Transport ministry raids Mitsubishi Motors over mileage-cheating scandal

3rd party testing and certification; is there any of that for anything in Japan? It seems like an obvious solution to so many problems, from organic certification to safety testing, yet it seems like either government, which makes the rules, does it, often by way of some quango (a convenient amakudari destination), or the companies themselves do it and we are supposed to trust them. Isn't the idea of conflict of interest clear?

Paste"Mitsubishi’s reputation was hammered by a massive cover-up of defects that surfaced in the early 2000s." I do not know what defects they are talking about but I liked my first Eclipse so much I bought another. They say "Don't Drink and Drive"...I have one worse...Sleeping and Driving. That is how I totaled my first Eclipse which had 150,000 miles on it. I bought my second in 2004 with 30,000 on it and now it has 290,000 miles on it. Of course I always did recommend maintenance on them other than that....I think the Eclipse is an awesome car. Today, do their cars have a lot of problems?

raid now, you need to raid offices as soon as the scandal breaks, incriminating documents would have been shredded weeks ago.

@Moonraker, that's why here in the USA, emissions and fuel economy certification are done by the Environmental Protection Agency's own testing labs. That's something that Japan's own transport ministry (MLIT) should do on their own with their own testing labs.

But they have already apologised! Remember the two guys bowing at the end of last month?

In Japan the interests of companies come before those of consumers. That's why car companies are free to make up the mileage numbers for their vehicles and nobody is arrested. It's all very regrettable (that they got caught).