The Canadian government has accused the Japanese car maker, Toyota, of taking too long to bring to the government’s notice the problem with faulty accelerators in some Toyota cars. Toyota has recently been in a lot of controversy following its recall of a vast number of cars due to unintended acceleration problems.

Toyota had to recall almost 8 million vehicles worldwide due to the sticky pedal and floor mat problem which could interfere with the accelerator pedal creating unwanted acceleration problems. Cars having this problem can suddenly spin out of control, thus causing major worries for customers who were affected with this problem. Around 270,000 vehicles were recalled in Canada.

Canadian lawmakers said that in view of the Toyota incident, they might further toughen the disclosure law in the country. There would also be an investigation into Toyota’s actions.

Toyota, supposedly knowing the problem in October 2008, reported the problem to Transport Canada on Jan 21st in 2009, the same day when it recalled all the vehicles. Toyota also began working on a fix with pedal supplier CTS Corplater in late 2008. Canada law officials demand to know what took the automaker so long to inform them of the problem.

“OK, you’ve got a serious safety problem, you’re already talking with your supplier about redesigning the faulty gas pedal, and nobody told Transport Canada or NHTSA (U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) for that matter, until after a recall was issued on January 21. That’s what you are telling us,” said Jeff Watson, a member of Parliament from the governing Conservative Party.

Toyota has replied saying that it is not legally obliged to tell the government of any complaint, but only of defects, and that it generally takes time to confirm a defect. The company had to make sure a defect really existed before it can inform the government of it. Toyota officials confirmed that around 60 percent of the affected vehicles have already been fixed. The automaker is encouraging the rest of the car owners to bring their cars for repair to the dealer as soon as they can.

via autonews