Toyota secretly bought back faulty vehicles: lawyers

Japan's top world automaker Toyota secretly bought back some of the faulty vehicles it sold on the market in a bid to hide their defects from the public, the lawyers of clients suing the automaker said Friday.

One complaint filed in California and obtained by AFP said that, contrary to the company's statements, Toyota technicians have replicated the sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) problem that led to the recall of millions of its vehicles months ago.

"Upon the technicians replicating a SUA event, Toyota decided it was in the customer's 'interest' for Toyota to buy back the vehicle, meaning in reality that Toyota decided to remove this vehicle from the market since it was experiencing SUA incidents that could not be blamed on the driver," said the complaint.

"And, to further conceal the defect, Toyota required as a condition of the vehicle repurchase that the owner sign a confidentiality agreement and agree not to sue," it added.

Source: au.finance.yahoo.com...



The Toyota logo is displayed on a brand new Toyota Prius on the sales lot at City Toyota May 2010 in Daly City, California. Toyota secretly bought back some of the faulty vehicles it sold on the market in a bid to hide their defects from the public, the lawyers of clients suing the automaker said Friday.

I can't believe one of the world's largest automakers is intentionally putting peoples' safety on a fishing line as they conceal defects in some of the models of their vehicles, because they are fearful of profit losses in case the defects are revealed.

If you are driving a late model Toyota, be very wary, because your gas pedal could floor itself to the board...

Toyota Denies Secret Acceleration-Related Buybacks

Toyota Motor Corp. denied claims by plaintiffs’ lawyers that it secretly bought back vehicles from U.S. customers who complained to dealers of sudden acceleration and said it hasn’t been able to reproduce such occurrences. “Toyota engineers did not observe these dealer tests, nor have they been able to replicate unintended acceleration as reported,” Steven Curtis, a Toyota spokesman, said in an e-mail message. The company bought back two vehicles from customers who had complained, and didn’t ask them to sign confidentiality agreements, Curtis said.

Here is a comment I made on another thread about the Toyota Recalls.



I saw this in the "NEWS" today and it reminded me of something I wanted to say for a long time now.

You won't see much of anything about any American car company because a lot
of this is just politically motivated.

American cars have been crap for decades, so when this alleged floor mat problem
came along, the government and the media ran with it.

I have worked in the auto repair business for 24 years, and I have worked on just about
all makes of vehicles, I went to work for Toyota about 6 years ago because I saw a
higher level of quality to their vehicles.

Since this alleged "Floor Mat" problem started, I have personally seen at least 60-70%
of the vehicles that come in for the "Gas Pedal Recall" to have "Aftermarket Floor Mats"
that are "Un-secured on the Drivers floor", and most of them are pushed up under, you
guessed it, the accelerator and brake pedal.

The record for the amount of floor mats that we found in a customer’s car is "Eight (8), thats right,
you read that correctly, I said "8"

And these were on the "Drivers Floor".

This was a customer that came in based on his claim that the car had "Unintended Acceleration".

So when I see another recall from Toyota, it reminds me I work for a company that is stepping up to the plate.

No matter what people have to say, I believe Toyota is doing the right thing.

Peace

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"Upon the technicians replicating a SUA event, Toyota decided it was in the customer's 'interest' for Toyota to buy back the vehicle, meaning in reality that Toyota decided to remove this vehicle from the market since it was experiencing SUA incidents that could not be blamed on the driver," said the complaint."

Dealerships Buy Back vehicles all the time, you just don't hear about it. and these Buy Backs are for a
various reasons, it should be a well known fact that car makers have lemons, DONT be fooled by some
lawyers comments.


"And, to further conceal the defect, Toyota required as a condition of the vehicle repurchase that the owner sign a confidentiality agreement and agree not to sue," it added."

This statement bothers me because this is standard practice in the legal industry, this is in no way exclusive to Toyota at all. if you refund someones money then you want them to play fair don't you, you both go your seperate ways and nothing is ever said about the matter again.

I beleive this is called, "Out of Court Settlement"

I hope this sheds some light on this subject.

Peace

This so that Toyota can take them apart and figure out what caused the problem so they can make sure this exact issue and problem never happens again.

To see this as something nefarious or evil is wrong. Just Toyota and it's QC department hard at work making safer vehicles for all.

None of the recalled models however will not be resold and any part that can be reused will be recycled on newer cars.