Internal memos and e-mails from Toyota executives is painting a damning picture of the company as it dealt with mechanical failures.New information that internal debate among Toyota executives led one such company leader to advise the company to "come clean" is giving the automaker a black eye all over again. In January of this year, just prior to the large recall that the company announced, the debate occurred behind closed doors. Now, the content of that discussion has become public. Irv Miller, who then served as Toyota’s group vice president for environment and public affairs noted in an e-mail on January 16, "We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. The time to hide on this one is over. We need to come clean."

Prior to January’s recall, of course, there was also a massive recall of over 4 million vehicles in September, 2009. That, coupled with the disturbing insight into the company’s public relations process, spells bad news for the company. Noted Miller in that same e-mail, "We better just hope that they can get NHTSA to work with us in coming with a workable solution that does not put us out of business."

Yes, it has indeed come to that – the fear of being put out of business. Another memo that came out on the same day as Miller’s e-mail, from Katsuhiko Koganei, the executive coordinator for corporation communications, to Mike Michaels, vice president of external communications, noted, "Now I talked with you on the phone, we should not mention about the mechanical failures of acc. Pedal because we have not clarified the real cause of the sticking acc pedal formally, and the remedy for the matter has not been confirmed." After reading that, Miller replied , "Kogi, I hate to break this to you but WE HAVE A tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models." To sum it up in one word: OUCH.