Feds 'pushed' Toyota to recall, will probe Prius

WASHINGTON - U.S. auto safety officials will review complaints of faulty brakes in the Toyota Prius hybrid, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said this morning.
LaHood also released a detailed time line of meetings between Toyota and federal officials that he said shows Toyota had to be talked into action.

"Every step of the way, NHTSA officials ... pushed Toyota to take corrective action so that consumers would be safe," LaHood said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received about 100 complaints involving the brakes of the new Prius model. Two involved crashes resulting in injuries.

Japan's transport ministry said today it has also received 14 complaints since July last year about brake problems with Toyota's new Prius hybrid.

The redesigned Prius that went on sale last year is not part of the pedal recall involving 2.3 million vehicles.

In the time line provided by LaHood, NHTSA officials had to press Toyota to make its first recall of floor mats in September 2007.

The agency revived the probe following the California crash of a Lexus sedan in August 2009 that killed four people. Once again, NHTSA had to tell Toyota it was expecting a recall.

The automakers issued a broader recall in September, but attempted to argue that there wasn't a true recall because there was no safety defect. NHTSA criticized Toyota for its stance, and the automaker relented.

The floor mat recall now covers 5.4 million vehicles.

LaHood said he had scheduled a meeting with Akio Toyoda, the chairman of Toyota and a scion of its founding family, "about how very serious this is."

"I think they're close to getting it, and I think they will get it once I talk with Mr. Toyoda," LaHood said, adding "we're going to keep the pressure on."

LaHood confirmed that safety regulators have renewed their probes of electrical problems in Toyota cars and trucks that could lead to sudden acceleration, as part of a broader look at the automaker's two recalls of 5.6 million vehicles.

Jim Lentz, president of Toyota's U.S. sales arm, said repeatedly Monday that Toyota was confident there was no problem with the electronics in its vehicles.

But a wave of more than 2,000 sudden acceleration complaints involving Toyotas over the past several years began after Toyota started using electronic gas pedals and other computer-driven engine controls.

Toyota has said it acted as soon as possible to meet customers' needs and would cooperate fully with NHTSA on safety issues.

Two U.S. House members demanded Tuesday that Toyota back up Lentz's statements Monday that fixes Toyota is making under the two recalls would prevent all incidents of sudden acceleration, and that Toyota had only known about problems with sticking pedals in its vehicles since last October.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, the Menominee Democrat who chairs the investigation subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Toyota's comments Monday conflicted with what it had told committee staffers last week.