Category: Car Recalls

How Technical Service Bulletins Differ From Recalls

2/6/2020

What is a Recall?

When a car manufacturer discovers a safety problem on their vehicle, they start an investigation into the issue. If the problem is serious, they may even stop production of any models that could be affected. Once a solution to the issue is developed, the manufacturer issues a recall for any models that have been affected by the faulty part or programming.

The manufacturer will send out notices to all owners of vehicles with a VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) that could be affected. Recalls are mandatory and must be completed by a registered dealer of that make and model of car. Recalls are free to owners.

What is a Technical Service Bulletin?

Manufacturers track warranty claims. When a common problem surfaces, the manufacturer will usually investigate the problem. Once the manufacturer discovers a solution, the repair procedure is posted as a technical service bulletin.

These service bulletins are a good place for mechanics to start the diagnostic process when someone brings a vehicle to them with a problem.

Technical service bulletins are issued for non-safety issues. They are voluntary and are not free to car owners. However, the problem may be covered under your car’s warranty, or the manufacturer may open a special warranty period for the problem. In these cases, your repairs will be free of charge.

How to Find Recalls or Technical Service Bulletins

You can take your vehicle to a local dealer’s service center where they will look up your car’s vehicle identification number and determine if your vehicle has any outstanding recalls, but this may require a service appointment and may cost you.

You can also find recalls and some technical service bulletins online. Many car forum sites offer this information from people who share what they have learned. You can also check the manufacturer’s website or the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) website.

The trouble with airbags—the recalls seem to be non-stop.

1/14/2019

You never know when a car accident might happen, but you can make sure you’re protected when it does thanks to safety features like airbags. Although airbags save lives, they’re not always foolproof – especially in recent years, as airbag recalls seem to permeate the news without signs of slowing down. Recently, Toyota and Subaru recalled more than 1 million vehicles with faulty airbags worldwide. Similarly, Mazda expanded its Takata airbag recall to an additional 155,000 cars. Not long ago, GM and Audi announced airbag recalls as well, with more than 100,000 cars affected. With all these car manufacturers announcing recalls, which cars are actually safe to drive?

A lot of the smaller recalls, such as GM and Audi’s, affect newer models – so if you bought an Audi in recent years, it’s worth checking whether your airbag has been recalled. However, the largest recall of 2018 by Toyota and Subaru affects a lot more drivers. But don’t worry. While 1 million vehicles worldwide is a huge number to recall, keep in mind that only about 17,000 of those are in the United States. Here, the recall only covers about 17,000 Scion xA vehicles released from 2004 through 2006. Usually, you won’t have to look up for yourself whether a part of your car has been recalled because your dealer or manufacturer should contact you. But it is concerning to know that so many cars are not as safe as we thought they were.

So why are all of these airbag recalls happening all of a sudden? There’s actually a simple explanation. The recalled airbags all come from a company called Takata, which provides airbags for multiple manufacturers. The issue at hand is specific to Takata’s airbags – basically, the ammonium nitrate used in the airbags becomes unstable and can cause them to suddenly inflate, launching metal shrapnel in the process. At least fifteen people have died because of this airbag issue in the United States, so it’s a serious issue. Takata’s airbags first started getting recalled about ten years ago, and regulators even launched an investigation. All in all, the recalls have affected nineteen manufacturers and 37 million vehicles across the world. If you haven’t checked already, now is a good time to make sure your car isn’t among them.

How to file a Vehicle Safety Complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

1/7/2019

If something isn’t working correctly in your vehicle, it’s your responsibility to report it to the proper authorities. That’s how a lot of recalls end up happening – enough consumers complain and a company is forced to correct the problem. It’s actually a lot easier than you might think – all you have to do is file a Vehicle Safety Complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at this website.

The process is simple, and all you need to have on hand is your email address, Vehicle Identification Number, Make, Model, Year, and documentation related to the complaint like photos or a police report. It takes about five minutes to fill out the form on the site. The NHTSA insists that all complaints are reviewed; however, only some will lead to an investigation and potential recalls. The review process can take a long time, but you should be notified if there is a recall based on your complaint. People whose cars have had a recall due to Takata airbag safety issues should make sure to note that on their complaint, as the NHTSA already has an open investigation.

What counts as a valid vehicle safety complaint? Faulty airbags, brakes that don’t function as intended, widespread ignition issues, and all kinds of other things that go wrong. You may not even realize that your car’s problem is a safety complaint, which is why it’s good to fill out the form. Note that the NHTSA will never share your personal information with the public after you file a complaint. It is added to a public database, but all of your personal information is removed first.

It’s important to notify the NHTSA if you think there’s something wrong with your car, like an airbag issue that could potentially be dangerous. If the NHTSA receives similar reports from multiple people about the same product, they can open an investigation to determine whether the defect should result in a recall. If you don’t report car safety issues, then the NHTSA can’t do anything to make sure car manufacturers are held responsible.

The Human Toll of Court Secrecy

3/16/2015

Reprinted with permission from PublicJustice.net

It has not been a good year for auto safety. More than 60 million vehicles were recalled in 2014—that’s more than twice the previous record. And every day it seemed there was another story of a tragic death or life-changing injury that could have been prevented if only some car manufacturer had come clean about a defect in its cars, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—the federal agency charged with protecting drivers—had kept better tabs on car makers, or court records evidencing a dangerous defect had been made public.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be getting better. Since this post in late October, reports have continued to pour in from Chrysler owners about power system-related problems (technically, the issue seems to be with the Totally Integrated Power Module). And the Center for Auto Safety now thinks that there’s been at least one death. Although, by law, NHTSA was required to decide by Dec. 19 whether to open an investigation, so far, there’s been no word from the agency.

And just last Tuesday, a court presiding over a lawsuit against Chrysler denied our motion—filed on the Center’s behalf—to unseal documents filed in the case. The court held that even documents that “do not appear to contain significant technical information” (emphasis mine) and therefore are not likely to qualify as trade secrets—for example, emails between Chrysler employees—may remain sealed. Because the lawsuit is still ongoing, the court reasoned, these documents, produced early on in litigation, may not provide a complete picture of the safety of Chrysler cars. But the documents are Chrysler’s. If the company thinks more documents need to be released to provide a full picture of what’s going on, it can simply release them. Chrysler, of course, isn’t doing that. Rather than providing a complete picture, the company seems to be doing its best to ensure the public has no picture at all.

The court was also worried that if the documents were unsealed, an “offhand remark in an email” could become a “gotcha quote in headlines.” This is a reasonable concern. But it’s one the law has already weighed: Courts have repeatedly held that the public right of access to court records is so important that it trumps any generalized concerns about corporate embarrassment. That’s why there is no “offhand remark” exception to the rule that court records are presumptively public. Nor is there any exception that allows a company to keep documents secret just because they may be incomplete, or inarticulate, or, yes, even embarrassing. Court records should not be sealed simply because releasing them might require a corporation to do damage control.

If you think this all sounds eerily familiar, you’re not wrong. Earlier this year, GM recalled millions of cars—yes, millions—because of an ignition switch defect that, in some circumstances, causes the air bags not to deploy. We don’t yet know how many people died because of this defect, let alone how many more were injured, but we do know it was bad: According to Reuters, at least 74 people have been killed because their air bags did not inflate due to the defect. That’s bad enough. What makes it worse is that it didn’t have to be this way. GM knew about the problem for more than a decade and didn’t say anything.

How could this happen? Did GM just hide the fact that a defect in its cars was probably killing people? Well, yes. But it had help.

According to a recent report by the staff of the (Republican-led) House Committee on Energy and Commerce, NHTSA fell down on the job: Apparently, the agency had all the information it needed to identify the defect years before the recall, but it failed to connect the dots—a failure that, in the Committee’s view, was simply “inexcusable.” NHTSA, the report concluded, “lacked the focus and rigor expected of a federal safety regulator.” Perhaps even more damning, the Committee found no reason to believe that NHTSA has learned from its mistakes, “no evidence” that anything at the agency has changed.

It was not just NHTSA, though, that kept GM’s secret. The courts helped too. People have been suing GM since at least 2005 for injuries—and deaths—resulting from the ignition switch defect. But the company quietly settled these cases, and the courts quietly entered protective orders, keeping the records (and the settlements) secret—despite the fact that court records are presumptively public documents. If these records had been made public, we would have known of the problem years earlier. What you don’t know can, in fact, hurt you.

Right now, the same story is playing out with Takata—the company that makes air bags that, apparently, sometimes explode. So far, over 19 million cars have been recalled for fear that rather than protect passengers, their air bags will instead kill them. Indeed, several people have already died, and many more have been injured. But like the GM ignition defect, it appears this too could have been prevented.

The New York Times has reported that Takata knew of the problem for years but didn’t alert the public. And neither did NHTSA. Although the agency opened an investigation in 2009, the inquiry went nowhere. Takata hired a former NHTSA official to represent it, and NHTSA promptly closed the investigation before the company had even submitted all the relevant documents. It was years before the agency did anything further.

As in the GM case, there were lawsuits over the years. But, like the GM suits, they were settled quickly and confidentially.

Will Chrysler become the next GM or Takata? We don’t know yet. But we do know that NHTSA blew through the deadline to decide whether to open an investigation. And now the court overseeing a lawsuit against Chrysler has sealed the records. Sure sounds familiar.

How Technical Service Bulletins Differ From Recalls

More Ford Door Latch Problems – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Investigates Complaints

The trouble with airbags—the recalls seem to be non-stop.

How to file a Vehicle Safety Complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The Human Toll of Court Secrecy

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