Q: I press the gas pedal but the car isn't getting gas. The engine doesn't rev up.

Good question. I want to go through a few steps with you and hopefully find your problem and save you some time and money. If you find the issue during steps, then ahead and fix that fault and you should be fine.

First, open the hood and take the engine cover off if there is one. Take off your air intake hose. This should be connected to your air filter. If it is dirty on the inside where the mass air flow sensor (MAF) is, the MAF looks like a honey comb on the inside. When the tube is off and the car is off, ask someone to sit in the car and see if if you throttle body is opening and closing while the other person is pressing the gas. If not make sure the cable on the side are connected. If not reconnect them and try again. Hopefully this is your problem. If your cables are connected your cables are moving and your throttle body aren’t you may have something broken inside of your throttle body causing your throttle not to work properly.

If your cables are connected and not moving, you will need to check your pedals and find out where the disconnection is coming from. If all of this checks out try disconnecting your battery for 10-15 minutes and reconnect it. It could just not be reading that you are pressing the gas. Finally, you can check your fuses and ensure that none of them are blown.

If you would like to have an expert take care of this for you, a qualified professional from YourMechanic can come to your location to diagnose the car’s acceleration problem and guide you through proper repairs.