Toyota has issued a statement denying the automaker was able to duplicate customer complaints about sudden acceleration and that it secretly repurchased problem vehicles from owners without notifying the government.
Torrance-based Toyota USA blames attorneys for people suing Toyota for spreading the misinformation.
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The allegation is contained in a court filing leading up to a hearing scheduled for Nov. 19 in which Toyota will ask a U.S. District Court judge in Santa Ana to dismiss the class-action case against the automaker.
“Recent news reports have stated that Toyota dealership technicians were able to duplicate customer claims of unintended acceleration,” reads the statement. “That Toyota repurchased the vehicles in question; and that Toyota failed to properly inform the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the situation.
“Field technical specialists and engineers were deployed in response to reports of two acceleration events that dealer technicians recently observed. At these dealerships, Toyota FTS and engineers were unable to duplicate the condition and the vehicles were repurchased from the customers for further engineering analysis.”
Test-driving of these vehicles “is ongoing and they are operating safely,” claims Toyota, which faces more than 300 federal and state lawsuits related to allegations that the vehicles suddenly accelerated and couldn't be stopped.
Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide in the past year for defects.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.