Toyota: "We did nothing wrong but we'll pay $32.4 million more if the US stops investigating what we didn't do"

Toyota has agreed to pay the US another $32,400,000 to shut down the US federal government's safety investigation of its self-acceleration problems and its failure to report the defect to US safety investigators timely. That's on top of the $16.4 million it already paid toward the penalty.

For its part, government officials said they expected better cooperation out of Toyota next time while Toyota, for its part, said the payment enabled it to "turn the page" and move on with its business of making and selling cars.

By the end of this year Toyota will have recalled more vehicles in a single than any other known manufacturer ever faced while its market share fell dramatically. Meanwhile, questions still exist.

There is still no explanation for the state trooper whose Toyota-built car couldn't be stopped until it crashed and killed the trooper and his family members.

The man who was imprisoned for a Toyota vehicular homicide-related conviction was set free but still lost years of his life because Toyota swept its problem under the corporate rug.

The ex-Toyota lawyer whistle-blower is all but forgotten, even though he first publicly talked about Toyota's corporate policy of "playing hide the evidence and lie about it."

And the many lawsuits filed against Toyota were themselves almost all swept up into the massive multidistrict litigation that still churns away in a sunny LA federal courtroom.

Meanwhile, Toyota just wants to move on. Perhaps its settlement with federal safety investigators is a sign that it is finally beginning to recognize its own dirty laundry. For this Christmas, maybe all Toyota owners should ship a box of detergent to Toyota Motor Sales USA, 19001 South Western Avenue, Torrance, CA 90501. They could still use a good scrubbing.

If you've got a lemon Toyota, with Toyota's history of fight, stall, delay, and deny-at-all-costs, you need a lawyer that will fight for you. Get a Burdge attorney. Getting rid of Toyota lemons is what we do. We've been doing it since 1978. And making them pay your attorney fees in a lemon law case is just, well, justice.