As Transportation chief Ray LaHood met with president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, another safety probe is on the horizon. This time, Federal regulators are examining whether Toyota delayed disclosing a defect in the steering system in 4Runner SUVs and T100 trucks. The probe was launched when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) received documents Friday indicating that Toyota had potentially misled the government in 2005 over problems with steering linkages in its 1989-95 4Runner and the 1993-98 T100 vehicles.

Toyota said it had recalled HiLux trucks sold in Japan but no recall was necessary in the U.S., because there had not been any complaints. But four lawsuits filed in 2009 in Los Angeles, showed that there had been complaints as far back as 2000 on models using the same linkages. It wasn’t until 2005 that the automaker recalled vehicles in the U.S. to replace the steering relay rods.

In addition to the new investigation, NHTSA is examining whether the company’s recalls for floor mats and sticky pedals that could cause sudden acceleration were timely. In addition to investigating sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, the stability control system in the Sequoia SUV, stalling problems in the Corolla and Matrix, steering wander in the Corolla and Matrix and braking performance in the Prius.

But NHTSA has also come under fire for its handling of the Toyota defect scandal. In the last eight years, the agency closed multiple investigations involving Toyota despite thousands of complaints and allegations of several dozen deaths caused by sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles.