There will be more about Christopher Santucci......

I used to work for the Hawaii distributor for Toyota (along with Lexus/Scion/Suzuki/Subaru) and there was a '07 Tundra in the distributor pool that I had borrowed for an accessories test install. Anyway, for some reason or another the plastic sheeting that covers the carpet was not removed, and the rubber all weather mat was just thrown on top. On my way to the shop I punched it as I merged from one freeway onto another, and the feeling of the 381hp and 401lb-ft was awesome...until I realized that after I let off the gas pedal it kept accelerating. Frantically I pushed the brake pedal down as hard as I could, and while it could not slow the truck down to a complete stop I was able to stay with the flow of traffic (~60mph). Within a second or two I noticed the floor mat was up towards the gas pedal, and with a quick pull of the mat everything was back to normal. When I got to the shop I noticed that the hook that's used to secure the mat in place was sitting inside the glove compartment...go figure.

a few months later I bought my own Tundra, and with the hook securing the floor mat I've never had any problems with it. Only reason that I've been trying to sell it (probably impossible now) is to pay off bills and to qualify for a mortgage loan. If it wasn't for that I'd keep it forever.

Yea, I saw the the Kelley Blue Book value had dropped 500 to 800 bucks for many of the models in the recall. That has to suck to try to sell one of them now.

but a good time to buy

This will make Sniper's week:

Toyotas' sudden acceleration blamed for more deaths - latimes.com

"More than 100 deaths have now been blamed on sudden acceleration of Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, nearly twice the number that had been reported two months ago, according to a Times review of public records.

With a recent surge of complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration factored in, sudden acceleration has been raised as a possible cause of crashes involving Toyota vehicles that led to 102 deaths, according to NHTSA records, lawsuits and police reports..........


............The new numbers prompted a call for a thorough investigation of each fatality reported to the federal government in connection with the Toyota problems.

"People who were involved in crashes are saying, 'Look, I've always thought there was something wrong.' Now they're coming forward and saying, 'There was a crash that we believed to be sudden acceleration,' " said Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington.

Ditlow said he expected the number of deaths possibly related to sudden acceleration to grow to several hundred in the coming months. The federal government and Toyota should investigate every one of them, he said.

"Some of them will turn out to be something else. Unless you do the investigation, you're never going to know," Ditlow said.

I'm honestly thinking the 34 deaths figure is a lot more accurate.

That is the number that was out there before the feeding frenzy hit.

whatever the number is it is simply unacceptable. today's technology should make these everyday rides safer than ever. a cable versus a wire? cable...anyday.

I agree.

Seen at the ever hilarious graphjam.com...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1269847600.jpg

And I thought I was just being irrationally paranoid about Onstar....
Makes you wonder if federaly-mandated traction control is a good thing.

Automobile computer systems successfully hacked
"Now researchers have shown that it's possible to take away driver control of a moving vehicle by remotely hacking into relatively insecure computer systems common in modern automobiles."
"The team managed to break into key vehicle systems to kill the engine, apply or disable the brakes and even send cheeky messages to radio or dashboard displays."
"Perhaps more worryingly, they also managed to plant malicious code which would completely erase its tracks after any crash."