Following a week in which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed two investigations without finding a defect or ordering a recall, the agency appears to be poised to reopen a probe into older Jeeps involved in fiery rear-end crashes. [More]
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NHTSA Closes Five-Year Probe Into 1.8M GM Trucks & SUVs With Brake Failure; Doesn’t Order Recall
By 4.9.15
After five years of investigating why brake lines in some 1.8 million older trucks and SUVs have a tendency to fail, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failed to find a safety defect and plans to close the probe without ordering General Motors to replace the often rusted brake lines. [More]
NHTSA Closes Probe Into 1.9M Chrysler, Dodge Minivans Without Determining Cause Of Stalling Issue
By 4.8.15
Following months of analyzing data, reviewing a recall petition and assessing more than 720 consumers complaints, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided to close a probe into nearly 1.9 million Chrysler minivans without finding a safety issue or determining why the vehicles stall. [More]
NHTSA Reviewing Petition To Open Investigation Into Ford Vehicle Lighting Issues
By 4.3.15
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened and closed an investigation into lighting issues in several models of Ford vehicles back in 2008 without demanding a recall. That decision apparently isn’t sitting well with a consumer group that has petitioned the agency to reopen the case after receiving additional complaints. [More]
Graco Agrees To Pay $3M Fine For Delayed Reporting Of Car Seat-Buckle Complaints
By 3.20.15
After Graco recalled about six million car seats last year in two sets of recalls because the harness’ buckles could get stuck, the company has now agreed to shell out $3 million to the government for being slow to report complaints about the tricky buckles. [More]
NHTSA Chief Says Takata More “Forthcoming” With Investigation, Senators Send Letter Urging Cooperation
By 3.13.15
A week after Japanese auto parts maker Takata said it would double its production of replacement airbags and three weeks after U.S. federal regulators began imposing a $14,000 per day fine against the company, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the company is being more forthcoming with information related to an investigation into millions of defective airbags. [More]
Nissan Expands Hood Latch Recall To 625,000 Additional Altima Sedans
By 3.6.15
Five months after Nissan first issued a recall of its most popular vehicle for hood latch issues, the car maker is adding more than 640,000 Altima sedans to the list. [More]
My Car Is Recalled In A Snowy, Icy State, But Not My Snowy, Icy State. What Do I Do?
By 2.18.15
While most automobile recalls are national, some recalls are limited to specific regions of the country where particular road and weather conditions increase the risk of a problem. What about those people who live outside the recall region but who are concerned their car needs to be checked out? [More]
Feds Fine Honda $70 Million For Over A Decade’s Worth Of Inaccurate Death And Injury Reports
By 1.8.15
The new year is off to a rough start for automaker Honda, as federal regulators announced today that the car company will be paying a record-setting $70 million fine for failing to report over 1700 injuries and deaths over a period of 11 years. [More]
If You Have A GM Car Recalled For Ignition Problem, Now Is The Time To Get It Fixed
By 12.2.14
It’s been many months since General Motors finally got around to recalling more than 2 million vehicles for a problem with the ignition switch that has been tied to dozens of deaths. Many recalled cars have yet to be fixed because there weren’t enough parts to make the repairs, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says sufficient replacement switches are now available so there is no reason to wait any longer. [More]
Evenflo Agrees To Recall 202,000 Rear-Facing Infant Car Seats Over Tricky Buckle
By 10.24.14
Earlier this year, both Graco and Evenflo recalled almost six million car seats, all told, due to a safety buckle that regulators said could be tricky to open in the case of an emergency, and hamper attempts to get kids out of the car safely. And now, despite pushing back against a recall for additional rear-facing infant seats that use the same buckle, but that the companies argued don’t pose the same risk, Evenflo says it’s agreed to recall 202,000 more car seats. [More]
GM Advising Owners Of 182K Recalled SUVs To Park Outside Until Fire Hazard Fixed
By 8.8.14
Back on June 30, General Motors issued six separate recalls totaling more than 7.5 million vehicles in just the U.S. One of those recalls involved around 182,000 SUVs that were at risk for a fire because of overheating power window switches. It was the third time that GM had recalled these particular vehicles for this problem and it still isn’t fixed. Now the car maker is notifying owners to keep affected SUVs parked outside until the defect is repaired. [More]
Chrysler Will Finally, Eventually Get Around To Fixing Millions Of Jeeps Recalled In 2013
By 7.17.14
Last year, Chrysler reluctantly recalled millions of Jeeps out of concern that rear-end collisions could result in a fire. And even though the car maker came up with a fix for the issue, it still hadn’t repaired some 1.6 million Jeeps a year after announcing the recall. Under pressure from federal regulators, Chrysler now says it will pick up the pace of repairs, though it could still be eight months before some Jeeps are fixed. [More]
Graco Recalls Harness Buckles On 1.9 Million Infant Car Seats
By 7.1.14
It’s not a great week for Graco: Hot on the heels of Consumer Reports’ announcement that one of its strollers is a safety risk, the company says it’s recalling the harness buckles on 1.9 million infant car seats, due to difficulty opening the buckle. [More]
CarMax Should Be More Transparent About Selling Recalled Vehicles
By 6.24.14
When CarMax, the nation’s largest seller of used vehicles, claims each of its “Quality Certified” cars has undergone a “125+ point inspection,” and that only 1-in-3 of the cars it considers is accepted for sale, you might assume this means it isn’t selling recalled vehicles. This is not always true, and a coalition of consumer advocacy groups allege that it’s a case of deceptive marketing. [More]
Regulators, Manufacturers, Dealers, And Mechanics Get To Read About Car Defects — But Not Consumers
By 6.17.14
The thirteen-year-long mess of the GM ignition switch recall was, in part, a failure to see and identify patterns in the data. Over the course of a decade, individual consumers lodged complaints that, put together, could have revealed the whole problem sooner. But nobody got to look at the whole, because all of the service bulletins that carmakers like GM send to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration go into its database… and never come back out. Too bad so sad, says NHTSA, but lawmakers and auto-safety advocates are hoping to change that. [More]
Victims Of Saturn Ion Crash Accuse GM Of Letting Driver Plead Guilty To Accident She Didn’t Cause
By 6.10.14
The driver of a Saturn Ion who pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide, and the family of her boyfriend who was killed in the 2004 crash, have sued General Motors in federal court, alleging the car maker knew of the ignition problem that caused the crash but sat and watched while the driver was prosecuted. [More]
Report: 74 Deaths May Be Tied To GM Ignition Defect
By 6.3.14
While General Motors has admitted that an ignition switch defect in Chevy Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other vehicles has been tied to 13 deaths, others have indicated that the number could be significantly higher than that. A new report from Reuters claims to have found at least 74 fatalities that may be related to the defective switches. [More]
