At the same time the auto industry sells cars and trucks at record rates, it is recalling them for safety defects in even higher numbers.
Automakers sold a record 17.4 million vehicles in 2000 but recalled 22.8 million for safety defects and parts that don’t meet federal requirements, the second highest number ever and 8 million more than in 1997. In 1999, the auto industry sold 16.9 million vehicles and recalled 19.9 million.
So far in 2001, automakers have announced three major recalls. General Motors is recalling 1.4 million full-size trucks for brake problems, Ford Motor Co. is recalling 300,000 Ford Contours and Mercury Mystiques for overheating engines that could catch fire, and 961,000 Mitsubishi Galants and Eclipses, Chrysler Sebrings, Dodge Avengers and Eagle Talons built at Mitsubishi’s Normal, Ill., plant, are being recalled for potentially defective ball joints.
Car companies and safety officials cannot point to a single cause for the increase, though both say cranking up production lines to meet high demand and introducing a slew of new models are probable factors.
“In times of large sales volume, when more models are produced, that is when there are usually more recalls,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer watchdog group in Washington, D.C.
The Center for Auto Safety recommends consumers avoid buying a car in its first year of production because design flaws may not show up until after the vehicles are in consumers’ hands. Examples: The 1980 Chevrolet Citation was recalled 13 times in is first year and the 1995 Dodge and Plymouth Neon were recalled four times in their first month on the market.
“The designs haven’t been fully checked out in the first year, and the vehicles haven’t been subjected to the rigors of consumer use,” Ditlow said. “Some bugs they didn’t anticipate always creep in.”
Ford has suffered several first-year bugs on two new models, recalling the 2000 Focus compact car six times and the 2001 Escape sport-utility vehicle five. Both were recalled for a variety of reasons, including wheels and brakes that could come off, seats that don’t meet federal safety requirements and throttles that could stick open.
“I wish there was just one simple cause,” said Louise Goeser, Ford’s vice president of quality and customer satisfaction. “The overriding issue is that both are all-new vehicles with a significant number of new parts. It often comes down to very nitty things such as a nut wasn’t heat-treated properly, and it can’t be torqued enough during assembly.”
Goeser said the number of recalls may be climbing because manufacturers have gotten more aggressive in policing themselves to try to keep their customers happy.
Contrary to common belief, most safety recalls are instigated by the manufacturers, not the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency that enforces vehicle safety regulations.
Federal law requires that a manufacturer recall a vehicle if it finds a defect that “poses an unreasonable risk to safety.” The government compiles complaints from consumers and will prod a manufacturer to recall a vehicle if warranted. If the manufacturer refuses, NHTSA can sue to order a recall. The last time NHTSA sued a manufacturer was in 1997, when it took Chrysler to court to force the recall of 91,500 Chrysler Cirrus and Dodge Stratus models to fix rear seat-belt anchors. After losing in federal district and appeals courts, Chrysler agreed to recall the cars in 1998.
“We are getting much more proactive and tougher on ourselves,” Goeser said. “Anything we saw that could be a problem for the consumer, we acted on quickly and proactively.
“Our customers understand when we’ve had a glitch. We are embarrassed about it, but our policy is, let’s act on it and move forward aggressively. We may take some short-term hits about our quality, but it’s a deliberate effort on our part to act quickly.”
A spokesman said Ford is not aware of any deaths or injuries caused by the safety defects on the Focus or Escape.
Ford is not alone in recalling first-year models. Brands noted for quality such as Toyota, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and BMW recalled recent models in their first year of production, though in smaller numbers than the more than 300,000 Focuses involved in this recall.
The Honda Accord, for example, was redesigned for 1998 and recalled twice that year to fix transmission and suspension defects, affecting about 165,000 cars. Toyota recalled more than 16,000 Tundra full-size pickups last year to replace brake lights, most of the early production run for the new truck.
Consumers are forgiving of recalls–to a point, says the Polk Co., which analyzes automobile ownership data. A Polk survey last year concluded that one or two recalls won’t bother customers but three or more rapidly diminish owner loyalty.
“Consumers are willing to tolerate mistakes, as long as they are taken care of immediately, honestly and with minimum disruption,” said Karen Piurkowski, Polk’s director of loyalty studies. “Having one or two recalls does not necessarily drive owners to defection, but as the number of recalls increases, consumer confidence decreases.”
Despite the recalls, Polk still ranked the Focus No. 1 among small cars in its owner loyalty survey for the 2000 model year and Ford as having the best brand loyalty.
Ford’s next major new-model introduction is the 2002 Explorer, which has been delayed over quality and safety concerns. The vehicle was scheduled to launch in January but is only now starting to trickle into dealers.
Besides avoiding recalls, Ford is trying to restore the Explorer’s image after the Firestone tire recall. At least 174 people have died from accidents in SUVs and trucks with Firestone all-terrain tires that were standard on the Explorer and similar Mercury Mountaineer. Ford and Firestone face dozens of lawsuits over the deaths.
In addition, more than 1 million Explorers and Mountaineers were recalled last year to fix suspension components, a throttle that can stick and the electronic control that limits top speed.
“We’re going slower than usual on production startup,” Goeser said of the 2002 Explorer. “We don’t want to be fixing them after they’re built. We’re ramping up slowly, checking and rechecking to make it perfect. We’re being overly cautious to get it right. That’s not to say nothing will ever go wrong, but that’s our goal.”
GM spokesman Greg Martin said the increase in recalls may be a result of manufacturers running their factories nearly at capacity and adding new features to their vehicles to stay competitive.
“Until the last few months, the whole industry has been in a super-heated market. Everyone is working on compressed development cycles to get vehicles to market. It’s just the competitive market we all play in,” Martin said.
“We also see recalls now for air bags, stability controls or other technologies we didn’t have on cars years ago. But I don’t think anyone has been able to definitely point to one thing and say this is it.”
The number of vehicles recalled in any one year is more a matter of chance than a trend or a sign of shoddy quality, Ditlow said.
“A single big recall can influence the total. Big recalls usually aren’t a quality-control issue,” he said. “Historically, those are the ones where there is a design problem with a vehicle. That’s where you get multiple model years involved.”
The most vehicles recalled in any year was 30 million in 1981, a total inflated by a recall of 21 million Ford cars with automatic transmissions that could be in reverse when the gear indicator showed they were in park. The only remedy: Ford gave owners a sticker to mount on their dashboard as a reminder to make sure the transmission was in park.
Ditlow says the number of recalls also depends on who occupies the White House and how vigorously their administration enforces federal safety laws.
During the late 1970s, the number of recalls soared under the Carter Administration after a period of reduced enforcement under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he said. The recall of the 1971-76 Ford Pinto for gas tanks that could explode “languished for years” before it happened in 1978, Ditlow said.
“There also was evidence of a defect for years before anything was done” to recall 6.5 million Firestone tires last August, he added, which occurred during the Clinton Administration.
NHTSA spokesman Tim Hurd disputes Ditlow’s assertion that the safety agency’s enforcement policies vary by administration. When a manufacturer initiates a recall, NHTSA has to approve the prescribed remedy and then monitors the results, he said.
“NHTSA does not run a court or decide which vehicles are recalled,” said Hurd. “The manufacturers are not free to do what they want until NHTSA catches them. They have a responsibility to fix safety defects, just like citizens have a responsibility to pay taxes.”
Congress reacted to the Firestone tire recall last fall by passing the so-called Tread Act, which sets stricter rules for manufacturers to report safety defects, share warranty data and notify NHTSA of lawsuits by owners. Under the new rules, criminal charges can be filed against officers of manufacturers if they knowingly withhold information. Congress also voted an additional $9.1 million for safety enforcement and research to a budget of about $98 million.
Ditlow said NHTSA’s enforcement budget was substantially reduced under the Reagan Administration, when George Bush was vice president and in charge of regulatory reform. One proposal axed when Reagan took office would have required air-pressure monitors on tires, an idea revived after the Firestone recall.
What does Ditlow expect under George W. Bush?
“I sure am glad that some of the requirements of the Tread Act are mandatory,” he said. “But for the Firestone case, which really is a sea change, we’d be facing a very hard job with the Bush Administration.”
REPORTING PROBLEMS
To report a safety related problem with your car, visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Web site at www.nhtsa.dot.gov. Click on recalls and scroll to VOQ (Vehicle Owner’s Questionnaire). Or NHTSA’s safety hot line at 1-888-Dash-2-Dot (327-4236).
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Monday in Cars: How the recall process works.
