your repair shop on the cause of your mishap, my advice is to not drive as aggressively until road conditions are suitable.

 

Well it seems that on FChat you have not found another California owner whose Cali experienced the same problem which resulted in an actual collision.

Therefore I doubt our theoretical guessing can solve your problem.

I do believe that the nature of your problem poses a major safety risk to you. It needs to be sorted.
Simply not using Auto Mode may not be enough to prevent a reoccurrence.

I would not accept the cheap talk "It wont happen again so don't worry about it."

 

Which dealer and person did you talk to?

Sounds like they just brushed you off.

 

Ferrari BH, I forget who I talked to. I didn't expect a much better answer, they basically said: wait until you can duplicate it and then we'll take a look

 

Not sure what else they could do. Do you have any ideas? It is an anomaly until it is occurs three times. Not sure the two reports here are the same at all.

 

Sure:

Check the car for safety and drive it to see if they can duplicate it.
Read codes.
Have actionable information from Ferrari regarding DCT transmission failures and fixes (I'm guessing there's a bit.)

All of these sound pretty reasonable to me.

I'm not saying my car behaved exactly the same way as the OP, but symptoms sound similar and a lurch in my car may be related to a harder acceleration in his.

 

Another good corollary would be the Toyota sudden acceleration problems several years ago. They went thru the floor mat thing, too, but I don't recall if a cause was ever determined and if they could reproduce the problem. Good luck in getting to the bottom of this.

 

I have had questionable "braking with down shifting" with a DCT... the perception was throttle was being applied as the car was breaking and down shifting causing momentary feeling of "WTF" is going on, the car is still pulling... on a few occasions... very disconcerting when happening ... braking is trying to overcome throttle while clutch is still engaged and accepting power... fortunately plenty of room to work itself out... also had DCT cause acceleration, stay engaged during an aggressive pass even after release of throttle... diagnostics at dealer showed no abnormality... I am writing it off to poor confusing signal / data processing that the computers were momentarily stuck for an answer... as eventually things sorted themselves out in the next second or two... these things happened while in automatic mode, no issues in manual mode,

 

How would they check the car for safety? Do you want them to drive it around randomly trying to repeat the problem if it doesn't recur for you? How long do you intend them to drive your car? How do you expect them to repeat it if you can't?

You can buy a device to read the codes but I think if you asked them, they would do it but might charge you.

I am guessing there isn't or they would have been more concerned about your report.

Did you get them to check for codes? Usually a bad one will cause a CEL to remain active. I think that is why they didn't get too concerned about the incident you described to them.

 

You and I have different ideas about what a service department should and should not be.