How Car Recalls Happen

You have probably heard about recalls or seen them on our Monday Morning Car Recalls Alert or you may have gotten one on your Car. You need to know why they matter, how they can happen, what to do about it when you get one, and how you can help make a recall happen when the Car factory won’t.

Why Recalls Matter

Recalls always involve safety problems with a vehicle or its equipment or seating or tires. If you get a Recall, it means that your Car has a safety problem or fails to meet its safety requirements. Using your Car without the Recall repair being done means you are using an unsafe Car, and that can mean you or someone else can get hurt, injured or worse.

How Recalls Happen

Recalls can happen in either one of two different ways. One is when an Car company admits that some of its Car’s have a fundamental defect. The other is when the federal Recall Agency, NHTSA, figures it out on their own.

Every Car company has someone who is in charge of deciding if a problem is serious enough to do a vehicle recall. Sometimes it is a committee and sometimes it can be just one person who makes the decision. When an Car company decides a recall should be done, they are required to timely report the problem and the Recall to the government recall agency, along with their plan to send out notices to their dealers and Car owners and anyone else that needs to know about the Recall. After that, hopefully the Car defect gets fixed, although getting replacement parts and service appointment schedules can further delay the Car Recall repair. You can check on any known recall for your vehicle online at www.Safercar.gov.

Sometimes the Car company doesn’t do a recall on a problem at all, even though the problem may be dangerous. The Car company may just say it’s not that serious. They don’t have to report that to anyone but most of the time the Car company will send out to their dealers a “technical service bulletin” (TSB) that tells their dealers that this problem exists and here’s what the Car factory thinks the dealer should do, usually offering up a process that may or may not actually work. There is no requirement for the Car company to make the TSB public, so they do not get sent to Car owners. That is why these are sometimes called “secret warranties.” And that means you may never know that the factory has realized that the problem in your Car even exists. But the Car factory is required to send a copy of every technical service bulletin to the federal Recall agency and they post those on the NHTSA website where anyone can look them up and read them. Every Car owners should do a search for any TSB on their Car so you can learn about every problem your Car may have, and not just the ones that end up so serious that a Recall is ordered.

What to Do about it When You Get a Recall

First thing, read it carefully. It will tell you what is known about the defect problem, including symptoms, causes, risks to your safety, where to get more information, and what you can do about the Recall.

If the Recall says a repair can be done, it will tell you how to get that done. Usually it means calling the Car company’s authorized dealer to make an appointment for the Recall repair. However, some dealers are booked up for weeks or months into the future so when you call you need to tell them that this is a safety recall. Don’t just say “a recall.” Call it what it is, a “safety recall” so there is no doubt by the dealer having to get your Car in for the needed repairs.

If the dealer still says they can’t get you in right away, try calling a different dealer or make the appointment for as soon as you can. If you have to wait, and only if you want to keep using your Car while waiting for the repair appointment, ask the dealer if you can keep using the Car until their appointment date. Even if they say yes, be very careful about any use of the Car t all. A safety defect is serious and your best bet is not to use the Car at all until the Recall repair is done, no matter how long it may take to get into the dealer’s repair shop.

You can also call the factory and request a Recall repair appointment, if that is convenient enough for you.

How You Can Help Make a Recall Happen When the Factory Won’t

If you think there is a serious defect or problem with your Car, your first step should be to contact the Car company and find out if they know about it. If they do, then find out what they are going to do about it. If they don’t know about it, then tell them all about it and ask what they are going to do about it. Either way though, after your call, you should send them a written complaint about the defect problem, describing your Car’s model year, make, and model number, and giving them your 17 digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). Also describe the problem and its symptoms. Explain why you think it is serious and why you think it is a safety issue. You might think that some defects or problems are obviously a safety issue, but it is important that you explain that to the Car factory in your letter. If you think the problem is serious then you need to make sure they know you think that and why you think it. However, don’t just email your complaint letter to the Car factory. You should also send it by ordinary or certified mail. The Car factory can ignore an email or say they never got it at all. Once you mail it to them, the law presumes they received it.

After you send your letter to the Car company, it’s time for you to take more action. When an Car factory gets a complaint, they may put it at the bottom of their list of things to do, or toss it in the infamous “circular file” altogether. But there is a way that you can start the ball rolling on a Recall. And that’s by sending your own written notice to the federal Recall agency.

Why You Should Send a Safety Complaint to the Federal Recall Agency

The government Recall agency has the legal authority to investigate all reported vehicle safety problems and anyone can report a problem to them and every report or complaint they get is read by someone – there is no “circular file” at NHTSA. They are so serious about their job that some recalls have been done just because there was a single complaint report made to them.

NHTSA handles recalls on all kinds of vehicle, so they are pretty busy. There are an average of 4 or 5 Car brands being recalled each week, but when you start counting by the Car Model instead of just the brand, the total recall count rockets up to 25 to 50 or more Car models being recalled each week. Since they are very busy, you need to report your safety concern very precisely so you can be sure it gets attention and it can easily be acted on. And NHTSA has a process for that.

How You Can Complain to the Federal Recall Agency

You can report your safety complaint online at www.Safercar.gov. By looking for the “Report a Safety Problem” link. You can also fill out the NHTSA Vehicle Complaint Form online at https://tinyurl.com/ReportaDefect. If you would rather fill out the form and mail it in, you can download the Vehicle Complaint Form here: https://tinyurl.com/VehicleComplaintForm (Note: this link may open a window asking you to sign in; if it does, just close the window and form will appear). You can also phone in a Vehicle Complaint on NHTSA’s Hotline 888.327.4236.

One of the things that can cause the federal Recall agency to start a defect investigation is when a lot of people are making the same type of complaint about their vehicle. For instance, if every Car owner whose Car frame had the crack or “flex” problem, sent in a Vehicle Complaint form, the federal safety investigators would realize just how serious the problem is.

Every complaint received by NHTSA is carefully reviews and catalogs it. There is no specific number of similar complaints that can start a government safety investigation but when a particular model or brand gets more or very serious complaints, it can trigger the investigation process to begin.

When enough people complaint about the same kind of problem in the same model vehicle, or even in different vehicles, it can get the attention of the government Recall agency. When it does, they can start the first step in the recall process, the “Office of Defects” does an investigation, which is where they request lots of information from the Car company and review all of that and the designs of the suspect vehicle to see if there is a safety risk. That can lead ultimately to a formal Recall.

So even if the Car company is ignoring you, there is a way for your voice to be heard, for your concerns to get the attention of federal government safety investigators. And if enough Car owners complain, NHTSA recall investigators can make the industry do what is right.

www.OhioLemonLaw.com  Ronald L Burdge
Lemon Law Lawyers since 1985
We Only Represent Consumers.

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