I haven't driven my car for the past two days, and
this morning, it started acting weird. As I was
warming up the car and scraping the ice off my
winshield (it was around 10 degrees out), I noticed
that about a minute after I started the ignition, the
car started to automatically rev up the engine in
increments of 1-1.5 seconds on its own. When I
shifted to D4 (I have an auto), it stopped revving.
However, as I was driving towards school, it
intermittently started doing it again. At the first
stop light I reached, with my brakes depressed, it
kept revving the engine forcing me to creep up and I
had to engage the e-brake at every stop light and stop
sign on the way to campus so that I don't hit anyone
or anything.
This occurs whether I'm in park, reverse, d4, d3,d2,
d1. While in drive, without putting my foot on the
accelerrator, the engine will rev up to 2.5rpm to
20mph (should normally be at 1.5-2.0rpm at that speed)
and stay steady at that speed for about 1-1.5 seconds,
then drop to 0, then repeat the process. If I press
the brakes while it's doing that, my whole car lunges
forward as if I slammed the brakes, then it'll rev
itself up again. When I press on the gas while it's
revving, the heat needle will go all the way to hot,
and come down only when I press the brake (remember,
it's 10 degrees out). This only happened once while I
was looking for a spot in the parking lot.
Can anyone help me diagnose this problem???? Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

 

I would start by checking your engine grounds. It sounds like you have a bad frame ground somewhere.

 

Umm... can you describe that in terms that a mechanically deficient person like me can understand?

 

Sure can!!!

On your battery, you have a positive an negative(ground) terminal. The Postive terminal connects to your main fuse box and to your starter. The Negative connects directly to the fender wall.
Electricity will travel in a circular path in your car from positive to negative(or vice versa, I don't remember) Anyway, all electrical components on your car need proper grounding to prevent stray/intermittent voltage from messing with it. There are various grounding spots on your car to prevent this from happening. If one of the grounds should lose connection and stray/intermittent voltage should be introduced into an electrical component, it can cause it to act wacky. I would start by checking all these grounding spots to make sure that's not the problem. It happens from time to time, especially in high salt environments. (i.e. if your local road crews use salt to melt ice on the roads or along oceans)

I've attached a couple of files (pdf format) to show you where the grounds might be you should look at.

Good luck. If I'm wrong in any of my statements everyone, feel free to correct at your discretion.