The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating why General Motors took years to recall 1.6 million small cars over an ignition switch defect linked to 13 deaths in crashes.

According to Bloomberg News, the agency could fine GM as much as US$35m, which would be the most ever by the agency, if it finds the automaker failed to pursue a recall when it knew the cars were defective.

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GM had said it was “deeply sorry” as it more than doubled earlier this week the number of cars it will fix and expanded the number of models affected to seven from two.

“It is a major event for General Motors to apologize,” Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, which pushed for the expanded recall, told Bloomberg.

“NHTSA will still want its penalty. They’ll want to send a message to the other automakers to toe the line better.”

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Automakers have a legal obligation to act on and report safety-related defects in a timely manner. Congress last year increased the maximum fines NHTSA can impose to $35m to hold automakers more accountable after Toyota’s recalls in 2010 due to sudden and unintended acceleration problems plaguing some of its models.

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Toyota and Ford have paid the largest fines of more than $17m for delaying recalls, Bloomberg News said.

GM’s delay in telling NHTSA what it found in internal investigations shows a reporting system set up after the Firestone tyre recalls in 2000 isn’t working, US senator Edward Markey said in a letter to the agency.

He asked NHTSA to release documents GM provided about fatal crashes in Maryland and Wisconsin, as well as information about how regulators evaluated the defect after they became aware of it.

“The current Early Warning Reporting system is too little, too late,” Markey said in a statement cited by Bloomberg News.

“Making more information public can help prevent accidents and deadly crashes.”