Ohio_Farmer

My Daughter's 2020 Equinox has run perfectly for four years, 25K miles. Early this summer, she reported a problem where while the A/C was on, she had no throttle response. I am not talking about sluggish or turbo lag. I mean it was like the pedal was disconnected. After a minute or so, throttle response would return. She never had the problem (that she recalls) with the A/C off. The Equinox is still covered under the power train warranty.

We have had it at our Chevy dealer for three week and the tech, who is among the best I've ever seen, has been able to duplicate it a few times. He opened a ticket with GM engineering who have been giving him things to try and readings to take. So far, nothing has worked. Even trusty YouTube has no one posting anything about it.

The tech replaced the vacuum pump as it was noisy and checked a sensor that prevents you from accelerating with the brake pedal on. It was in specs and working. The car is dangerous to operate and if the the throttle decides to be unresponsive at the wrong time, it could be real bad. It has been in the stop for three weeks with no loaners available. If the Chevy dealer is unable to resolve this soon, I will be contacting the local BBB and Ohio Attorney General to investigate our options.

My Wife has a 2021 Equinox but only with 4000 miles. Zero problems, knock on wood.

Has anyone heard of or experienced this?

BlueOx

Hey Ohio Farmer (near Lima by chance?) I'll offer that the last place you want to go is to the dealer for in-depth diagnostics. You see the dealership business model doesn't really allow for going 'off script' when it comes to repairs and the restrictions (rooms full of lawyers) on what the manufacturer will allow the dealer to do are stifling. Nope the local BBB and Ohio Attorney General aren't going to be much help either. What you want is a dedicated independent diagnostics garage that specializes in problems with modern cars. Long gone are the days of cable, switch or relay controlled systems. Modern diagnostics is more of a computer network / data driven occupation and the dealer just isn't the place to find it. You can wait and complain but I'd suggest you seek out a capable shop. There's a fella over in Pennsylvania whose shop I won't name but Pine Hollow will help you find his Diagnostic service. Worth it to have the car shipped there or you can wait and complain. Good Luck with both the car and farm.
EDIT: Oh and if you really feel this is a safety concern a good place to make a complaint to is NHTSA

JordanS

I’m having the throttle issue but the A/C doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Mine usually happens when I’m trying to take off from a stop or pull out from a parking space. It has gotten me into some pretty sticky situations where I thought I was going to wreck because it decided not to go when I had pulled out into oncoming traffic. It is terrifying. So far no luck in identifying the issue from any shop we’ve taken it to as well. The closest we’ve gotten was someone calling it turbo lag. But it lasts much longer than turbo lag is supposed to. I’m desperately searching for answers.