Toyota Vietnam (TMV) has imposed a three-month suspension on Vietnamese engineer Le Van Tach, who exposed technical problems with the carmaker’s manufacturing process leading to the biggest vehicle recall in the industry’s history earlier this year.

During the suspension period, the company will only pay 50% salary to Tach after the decision authorized by TMV general director Akito Tachibana.

At a press conference in Hanoi on Monday, TMV insisted the reason for the management’s decision to suspend the whistleblower engineer from his job was due to “behavior that affects work and reputation of other employees.”

On May 31, Tach submitted a letter to the management of TMV complaining that seven senior managers had insulted and threatened him after he released information on three serious technical problems that had triggered Toyota’s largest ever recall of over 65,000 cars.

TMV refused to apologize to Tach and said he had no grounds for complaint and issued him with a letter informing him of his suspension.

Earlier Tach released documents revealing three glitches in Innova and Fortuner vehicles. He said TMW had sold around 60,000 vehicles with quality defects in Vietnam.

The company in April apologized to customers for the technical problems relating to its cars and announced a recall of 65,700 Innova and Fortuner vehicles that were assembled in Vietnam for repair.

TMV on Monday announced four minor quality issues in Innova, Fortuner and Vios cars assembled and sold in the local market. But they declined to reveal the number of affected vehicles.

Tach said he will leave Toyota Vietnam to seek pastures new after he was suspended by the very company he denounced.

Tach told Dan Viet on Tuesday that he is preparing to open a private business and will quit the Toyota job.

But before leaving, Tach said he will complete paperwork to expose more technical faults on Toyota cars assembled in Vietnam and appeal against the suspension decision.

He revealed he had discovered four more technical errors on Toyota cars.

Source: SGT/TT