| Smells fishy.
Seems there is a little more to this than has been told up to now.. First a little about Mr Sikes..
created headlines when his car sped out of control on a freeway in San Diego. A leading newspaper recently posted a stirring but speculative report questioning whether or not James Sikes is a victim of Toyota's unintended acceleration problem, or a scam artist who had financial motive behind the claims.
As per the details, in 2008 Sikes filed for bankruptcy after racking up a $700,000 debt from the flailing real estate market. It was also reported that he was lagging behind on his Prius payments. These statements have led to the speculations that Mr. Sikes's recent accident may have been faked to overcome some of the debt.
Mr. Sikes has denied any financial motivation behind his accusations and has stated that he’s up to date with car payments. He further added that he has no intentions of suing Toyota.
And the latest report says...
Toyota's sudden acceleration problems seemed to get immeasurably worse last week when San Diego resident James Sikes' Prius appeared to accelerate uncontrollably, requiring assistance from a California Highway Patrol officer's car to come to a stop. The media frenzy that ensued spread the story to every corner of the Internet, TV and print worlds. But now it looks like the whole thing may have been a hoax.
Or a scam. Toyota (NYSE:TM) today revealed its preliminary official findings after investigating the incident and the car, coming to the conclusion tha the accelerator pedal was functioning normally, the front brakes showed severe wear and damage from overheating, the floormat in the car was the correct type but was not installed properly, the push-button start/stop switch worked properly, and that the shift lever also easily engaged neutral, as well as other factors that indicated nothing was at fault mechanically with the Prius involved. Toyota even tested the brakes to overheating and found that the car could still be stopped from high speeds.
The sum of these elements lead Toyota to conclude that there is no apparent reason for the problem itself, and that Mr. Sikes' account of events should be investigated further--a tacit way of saying that they don't believe a word he's saying. In its release, Toyota stated, "there are strong indications that the driver's account of the event is inconsistent with the findings of the preliminary analysis."
The release went on to state, "Toyota engineers believe that it would be extremely difficult for the Prius to be driven at a continuous high speed with more than light brake-pedal pressure, and that the assertion that the vehicle could not be stopped with the brakes is fundamentally inconsistent with basic vehicle design and the investigation observations."Clearly, Toyota is staking out its territory on the matter, but it remains to be seen if Sikes and/or independent investigators will be able to show that the "runaway Prius" was more than a Balloon Boy-like attention grab.
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