LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Toyota Motor Corp. secretly bought back from U.S. consumers vehicles it found with speed-control defects as part of a strategy to hide unintended-acceleration problems from safety regulators and the public, a revised lawsuit claims.

The repurchase transactions included strict confidentiality agreements barring consumers from disclosing the problem to anyone and from suing the automaker, according to the amended class-action complaint.

The new complaint also cites internal company records documenting instances in which Toyota technicians or service managers replicated speed-control problems like those reported by customers.

And it says the company's confirmation of at least one clearcut case of sudden unintended acceleration was concealed rather than reported to federal auto safety regulators.

The enlarged lawsuit, now more than 700 pages long plus hundreds of pages of attached exhibits, was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, south of Los Angeles.

It builds on a case consolidated over the summer from dozens of consumers and businesses claiming economic losses, including diminished vehicle resale values, stemming from complaints of Toyota cars and trucks racing out of control.

The thrust of the lawsuit is the contention that Toyota ignored evidence of speed-control problems in its vehicles for most of the past decade and failed to install a brake override system it knew could have prevented accidents.

Toyota acknowledged in a statement on Thursday that it has repurchased vehicles from customers who complained of unintended acceleration but did so to conduct "further engineering analysis" on the cars.

However, the company said its technicians have never been able to replicate those "acceleration concerns nor found any related issues or conditions in these vehicles."

Liability waiver or gag order?

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said customers selling back their cars were asked -- not required -- to sign a "settlement agreement" that included a release from liability, but those documents contained no requirement of confidentiality.

The lawsuit lacks any documentation of confidentiality agreements, but plaintiffs' attorney Steve Berman said that "the consumers told us" about them.

Lyons added that the vehicles were bought back subject to state "lemon laws" and that in at least some cases the repurchases were requested by the company rather than by the consumer. He declined to say how many vehicles Toyota had repurchased or how much the automaker paid.

Toyota has acknowledged just two defects as a root cause for its vehicles speeding out of control -- ill-fitting floor mats and sticking gas pedals. Both problems were addressed in safety recalls encompassing 5.4 million U.S. vehicles and more than 1.6 million cars in Europe.

Driver error

The company says many unintended acceleration cases stem from driver error and has denied the existence of a hidden flaw in its electronic throttle system, as the lawsuit suggests.

But the revised lawsuit challenges those contentions by pointing to some of the company's own communications, including those in which Toyota technicians said they had reproduced engine surges like those reported by consumers.

In examples cited, the precise cause of unintended acceleration experienced during test drives remained unknown.

But in a series of field reports from 2006 to 2010 involving Toyota Camrys, technicians from Hong Kong confirmed unintended acceleration in cars they tested while ruling out faulty floor mats or gas pedals, the lawsuit said.

Moreover, the acceleration glitches were duplicated without the vehicle's diagnostic equipment detecting a malfunction.

In a separate 2009 case, service manager described in a company memo as "trustworthy and reliable" experienced an unexplained burst of acceleration while test-driving a Toyota Tacoma. The vehicle raced from 70 miles per hour to 95 miles per hour in seconds with "no pedal contact" from the driver. Floor mats were properly secured, according to the lawsuit.

PRESS RELEASE: Toyota Issues Statement on Amended Consolidated Complaint

Recent news reports have stated that Toyota dealership technicians were able to duplicate customer claims of unintended acceleration; that Toyota repurchased the vehicles in question; and that Toyota failed to properly inform the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the situation.



Toyota quickly and thoroughly investigates any customer reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles through its rapid-response SMART evaluation process. Field technical specialists (FTS) and engineers were deployed in response to reports of two acceleration events that dealer technicians reportedly observed. At these dealerships, Toyota FTS and engineers were unable to duplicate the condition and the vehicles were repurchased from the customers for further engineering analysis.



After having thoroughly analyzed these vehicles and driven them for thousands of miles, Toyota FTS and engineers have not been able to replicate the customers' acceleration concerns nor found any related issues or conditions in these vehicles. In fact, test driving of these vehicles is ongoing and they are operating safely.



Toyota has also confirmed that the NHTSA was informed three separate times of the two vehicles in question: first, in timely compliance with the TREAD Act (for the Corolla – May 2010 and for the Tacoma – December 2009); second, in a Spring 2010 response to NHTSA's document request in connection with its Recall Query and finally, in a voluntary response to an informal NHTSA request on October 20, 2010.



Toyota looks forward to defending against the allegations made in the plaintiffs' amended consolidated complaint that was recently filed in the ongoing multidistrict litigation class action.

New claims made against Toyota in defects case

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp. bought back cars from drivers who reported sudden acceleration defects, but the company didn't tell federal regulators about the problem, according to court documents filed in the sprawling litigation against the automaker.

Plaintiffs' lawyers contend the Japanese company compelled the owners to sign confidentiality agreements that prevented them from speaking publicly about the issues they encountered.

In some cases dating back to 2006, Toyota's own technicians experienced the vehicles speeding up without pressing the gas pedal, according to the documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

"The deeper we dig into the facts that surround Toyota, the more damning the evidence that Toyota was aware of the issue and failed to act responsibly," plaintiffs' attorney Steve Berman said. "The revelation that they bought up the cars in question and prevented the owners from talking about their experience is curious at best, nefarious at worst."

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels denied the allegations, saying company technicians weren't able to duplicate the sudden acceleration claimed by drivers in two instances.

"After having thoroughly analyzed these vehicles and driven them for thousands of miles, Toyota (technicians) and engineers have not been able to replicate the customers' acceleration concerns nor found any related issues or conditions in these vehicles," Michels said in a statement. "In fact, test driving of these vehicles is ongoing and they are operating safely."

The automaker didn't respond to the allegations that it required the owners to remain silent and said it looks forward to defending itself in court.

Hundreds of lawsuits were filed against Toyota after the automaker began recalling millions of vehicles because of acceleration problems in several models and brake glitches with the Prius hybrid.

The automaker has recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide over the last year. Federal officials said they have received about 3,000 complaints about sudden acceleration and estimated the problem could be involved in the deaths of 93 people over the last decade.

Last month, Toyota paid an undisclosed amount to settle a lawsuit with the relatives of four people killed in August 2009 when a driver was unable to stop a runaway Lexus. The high-profile case helped draw attention to the acceleration phenomenon, which in some cases was blamed on faulty floor mats trapping vehicles' accelerator pedals.+

Some of the remaining lawsuits seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration, while others claim economic loss from owners who say the value of their cars and trucks plummeted after the recalls.

All of the federal cases were consolidated and assigned to a judge in Southern California. The next hearing is Nov. 9.

Toyota has blamed a variety of factors -- driver error, faulty floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals -- for the unintended acceleration. Some plaintiffs claim Toyota's electronic throttle control system has a defect, but Toyota has sought to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing drivers haven't identified any such problem.

In one instance, according to the latest court documents, a Toyota service supervisor in May 2007 reported a customer who was concerned about a 2006 Avalon that lunged after coming to a stop.

"Toyota had better get going quick as I predict this will result in numerous accidents and possible deaths," wrote supervisor Mike Robinson, who was relating the customer's comments. "I have talked with my service manager and he said, 'They all do it.'"

Plaintiffs' attorneys say Toyota never reported purchasing concerned owners' vehicles to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nor did Toyota executives when they testified before Congress earlier this year. The automaker said Thursday it told the federal agency three separate times about the claims.

Olivia Alair, a Transportation Department spokeswoman, said the department was not aware of the incidents until Toyota provided the government's investigators with internal field reports about the cases as part of an ongoing investigation.

Alair said the department was talking with Toyota about the incidents and the investigation was continuing.

The Transportation Department and NASA are expected to conclude their investigation of the Toyota recalls by the end of the year. In August, the department said it had not found any electronic problems in runaway Toyotas, citing a study of event data recorders, or the "black boxes" that record data about a vehicle involved in a crash.

In a separate study, the National Academy of Sciences is conducting a more sweeping review of unintended acceleration in cars and trucks across the auto industry. The panel is expected to release its findings in fall 2011.