In a not-so-stunning turn of events, the United States Department of Transportation is demanding all documents pursuant to Toyota’s massive recalls over the past year to see if the automaker acted quickly enough in the wake of the recalls. Toyota has already stopped work temporarily at their plants in Texas and Kentucky, and the bad news is only getting worse. Toyota is now experiencing something that they have yet to deal with – a backorder of unsold vehicles, though not as large as stockpiles could get if Toyota doesn’t get this handled.
The documents, among other things, will tell the DOT when and how the company learned of the safety defects in the vehicles and when they found out. The auto transport industry has seen a drop in Toyota vehicles and they’re now saying it’s only getting worse in the wake of this new action taken by the Department of Transportation. The documents were delivered to Toyota on Tuesday and now Toyota has 60 days to respond with their documents or face incredible fines. The Texas plant, which will be the product of a small work stoppage, builds the Toyota Tundra truck and will resume operations on April 12th. The Kentucky plant is only taking one day off, though new vehicles may not be built on further days in March and April in addition to the day off in February.
