Tag Archives: Recalls
It’s the Worst Year Ever for Auto Recalls. Why Are So Many Dangerous Cars Still on the Road?
by Drew Harwell, The Washington Post
Those defective cars can then spread widely to used car lots and the driveways of unsuspecting buyers. About 3.5 million recalled cars and trucks were listed for sale last year, according to Carfax. Keeping track of what cars are problematic can also prove a hassle: Stericycle, a recall consultant and service firm for automakers, said there have been 544 separate recalls announced this year, or nearly two recalls a day. Read More ›
It Looked Like a Stabbing, but Takata Air Bag Was the Killer
by Hiroko Tabuchi and Christopher Jensen, The New York Times
Ms. Tran became at least the third death associated with the mushrooming recalls of vehicles containing defective air bags made by Takata, a Japanese auto supplier. … Safety experts say that more rupture cases could be going unnoticed, or underreported, leaving affected cars on the road. For example, a California lawyer says that a fourth driver, Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed in September 2013 by an air bag that ruptured in his 2002 Acura. The authorities have not determined a reason for the injuries, though his coroner’s report cited tears in his air bag and facial trauma from a foreign object.
Read More ›
Automotive safety agency slow to open investigations
by The Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
The Associated Press reviewed all 15 petitions filed by drivers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 2010 and found the agency missed the legal deadline to grant or deny the requests 12 times. The agency has been criticized for failing to connect the dots among thousands of consumer complaints it received last decade about small GM cars with defective ignition switches. GM finally recalled the cars this year. The faulty switches have been linked to at least 13 deaths. Read More ›
GM has officially recalled more vehicles in 2014 than it has sold in the last 7 years
by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist
On Monday, the company announced the recall of 7.6 million vehicles in the United States – most of them for the same inadvertent ignition key rotation that has been linked to at least three fatalities. So far in 2014, GM has recalled nearly 25 million vehicles in the United States through more than 50 recall campaigns. A quick look at GM’s sales records for the past ten years shows that the company has now officially recalled in the first six months of 2014 more cars that it has sold from 2007 to 2013. Read More ›
SB 686: Drive to stop sale of recalled cars runs out of gas
A scandalous and possibly unprecedented year for automobile recalls wasn’t enough to persuade the Assembly Business Professions and Consumer Protection Committee to maintain SB 686’s safety drive; the measure went down to defeat June 17. “This Legislature just wasn’t up to standing up to the car dealers,” said Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, the organization that sponsored the bill. She vowed to continue to press the issue.
Read More ›