95 A6 floormats -- poor design??

[feb@febsun.cmhnet.org]

A few times over the last six months or so, I've had my gas pedal
get stuck beneath my driver's side floormat.
It takes a really good tromp on the gas pedal to make it stick,
and then when I lift my foot, the pedal is stuck down and doesn't lift.
When this happens I experience *unintended acceleration*!

Although conceptually, it should be easy to stick my foot under the
gas pedal and lift it out, in practice having to keep my foot on the
brake to keep the car out of orbit makes it hard to get my foot under
the gas pedal.  So, I have to shut the engine off, etc, etc.

I have the stock floormat, with the little retaining rings in it, and
the rings are correctly lined up and hooked in the little retaining
studs that are sticking up out of the carpet.  It looks like the whole
carpet on the driver's side might be crepping forward and taking the
little retaining studs with it, and that lets the floormat go forward
just enough.

I let the dealer know about this about 1000 miles ago when I took the
car in for its 15000mi service.  They said they 'adjusted' it.
Looks to me they took a hammer or something to the little studs
coming out of the carpet and beat on them until they were a little
further back.  It doesn't seem to have done much good, because after
a month I have once again experienced a partial sticking condition.
Not as bad this time, it popped up by itself after a couple seconds,
but I think in another couple months the carpet will probably have
inched forward some more and it will stick real good again.

My 95 A6 was built in Jan 95.  I've had a close look at another 95 A6,
built in May 95, and it had exactly the same floormats.
Then, last weekend I finally saw the floormats for a 96 A6
and Voila! the floormats are changed for 96!!!!

For 96, the A6 driver's floor mat has a little cutout up in the
top right hand corner near the gas pedal.  The 95s do not have this
cutout.  Here's a poor ascii-art illustration.

                 GASPEDAL                                GASPEDAL
_________________________         ______________________
                        |                              |
    FLOOR MAT           |               FLOOR MAT      `--------.
                        |                                       |
         1995                                1996

This little cutout, about 1" tall and 3" wide, must be just enough
to keep the end of the pedal from sticking beneath the end of the mat.


So, has anyone else with a 100 or A6 experienced this problem?
What do your floormats look like?


Franco

--
Franco Barber
feb@febsun.cmhnet.org
Gahanna, OH
95 A6Q