Toyota 'to pay $17m recall fine'
Car giant Toyota is expected to agree to a fine of nearly $17m for not reporting faulty accelerator pedals on its vehicles for four months, a US government source said today.
Toyota faces a deadline today to accept or contest a record $16.4m fine over evidence that it knew about the sticking pedals in September, but did not issue a recall until January.
The Transportation Department source said Toyota was expected to pay the full amount of the assessed fine and avoid contesting it in court.
The official said Toyota did not intend to accept liability explicitly, but from the government's viewpoint, the agreement to pay the full fine was an acceptance of responsibility for hiding the safety defect against the law.
Toyota did not immediately comment.
Toyota announced it would recall 2.3 million vehicles in January to address sticking pedals on popular vehicles such as the Camry and Corolla.
The Japanese car maker has recalled more than eight million vehicles worldwide because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius hybrid.
The fine was based upon timelines provided by Toyota that showed it had known about the sticky pedal defect at least since September 29 2009, when it issued repair procedures to distributors in 31 European countries to address complaints of sticking pedals, sudden increases in engine RPM and sudden vehicle acceleration.
The documents also indicated that Toyota knew that owners in the US had experienced the same problems.
