Unfortunately, I recently had my first serious car accident and am in need of some advice and information. The car involved was a 1995 Volvo 460 Automatic, which we have had regularly serviced and garaged. After completing a round trip of 100 miles, I drove the car into the garage and then had cause to move it about an inch, as a wheel was on a hosepipe. When I put the car into reverse, it accelerated backwards at very high speed and very high revs, out of the garage and across the road, ending up sideways-on against the garage door of my neighbour, smashing the garage door, a brick pillar and an attached house gas inlet box. Fortunately, no-one was injured apart from myself.

I suffered a broken rib and several bruises. We have heard, subsequently, of a problem called “Sudden Unintended Acceleration” and we wondered if you had heard of this problem? We have done a preliminary search on Google to see if there is further information regarding this problem, since several people we have talked to have come across SUA. Do you have any information on this subject that we could follow up?

As the Volvo 460 was a ‘write-off’, we now need to purchase a new car and are thinking of another Volvo. We have currently another 1994 460 Saloon, and previously have owned a 145 Estate and a 240 Saloon, all manual. We would appreciate your opinion as to whether we should buy a Volvo S40 Automatic which would fit in to our garage. Our price range is £5000 to £8000.