Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas Toyota, Orders Company to Submit Steering Rod Defect Records « Houston Accident Attorney | Texas Personal Injury Lawyer Houston

Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas Toyota, Orders Company to Submit Steering Rod Defect Records

A New York federal grand jury has subpoenaed Toyota to order the company to submit information about its 2005 recall linked to steering rod defects. The subpoena comes after federal authorities began investigations into the delay in initiating the 2005 recall.

In 2004, Toyota informed the federal administration that it would be recalling thousands of vehicles from the Japanese market because of steering rod problems. However, the company said, there would be no need to recall the vehicles from the American market because the problems seemed to be exclusive to Japanese cars. However, just nine months later, the company initiated a recall of thousands of its models for the same steering rod defect, in the US.

It is this delay of nine months between the Japanese and American recalls that the Department of Transportation has been investigating. Federal laws require that automakers immediately inform federal authorities of any defects that they have discovered in their vehicles within a period of five days. Toyota will be asked to explain why it waited for so many months to recall its vehicles from the American market.

The steering rod defect investigation is separate from the investigation into the acceleration problem in Toyota cars. Those investigations are looking at the role of floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals as a cause of the acceleration. Investigations are still going on. The Houston defective Toyota lawyers at our Texas personal injury law firm have been investigating several cases involving accidents caused by sudden unintended acceleration. I’m currently representing clients who were injured in accidents caused when their Toyota cars accelerated to high speeds and crashed.