Huffington Post: Toyota Still Covering Up

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-g-baker/toyota-still-covering-up_b_542348.html

Philip G. Bakerauthor "From Concept to Consumer"
Posted: April 24, 2010 06:18 PM

This past week we brought our 2009 Toyota Highlander Hybrid to our local Toyota dealer for an unexpected recall. Just a few weeks earlier we were assured that the car was not on the recall list. Now, we were told, our floor mats needed replacing and the accelerator pedal needed modifying. Toyota couldn't explain the sudden change which, by itself, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that it knows what it's doing.

Even though it was impossible for the mats to interfere, Toyota insisted on replacing them, saying it would make our car safer. It seems like the company has taken a page from TSA, trying to make us feel better without addressing the real issues.

In an earlier post I noted that it seemed to me that Toyota was covering up and not
acting in the best interests of their customers by coming forward with what it knew. But, as I noted, that was a gut instinct, knowing what engineers know, and observing Toyota's strange behavior.

But now there's irrefutable evidence that Toyota has been covering up. Contradicting earlier testimony about when it learned of the acceleration problem, documents turned over to NHTSA revealed that a group VP Irving Miller wrote to another staff member in January about accelerator pedal defects, saying "The time to hide on this one is over. We need to come clean."

And today Toyota agreed to pay a $16.4 million fine for not notifying NHTSA of pedal problems within the five days of learning of them, even though they were already making repairs for the same problem on cars in Europe.

Earlier this month NHTSA announced they will have a group of NASA scientists and engineers conduct its own investigation to determine if the problems of sudden acceleration could be related to the electronics or software, as some experts believe, and as Toyota denies is the cause. That's a positive step, because NHTSA doesn't yet have the in-house expertise, and chose not to rely solely on Toyota's statements.

FULL story at link.

[Omaha Steve]

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