Regulators slam Toyota over 'no defect' claim / Toyota Accelerator Problems Result in Class Action

[Omaha Steve]

Class action info below top story. Except for the quarterly report, all the Toyota news has been bad of late.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall5-2009nov05,0,7645994.story?track=rss

U.S. auto safety agency rebukes an assertion that it found nothing wrong in vehicles involved in a massive recall over incidents of unintended acceleration.

By Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian

Federal safety regulators have sharply rebuked Toyota Motor Corp. for issuing "inaccurate and misleading" statements asserting that no defect exists in the 3.8 million vehicles it recalled after a Lexus sedan accelerated out of control in San Diego County, killing four people.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a statement Wednesday that the recalled Toyota and Lexus vehicles do have an "underlying defect" that involves the design of the accelerator pedal and the driver's foot well.

Toyota officials have said they believe the Aug. 28 accident, and other uncontrolled-acceleration incidents across the country, occurred after the gas pedal became entrapped in an improperly installed floor mat.

In formal recall notices being mailed out this week, Toyota asks customers to remove the driver's-side mats. Separately, the company issued a statement Monday saying its recall letter "confirms that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver's floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured."

Toyota also posted a video statement disputing news reports that unintended acceleration may be related to other factors, such as electronic throttle control systems.

That prompted the NHTSA to issue a clarification.

"Safety is the No. 1 priority for NHTSA and this is why officials are working with Toyota to find the right way to fix this very dangerous problem," the statement said. "This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the defect by providing a suitable vehicle-based solution."

FULL story at link.

http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/toyota-accelerator-problems-class-action-6825/

Published: November 9th, 2009

Two drivers in California have filed a class action lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. over design defects that may have caused over 2,000 Lexus and Toyota cars to suddenly accelerate out of control. The problem has reportedly resulted in at least 16 deaths and 243 other injuries attributed to sudden acceleration of Toyota or Lexus vehicles.

The Toyota class action lawsuit was filed by Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park of Los Angeles in Riverside County Superior Court last Thursday. Choi is the owner of a 2004 Camry, and Park is the owner of a 2008 FJ Cruiser. Both say they, like other Toyota and Lexus owners, experienced sudden acceleration problems.

The complaint comes after a Lexus and Toyota recall issued on September 30, involving 3.8 million vehicles. Toyota claimed that the vehicles could experience sudden acceleration due to defective driver’s side floor mats, which can cause the accelerator to stick. However, the new class action lawsuit alleges that Toyota has failed to correct an issue with the throttle control system, indicating that the floor mats are not the only cause of the Toyota accelerator problems.

Choi and Park allege that some of the blame for the sudden acceleration involves the electronic throttle control system, known as the ETCS-i. They say that the original design for the system included a safety feature that would have put the engine into idle mode in case of unintended acceleration. However, the company allegedly decided to sell the vehicles without the feature in 2001.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status for all owners of affected Toyota and Lexus vehicles, calls for a recall of all models with the defective ETCS-i.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) previously rejected a similar request by some vehicle owners to investigate the system, according to a report by Bloomberg News. In a federal register notice published on October 30, NHTSA officials said that the only defect that accounted for the acceleration problems with Toyota and Lexus vehicles were the floor mats being out of position or inappropriately installed.

FULL story at link.

[divideandconquer]

1. Floormats, my butt!

:wtf: Toyota has long history of hiding defects from the government.
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Ex-Toyota Lawyer Holds Tight to Whistleblower Suit
Zusha Elinson
The Recorder
October 22, 2009

Dimitrios Biller and Samuel Wilner drove 3 1/2 hours from Dallas to Marshall, Texas, on the warm last day of September, carrying four banker's boxes of documents that could prove that Toyota hid evidence in death and injury accident cases.

Biller had organized the documents chronologically, packing them in the Toyota boxes he'd been given to take his stuff when he left the company's legal department two years ago. He flew with Wilner, an old friend and fellow lawyer, from his home in Los Angeles to personally deliver the boxes to the federal courthouse in Marshall.

"Those boxes of documents are very important to me," Biller said this week. "I'm not going to turn them over to Federal Express -- it's not happening." It was the end of a wild month that started when the TV news networks discovered Biller's whistleblower lawsuit accusing the automaker of concealing and destroying evidence to keep "its vehicles' structural shortcoming from becoming known" in hundreds of cases. Toyota has issued several press releases to discredit Biller, who was its national manager of rollover litigation from 2003 to 2007.

Plaintiff lawyers are now trying to reopen cases, like Lopez v. Toyota , in which the Lopez family alleges that the seat recliner failed when their Toyota Corolla was rear-ended and the father's seat smashed his daughter in the face, causing her to be blinded in one eye. It was the effort to reopen that case, and others in Texas, that drew Biller to hand-deliver the four boxes .
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<http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202434839298>

[Lefty48197]

2. We should force all the republicans to drive Toyotas with "floor mat" problems.

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[tammywammy]

3. k&r