Toyota's Steering Rod Recall: A Preventable Tragedy

Federal subpoenas issued to Toyota concerning defective steering rod recall

Tuesday, July 20, 2010--A federal grand jury in New York asked Toyota Motor Corp. to submit documents related to problems with the steering relay rods in Toyota 4Runners (1990–1995), pickups (1989-1995) and T100 trucks (1993–1998). The subpoenas, mailed to Toyota's U.S. subsidiaries on June 29, come shortly after a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation into whether Toyota notified the agency of a steering rod defect in a timely fashion, as required by law.

NHTSA's investigation began on May 10, 2010, when the law firm of O’Reilly Collins requested the agency open a timeliness query into Toyota Recall 05V389. The 2005 recall to replace defective steering relay rods in the United States came almost a full year after the Japanese manufacturer issued a Japan-only recall for the same trucks. Nearly a million trucks were affected by the recall in the United States.

Federal law requires a manufacturer to notify NHTSA within five days of determining a motor vehicle defect or noncompliance.

Toyota’s internal records show that the automaker was aware of many relay rod failures that occurred in the U.S. well before it issued the 2005 recall. However, Toyota told NHTSA they were not issuing a recall in the United States because they had no field information as of 2004.

In a filing Tuesday with the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Toyota stated that it intended to “cooperate earnestly” with investigations.

The company has already faced a criminal investigation in Japan over its handling of faulty steering relay rods. Though no Toyota officials were charged, the automaker received a rebuke from the Japanese government and was ordered to overhaul its recall system.

John Kristensen, the attorney for the Stewart family, issued a statement in response to the announcement of the federal subpoenas:

"We are pleased to see that the federal government is taking a closer look at Toyota's recall of its defective steering relay rods.  It has been our contention for the last several years that Toyota misled NHTSA and the American public in 2005 when it delayed a recall of the approximately one million trucks affected in the United States, even though it began a Japan-only recall for the same vehicles a year earlier.  Thousands of these Toyotas with a potentially lethal defective steering component continue to be driven across the United States and we welcome the public attention that the federal subpoena requests will bring.  We look forward to this November, when the family of Michael "Levi" Stewart will have the opportunity to confront the Toyota Motor Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court regarding the tragic death of their son."