Toyota US chief has doubts on recall

The president of Toyota's United States operations admitted to questioning politicians that the company's recalls of millions of cars may "not totally" solve the problem of sudden and dangerous acceleration.

Toyota’s James Lentz told a US congressional panel yesterday: “We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential causes.”

But he repeated his company’s position that unexpected acceleration in some of the company’s most popular cars was caused by one of two problems – misplaced floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals.

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He insisted that electronic systems connected to the accelerator pedal and fuel line did not contribute to the problem.

The politicians were critical, saying the possibility should be further investigated.

Republican Joe Barton warned his colleagues against conducting a witch hunt and said: “We don’t want to just assume automatically that Toyota has done something wrong and has tried to cover it up.”

But halfway through Mr Lentz’s testimony, Mr Barton said of Toyota’s investigation of the problems: “In my opinion, it’s a sham.”

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Mr Lentz said the company had not completely ruled out an electronics malfunction and was still investigating causes of the sudden acceleration.

“We have not found a malfunction” in the electronics of any of the cars at issue, he said.

Three US congressional panels are investigating Toyota’s problems.

Toyota has recalled some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide – more than six million in the United States – since last autumn because of unintended acceleration problems in several models and braking problems in the Prius hybrid. It is also investigating the steering in Corollas.

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People with Toyotas have complained of their vehicles speeding out of control, sometimes resulting in crashes.

The US government has received complaints of 34 deaths linked to sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles since 2000.

Mr Lentz said the recalls may not totally solve the problems but the chances of unintended accelerations would be “very, very slim” once they were complete.

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