NHTSA complaint #11709963

Owner complaint summary

My wife was slowly pulling into a parking spot, when at about 10ft from curb the car suddenly accelerated faster than she even thought the car even was capable of (the AWD likely helped). It hopped the curb and hit a tree. She backed it up to the parking spot (it acted normally) and had it towed to dealer. In hindsight, the car had been having a progressive amount and frequency of delay in normal acceleration, sometimes having a pause of up to second or two from pedal input to car response. We asked the dealer to check the EDR (event data recorder). The tech first said he didn't even know what that was, then that he checked with all his fellow techs and they didn't know either, then the story changed to the model not having an EDR. We politely told him which page in the Hyundai manual he can find it, and he refused to look, as did his boss. Car was transferred to a body shop, and disposition was to total the vehicle. While the body shop was still evaluating the car, we contacted a second dealer, who said they don't have a reader. I inspected the floormats before the car was towed, as that was an initial suspect, but it was locked in and clearly there was no obstruction. She was wearing tennis shoes and doesn't recall ever having an instance of hitting the wrong pedal in any vehicle. She thinks she was only coasting, not even touching the brake yet.