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.
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