The Toyota cases just keep on going - like that rabbit with the battery - it just doesn't quit.

Automotive News is reporting that "preliminary evidence shows that Toyota Motor Corp. hired a lawyer to destroy or hide incriminating safety documents from vehicle owners who sued the company according to the ruling from an arbitrator.

The Washington Post is reporting that the class action case lawyers are saying that they have uncovered internal Toyota documents showing that as far back as 2003 the company knew about the problem of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars.

A former Toyota exec's email now haunts Toyota, according to Automotive News reports and the Detroit News.

The now retired exec, named Irv Miller, at the time a Vice President in the company, sent an email in January urging Toyota to "come clean" about the gas pedal problem and said “I hate to break this to you but WE HAVE a tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models. We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. The time to hide on this one is over.”

In another email, Miller warned “We better just hope that they can get NHTSA to work with us in coming with a workable solution that does not put us out of business.” NHTSA refers to the US federal recall agency that investigates vehicle defects.

With a pending $16.4 million fine from US safety investigators at NHTSA, Toyota has admitted that they have done a poor job of handling the issue but so far has not commented on the Miller email.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Miller emails to be among a series of internal communications at Toyota, debating when to make their knowledge of the accellerator problems public.

Will this be the smoking gun that forces Toyota to finally "come clean" and give up the stalling and runaround? With this email, it seems that internal warnings were going on and someone at Toyota was either ignoring them or squelching them. Either way, it doesn't look good.

Automotive News is also reporting that evidence now exists that Toyota knew of teh accellerator problem at least 3 1/2 years before it became public. Meanwhile Toyota is reported to have created “rapid response” teams of engineers and technicians to evaluate customer reports of unintended acceleration." You can read more here: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100408/OEM/100409894/1143#ixzz0kXuGvBD6

With bad news breaking every few days for Toyota, it's no wonder that many Toyota owners flocked to their Ford and Chrysler stores to take advantage of "Toyota Trade In Days" recently.

Federal safety investigators have notified Toyota that it will be hit with the largest fine NHTSA has ever assessed a vehicle manufacturer, $16.4 million.

The feds are saying Toyota knew it had a problem and hid it from US investigators for at least 4 months, according to news reports just out.

With the help of zero interest financing and special deals, Toyota had managed to crank its sales back up after a devastating 2 months when it couldn't stay out of the headlines. Now, it's back on front page again.

The Toyota mess is, most certainly, a mess of royal proportions. It seems like a new "class action" lawsuit is being filed every couple of days. Reports are that there are at least 41 of them spread out across the country. But that may not be the best approach for everyone. Maybe not even for most people.

Most folks just want rid of their bad, untrustworthy Toyota, without loosing their shirt in the process. They feel betrayed, most often after years of loyalty to the Toyota brand. And now they hear the Toyota boss tell Congress today that they aren't so sure after all that the floor mats or the sticky gas pedal are the problem.

And there's still a Toyota sitting your driveway? A class action may not be the best answer for you in this case.

There's a place for class actions, certainly, and Toyota may be the perfect example. But often class action cases end up with the consumer getting a small amount while the attorneys get a large amount (which they earn, by the way, from their years of fighting the case without being paid during the fight). Still, some people think the process is not really fair because it can take years to get a class action settled and maybe even longer to get your money to you. That's the reason that a class action is something you have to think carefully about before getting into.

In many smaller class action cases, if not most, what you want for yourself, for your own family, can be achieved more quickly and more beneficially to you (in your pocket) if you take an individual approach.

If what you want the most is just to get out of your bad Toyota, as quick as you can, a class action may not be the best solution for you. An individual "let's take care of me first" case may be your very best way to handle it.

In that event, the big class action law firms may not be interested in your case. Well, we are. We handle class action cases, sure. But the Toyota acceleration recall cases are not ones we are handling on a class action basis. The Toyota class case is likely to end up being huge, cumbersome, dragged out, and very difficult on the consumers (and the lawyers) from start to end. As a Toyota owner, you have to be very sure you want to get into that kind of fight before you go there.

Most people can't afford to park their bad Toyota car and go out and buy another one. What most people tell us is that they want rid of their bad car right now because they just don't trust it or the company anymore.

In that case, we can help. We're Lemon Law lawyers and getting rid of bad recalled Toyota cars and Toyota trucks is what we do. We've been doing it since 1978. Toyota's attorneys know us. We know them too. That's one of the many reasons we think we can help you best.

And best of all, we have a nationwide network of Consumer Law and Lemon Law attorneys who can help you get out of your bad Toyota anywhere in the United States.

If you want to do a class action, okay. We can handle that. But if you just want to get your family's life back to normal, we can handle that too. We understand that sometimes you want to do something that helps everyone out, and sometimes you just want your life back to normal.

Whichever way you want it, we can help. Get a Burdge attorney. Getting rid of lemon Toyota cars and lemon Toyota trucks is what we do. Everyday. Since 1978.

Seems like everyday is worse than the day before for Toyota. The company president, Toyoda, is not looking forward to showing up in front of Congressional investigator committees, no doubt.

AOL's Daily Finance is reporting the company apparently bargained with US federal safety investigators over the size of the accelerator recall and after getting what they wanted, in Fuly 2009 the company circulated an internal Toyota document titled "Wins for Toyota Safety Group" that bragged that they had saved $100 million by convincing NHTSA investigators to cut back on the size of the recall. Kind of reminds one of the Ford Pinto gas tank fiasco, with its internal Ford memo tieing money to recall savings back in the mid 1970's that the Center for Auto Safety wrote about here: http://www.autosafety.org/ford-pinto-fuel-fed-fires

Add to that the reports of more Toyota recalls in the offing (like the crashing Toyota Tacoma), a US grand jury subpoena for recall info, Toyota plants in the United Kingdom shutting down and Toyota's continued denials of any link between the suspect electronic throttle systems and the uncontrollable self-acceleration defect, and top it off with the morning news about the poor schmuck who was sent to prison for a Toyota self-acceleration-caused vehicular death which he got blamed for because no one had heard about any self-acceleration problem yet (he's doing hard time now but the prosecutor has announced he will reopen the case), and it seems like it just gets worse every day.

Some are saying the media should ease up on Toyota. Others aren't holding back their anger. Congress, never shy about grandstanding when there's blame to pass to someone else, is getting the fires ready for the Toyota hearing roast.

Blame is nice, and it should be laid out there. But meanwhile, there are thousands of consumers who still aren't sure what to do. The value of their Toyota is shot, thanks to the company that they relied on for safety and reliability, chiefly because Toyota spent decades carefully marketing their reputation for safety and reliability. Some still aren't fixed. Americans have died in accidents caused by Toyota's desire to make that extra profit (reports say it's upwards of 1,000 deaths).

People are angry. They have a right to be. If only a fraction of what is coming out is true, then Toyota richly deserves the public thrashing it is going to get. It deserves the lawsuits too.

Yes, there are lawyers who have filed class action lawsuits against Toyota over all this, and they are being unjustly chastized for it.

If your brother and his entire family were killed in a run-away Toyota-built vehicle like the off duty state trooper in California, wouldn't you be angry? If it was your father who was doing prison time because no one believed him when he said his Toyota just speeded up and he couldn't stop it before it crashed into another car killing its occupants, wouldn't you be angry? There are lots more examples.

The US court system does not hurt manufacturers, in spite of what some well-paid pundits say from outside the system where they get paid richly by corporate sponsors of their tv shows to cry wolf and foul at every opportunity. The court system actually helps because it levels the playing field for all manufacturers. If one company builds a dangerous product and someone gets hurt, the court system can hold them accountable for it. The company not only learns an economic lesson, but that then serves as an example to others in its industry to follow the law and do what's right so they don't suffer a similar economic loss.

It also serves to punish corporations that cut corners in order to compete unfairly in the marketplace. And that unfair competition drives other manufacturers out of business if it isn't curbed with the economic penalties of a lawsuit loss.

The court system is all about checks and balances. When it functions right, we all come out ahead. Products get built safer, competition is fairer, goods cost less for all of us.

The people hurt by what Toyota has done deserve the chance to take Toyota to court. No matter what happens, we all will win something from it. And, believe it or not, Toyota will learn something from it too.

Meanwhile, if you've got a recalled Toyota, don't drive it. Have it towed to your nearest dealer. While you're there, you might ask for your money back too.

So, how do you stop a government investigator from investigating your company? Well, one way is to promise them a job or just plain hire them. Did Toyota do that to stall or stop federal investigators from looking too closely at their runaway acceleration car problems in the past? Toyota owners deserve an honest answer.

On Feb. 12th, Bloomberg.com reported that many of the regulators in the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") who stopped earlier investigations into Toyota problems by the federal agency in charge of recalls ended up being hired by Toyota after they left their government jobs.

Former regulators hired by Toyota Motor Corp. helped end at least four U.S. investigations of unintended acceleration by company vehicles in the last decade, warding off possible recalls, Bloomberg says court and government records show. While all automakers have employees who handle NHTSA issues, Toyota may be the only one of the major companies that also has hired the former safety investigation agency staffers.

Spokesmen for General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Honda Motor Co. all say their companies have no ex-NHTSA people who deal with the agency on defects.

The recent developments with this Toyota recall mess are astonishing and have to make you wonder just how cozy the recall investigators have been with Toyota. Is this the reason recalls didn't happen before now?

As an example, Bloomberg reports that "Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.

"NHTSA opened eight investigations of unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles from 2003 to 2010, according to Safety Research & Strategies Inc., a Rehoboth, Massachusetts, group that gathers data from NHTSA and other sources..."

Foreign accountability is needed to keep Americans safe and it seems to be getting clearer that it has not been happening. Here, it looks like even the government watchdogs weren’t watching.

Read the Bloomberg article here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMBS8icm3pyY&pos=5

It all makes you wonder just how long has this been going on? Who knows.

One thing we know for sure though is that if you own one of these recalled Toyota's, it's time to be driving very carefully, if you drive it at all.

If you've got a lemon Toyota, you need a Burdge attorney. Getting rid of lemons is what we do. Every day. Since 1978.

Automotive News is reporting this morning that in August 2007 federal safety investigators at NHTSA, the people in charge of motor vehicle recalls, saw electromagnetic interference cause a Toyota-built engine to rev up on its own. But they decided to do nothing about it.

"Federal investigators had just bought a 2007 Lexus ES 350 and were running it through a battery of tests at the government's Vehicle Research and Test Center in East Liberty, Ohio, when they noticed something funny with the electronic throttle control.

"The vehicle was rigged with monitors to root out possible causes of unwanted acceleration. The engineers, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, were testing yaw rate, speed, acceleration, brake pressure, brake pad temperature, throttle-plate position, gas-pedal position and the brake booster vacuum, among other things.

"And when they introduced magnetic fields in proximity to electronic controls for the throttle body and accelerator pedal, the engine mysteriously started revving by itself." Read more here.

The article is from within the auto industry itself and recites a lot of detail that convincingly explains that floor mats and gas pedal shims may not be the real fix for the problem at all, even though Toyota still insists it has found the problem.

Until federal safety investigators get finished going back over everything, including the things they missed years ago, Toyota owners can't be sure. They can only be careful.

If you've got a lemon Toyota, don't take a chance. Get a Burdge attorney and get rid of your lemon. It's what we do. Every day. Since 1978.

When it rains it pours. In Toyota's case, it just pours and pours and pours.


Bad enough all the grief over its gas pedal recall that it miraculously found out how to fix in only 7 days, bad enough the floor mat recall of millions of Toyota vehicles, and Lexus, is looking like another half-hearted attempt to sweep the problems under the rug (quite literally), but now even Toyota's green gem of the fleet, Prius, has come under fire.

AP News has reported that the Toyota Prius is now being repaired by dealers for brake issues that Toyota is claiming don't quite deserve a recall --- yet. But even Automotive News is saying that a recall on the green-badged eco vehicle will happen any day now.


It turns out that there's a computer software "glitch" in some Prius cars that affects the car's brakes. You hit the brakes and, for a moment (reportedly one full second), there are no brakes at all. Let's call that the "oh, crap" recall, folks, because that's the mild version of what the driver is undoubtedly thinking in that second of panic and fear when you don't know if the brakes are going to work at all.

Okay, so you bought a Toyota whose floor mat design can cause the car to accelerate beyond control, or was that a Toyota whose gas pedal design can allow it to stick with the throttel wide open (look out for that tree ahead), or you had one of those Toyotas that are talked about in the four boxes of secret evidence under seal at the Texas federal courthouse (where the former Toyota lawyer dropped them off and the criminal investigation is going on), or you wanted to "go green" so you bought one of the Prius cars and now you're waiting for the "oh, sh**" moment to strike.


It's enough to make you buy American again.


If you've got a lemon Toyota, don't put up with any runaround or any grief. Get a Burdge attorney. Getting rid of lemon Toyotas, and other lemons, is what we do. Every day. Since 1978.

AutoBlog.com has some serious and bad news about Toyota, the company whose quality and safety-commitment has not been seriously questioned in more years than most can recall.

They quote the US Transportation Secretary, the same guy whose agency is in charge of all motor vehicle recalls in the US, as saying that it took enormous effort to get Toyota to go ahead with the recall involving the now-infamous gas pedal defect. To be blunt about it, he called Toyota "a little safety deaf."

For a company that has made literally billions off the backs of US citizens by selling them millions of cars and trucks, being a "little safety deaf" appears to be a long-standing problem.

Federal recall investigators and officials actually got on a plane and flew to Japan last December "to remind Toyota management about its legal obligations." He went on, "Since questions were first raised about possible safety defects, we have been pushing Toyota to take measures to protect consumers. ... it unfortunately took an enormous effort to get to this point."

Not surprisingly, Toyota has not only lost the confidence of thousands of its once-loyal owners, but that confidence transformed into a $21 Billion loss in market share in just one week. No wonder after a 5.3 million vehicle sudden acceleration-floor mat recall last fall that was followed up with a 2.3 million vehicle recall for sudden acceleration-sticking gas pedal recall last month. Top that off with another 1.1 million cars added to the dangerous floor mat recall, and top that off again with making the gas pedal recall go global.

What few recall however is that all of this recent mess follows on the heels of something much worse, allegations of deliberate hiding of damning evidence by Toyota involved in the deaths and injuries of Toyota drivers and their family members and contained within four mysterious boxes of documents that ex-Toyota lawyer Dimitrios Biller personally delivered to a Texas federal courthouse. Upon receipt, a federal judge issued an order for the boxes to be secured in a criminal fraud case, forbidding Toyota from touching them without "proper supervision."

Biller says that while working for Toyota, defending safety-related lawsuits brought against the automotive giant between 2003 to 2007, he found out that Toyota was concealing and destroying evidence it was required by law to keep and turn over and his supervisors ignored his complaints and alarms. Biller is quoted by Law.com as saying that "Key Toyota executives have conspired, and continue to conspire, to unlawfully withhold evidence from plaintiffs and obstruct justice in lawsuits throughout the United States."

Right now the media is focused on the recall mess but when they start digging deeper into Toyota, things could really get bad for the company.

It's no wonder thousands of consumers are wondering if they can trust Toyota's claim that it has suddenly, in the space of a single week, miraculously found the "fix" for the sudden acceleration gas pedal defect. At least one other has just said, perhaps with tongue in cheek, "it's just amazing what a good engineer can do when he puts his mind to it!"

If you've got a recalled Toyota, be careful out there. If you're from Ohio or Kentucky, you're not alone. If you're happy with your Toyota and how you've been treated, that's great. If not, there is something you can do about it. You may be entitled to make them buy your car back or get compensation.

Call us on our Toll Free number, 1.888.331.6422, or our direct dial number, 1.937.432.9500, or email us right now for a free case review at Susan@OhioLemonLaw.com. Getting rid of lemons is what we do. Every day. Since 1978.

Burdge Law Office

www.NewCarLemonLaw.com

Because life's too short to be trapped in a Toyota.

The US Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, just said he is advising owners of the recalled Toyotas to stop driving them and wait for the repairs.

He testified minutes ago before the House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation and said his advice to owners was to "stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix."

This about-face remark came just hours after LaHood had told reporters that Toyota owners should just drive carefully and wait.

Meanwhile, reports are surfacing that cast doubt on Toyota's story, both about how long it has known of the problem and questioning if its "fix" will really fix the gas pedal runaway-acceleration defect. USA Today has been running daily articles that are worth taking the time to read carefully.

Until the dust settles, you should follow the federal government's advice and not drive you recalled Toyota at all. We recommend you call your nearest Toyota dealer and tell them to come get it and get it fixed and let you know when it is done.

Meanwhile, we have already started filing claims for Toyota owners who are stuck and expect to continue doing so in the near future.

If you've got a lemon Toyota with a gas pedal recall, or any other lemon, be careful. We can help. Call us Toll Free at 1.888.331.6422, or direct dial us at 1.937.432.9500, or email us at Susan@OhioLemonLaw.com.

Making manufacturers take back lemon cars and lemon trucks is what we do. Every day. Since 1978.

Burdge Law Office

www.NewCarLemonLaw.com

Because life's to short to be trapped in a Toyota.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Toyota says they have found a solution and lots of woners are hoping so as they are stuck in neutral waiting to find out for sure. Is your Toyota safe to drive? And what should you do if the uncontrollable acceleration happens to you in the meantime? When will your dealer get the repair parts for the gas pedal recall?

Well, you have heard our version and have seen lots of everyone else's version in the press and on the internet in the last two weeks.

To read what Toyota is saying, click here: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/01/toyota-closer-to-accelerator-fix.html

It's a page by Consumer Reports that gathers all sorts of info on the gas pedal problem and what Toyota is saying and what other experts are thinking.

Meantime, if you have a recalled Toyota with the sudden acceleration defect, call us if you live in Ohio or Kentucky. We can tell you what to do. You may be able to get your money back or a new car or compensation.