'Any Fixes?:' Man Parks His Ram Truck at Office Depot. Then The Pedal Won’t Do Anything

A Dodge Ram driver briefly parked his truck at the Office Depot. When he returned to the vehicle, however, the gas pedal wouldn’t engage. Now he’s asking the internet for answers.

Miguel (@miguelons379) posted a TikTok about his predicament last week.

“2015 Dodge Ram,” he says to start the video. “I left the radio on for like 5 minutes while I went inside. Now I got that pedal. It doesn’t react; it doesn’t do anything.”

“Any fixes?” he asks.

In the comments, viewers offered practical advice. Others simply decided to make a joke of the whole situation.

“Try turning the volume up,” joked one person.

“Flip it over and blow the dust out,” said a second person. 

“Put it in rice,” offered a third.

Luckily, a few actually offered potential solutions. “Unhook the negative battery terminal for 10 minutes,” said one purported Dodge Ram owner. “It resets the computer for the pedals. That’s what the service technician told me.”

Another person said, “These Rams just do stuff like that. A key cycle should fix it. One time I was driving one and the cluster/radio went out.”

What’s Going On Here?

Late last year, a Reddit user posted to r/ram_trucks about a similar issue. “I keep on getting this service electronic throttle control message,” the person wrote. “Gas pedal works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’ll start to rev up by itself in park when this code illuminates. I clear the code and try driving again. Does it again. I repeat it about five times, then it returns back to normal. Until I give it about 80 percent, then it throws up the code again. This is an absolute nightmare.”

The driver said he’s already had the dealership “relearn” the accelerator and throttle body. “Everything was smooth for three days and today it did it again,” the driver continued. “Has anyone had any experience with this?”

The comments don’t turn up any definitive answer. One person said their issue was related to brake wiring that ultimately took a small fix. Another said it was due to a connector located underneath the battery tray.

According to Car Part, an unresponsive gas pedal can be due to several different factors. It could be a clogged air or fuel filter. Those tend to get clogged over time and make it difficult to engage your gas pedal. It could also be a faulty oxygen sensor, which measures the oxygen in your exhaust gasses and communicates with your car’s computer.

If it’s not any of those things, then it could potentially be the car’s electronic throttle control module. Basically, the throttle control module is responsible for making the car accelerate when you push on the gas pedal. If that sensor isn’t working, you’re not going anywhere.

This is a serious enough problem when the car is parked like in Miguel’s case. But it could also happen while you’re driving. If your gas pedal is malfunctioning, you should generally refrain from driving and immediately take your car to a trusted mechanic to find out for sure what’s going on.

Motor1 reached out to Miguel via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. We'll update this if he responds.