So back to the snap together toaster that started this: have since road tripped it a few hundred miles and it's functional but small. Liveable and I think would be happier on rougher roads. I'd rather have my RC back from paint.

So a couple months ago when the weather started getting cold, her dumb little thing would go stupid in the morning. Click remote start, it beeps back then does nothing. Get in, starts fine. Rev it up a few times, sounds fine. Put it in gear, put your foot to the floor, it won't go above 1500 rpm. No lights, bells, whistles or nasty emails from the u-connect. Let it warm up, drives like a new car, remote works. Some routine every morning and any time ya let the thing sit in the cold. I bugged her once a week to make an appointment at the dealer. Her idea was just start it up 10 minutes early. Finally dragged it in there and would ya believe a bad brake light switch?

Sure I can because I probably broke the stupid thing. It's the way it was broke that annoys me. Said dumb snap adjustable, snap installing, snap connecting switch has multiple sets of contacts. Dealer says one set was telling the PCM that somebody's foot was on the brake so it wouldn't let the thing rev in gear. The set for the tail lights was just fine. Same with the set for the shift release and I don't want to know how many other sets for what.

What most annoys me about all this is not my usual hate of nanny ware and ai-ish cars - it's doing a thing badly. What are you doing if you need at least 3 sets of switches on the freaking brake pedal?? Everything else on a CAN bus car has one connection to the car - windows, locks, stereo, nav, gauges, roof, tires, etc, ad nauseum. They all sit there gleefully broadcasting their status messages on one set of wires. I mean, that was one of the design points right?