A Times investigation shows the world's largest automaker has delayed recalls and attempted to blame human error in cases where owners claimed vehicle defects.

In the wake of Toyota's announcement of the massive recall, The Times examined some of the ways the automaker has dealt with safety problems in recent years and found that:

* The automaker knew of a dangerous steering defect in vehicles including the 4Runner sport utility vehicle for years before issuing a recall in Japan in 2004. But it told regulators no recall was necessary in the U.S., despite having received dozens of complaints from drivers. Toyota said a subsequent investigation led it to order a U.S. recall in 2005.

* Toyota has paid cash settlements to people who say their vehicles have raced out of control, sometimes causing serious accidents, according to consumers and their attorneys. Other motorists who complained of acceleration problems with their vehicles have received buybacks under lemon laws.

* Although the sudden acceleration issue erupted publicly only in recent months, it has been festering for nearly a decade. A computerized search of NHTSA records by The Times has found Toyota issued eight previous recalls related to unintended acceleration since 2000, more than any other automaker.

* A former Toyota lawyer who handled safety litigation has sued the automaker, accusing it of engaging in a "calculated conspiracy to prevent the disclosure of damaging evidence" as part of a scheme to "prevent evidence of its vehicles' structural shortcomings from becoming known" to plaintiffs lawyers, courts, NHTSA and the public.

As a result, plaintiffs attorneys are considering reopening dozens of product-liability suits against the automaker.

In a written statement to The Times, Toyota said that it strove to keep government officials and consumers informed about potential safety problems with its vehicles, which it says are tested to meet or exceed federal standards.

"Toyota has absolutely not minimized public awareness of any defect or issue with respect to its vehicles," the company said.

Currently, Toyota is a defendant in at least 10 lawsuits alleging unintended acceleration that caused five fatalities and four injuries. Two of those suits are seeking class-action status.

But few, if any, sudden-acceleration cases ever make it to trial, according to attorneys who handle such cases.

After a 2007 crash of a Camry that accelerated out of control for 20 miles before killing the driver of another car in San Jose, Toyota was sued by members of the victim's family. Their attorney, Louis Franecke, said the automaker "didn't want to go to trial," and paid them a seven-figure sum in exchange for dropping the case and signing a non-disclosure form.

In an interview, Guadalupe Gomez, the driver of the runaway Camry, said he also signed a confidentiality agreement and received a settlement from Toyota. He was initially arrested on suspicion of manslaughter for causing the crash, but charges were never filed.

By settling, Toyota has managed to keep potentially damaging information out of the public eye, said Raymond Paul Johnson, a Los Angeles attorney who said he had settled four sudden-acceleration cases with the automaker.

"It's just a matter of risk control for them," Johnson said.

Toyota said that although it does not comment on individual cases, it "has resolved and will continue to resolve matters with litigants through confidential settlement when it is in both parties' interests to do so."

The majority of unintended acceleration incidents don't end up in accidents. But even after minor incidents, some consumers have obtained deals under which their cars were repurchased on favorable terms.

Tim Marks, a small businessman in Camden, Ark., parked his daughter's 2006 Lexus IS 250 in front of the dealership last year and said his family would never drive it again after experiencing four sudden-acceleration events.

"They told my daughter she was texting while driving and wasn't paying attention," Marks recalled. "She is a 95-pound, little itty-bitty thing, but she was fixing to twist off on that man."

The vehicle was bought back and the title branded as a lemon, according to vehicle registration records. It was later registered in Florida, suggesting that the dealer resold it.

Much the same thing happened to Joan Marschall, a Visalia resident whose 2003 Camry accelerated on its own three times before she complained.

"I took it to the dealer and said I wouldn't drive it again," Marschall recalled. "I said I don't care if you tell me the computer says nothing happened. I know it did."

Marschall received a lemon buyback too. Registration records show the car was transferred to a new owner in Southern California.

Toyota said it had no policy to repurchase vehicles from customers complaining about sudden acceleration, though its dealers may act on their own to "preserve goodwill."

Some motorists who have confronted safety issues said the automaker has hidden information from them.

In January, Jeffrey Pepski, a financial consultant in suburban Minneapolis, took his 2007 Lexus ES 350 to the dealer after it accelerated out of control on a Twin Cities freeway, reaching 80 miles per hour.

Toyota sent an expert to examine the car Feb. 3 and download electronic data stored on the vehicle's computers. When Pepski asked for a copy of the data, he was refused.

"They said it was proprietary," Pepski recalled.

He filed a defect petition with NHTSA, and the dealer allowed Pepski to trade in the sedan for a sport utility vehicle. The Lexus ES was not branded a lemon and was resold in Minnesota, records show.

How Toyota handles requests like Pepski's has frustrated investigators and vehicle owners who want to get information contained on computers in their vehicles.

Nearly all new cars today contain an event data recorder, often called a black box, that can record several seconds of key information when accidents occur or in other circumstances.

According to Toyota, its black boxes can capture vehicle speed, engine speed, brake pedal application, accelerator pedal position and seat belt usage, among other things. That data, experts say, could be crucial to investigating causes of sudden acceleration.

Toyota responds to L.A. Times article

You know what they say about life at the top... Toyota will probably add a few more bittersweet reminiscences to that pile of axioms once it recovers from the beating it's currently taking.

The automaker has responded to the recent Los Angeles Times article concerning its safety record by issuing a statement and posting the entire e-mail Q&A document it gave the Times. Not surprisingly, Toyota calls the article an "attack" and says the "questions were couched in accusatory terms." After looking over the doc, it's true that some of the questions posed do have the flavor of, "Have you stopped killing puppies, and if so, why?"

Others come off as a tad disingenuous, such as, "If Toyota's position is that the problem is caused by floor mat and pedal interaction when the floor mat is improperly installed by the driver or another third party, why would the company have settled those cases?" Nearly every life form on the planet knows that companies will settle cases even when convinced of their own innocence because it's easier than going to court, especially in the States. We're not saying Toyota is innocent, and perhaps the Times had to ask, but the practice of settling lawsuits is so common that we find the question intriguing.

On the other hand, some of Toyota's answers left us wondering. Its response regarding the steering relay rod issue in the company's 4Runner SUVs, in which Toyota asserts that it's up to a jury to decide whether it knew about the problem in the U.S., struck us as odd.

At the very least, Toyota might want to dial back the polemics. Any corporation that has gone through a steadily-expanding PR nightmare can tell you that we're heading to the point where mere words, and perhaps even the historical and scientific data, do no good. Just ask Johnson & Johnson.. or General Motors... or Audi.

Their execs – and any decent crisis management consultant – would likely tell you that at this point, you do whatever you need to do, spend whatever you need to spend, but you get ahead of it. You can read Toyota's statement and the complete L.A. Times Q&A after the jump.