Toyota investigator Exponent often defends automakers (has raised questions)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: USA Today

By Jayne O'Donnell,

For four decades, the company Toyota commissioned to investigate allegations of unintended acceleration has played a central role in many of the most heated auto safety debates, almost exclusively working for the auto industry.

The company, Exponent, is part of a thriving industry of firms that do research and scientific and engineering analysis for hire and provide expert testimony and reports for companies facing product disputes, government regulation and lawsuits. Critics claim Exponent will go to any length to get test results favoring its clients.

Exponent's success helping automaker clients with recalls and lawsuits over problems ranging from fires in Pontiac Fieros and GM pickups to rollover-prone Ford Explorers has helped make it the auto industry's most prominent such firm of outside experts. The $230 million company, known as Failure Analysis Associates until 1998, also does work for other industries and for government agencies, including NASA.

But it is Exponent's record defending automakers that has raised questions, including in congressional hearings, about Toyota's choice of it as the outside company to investigate whether electronics caused some of Toyota's unintended-acceleration incidents.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-05-20-exponent20_CV_N.htm

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By Tim Rue, Bloomberg News

Matthew Schwall, right, managing engineer of Exponent, an engineering firm hired by Toyota to investigate sudden-acceleration complaints, checks with a colleague performing a test at in Torrance, Calif., on March 8.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I may not always agree with you

but that's just plain ridiculous. So much for impartiality.