A friend once had his engine just blow up on him in his Chrysler, basically it just went poof and they would not replace it... why? He was missing one oil-change receipt and the business was no longer there so he could not ask for a duplicate receipt.
I suspect the reason why there were so many to investigate is that despite the officers statement they were looking for ANYTHING that could get them out of paying/being held accountable for this OR that they deemed it a very serious issue one or the other. I would sue, just aggravating, inconvenient, and I'd make sure they paid enough to replace that vehicle with one by another manufacturer who has better safety rating for that one particular vehicle - like you said not another one of those!
Then again that one time the cruise-control on was it Prius models? It went psycho and nearly killed a man as it wouldn't shut off so if it's not cruise-control systems trying to kill us it's airbags going off prematurely, lovely .