NHTSA today announced that is has expanded its recall of cars with Takata airbags to 33.8 million vehicles across 11 auto manufacturers. Takata has also finally agreed to declare them defective, and has entered into an agreement that it will cooperate fully with all NHTSA actions, testing of remedies, and notifications. “The admission made by…
NHTSA critical of the pace of repairs to older models involved in gasoline-tank fires Source: Wall Street Journal April 28, 2015 – Federal regulators will decide within the next two weeks whether to reopen a probe into older Jeep models involved in fiery rear-end crashes and be “as aggressive as possible” when weighing measures to…
Source: CBS 13 April 30, 2015 – For the last several months, Rick Seim says whenever he gets into his 2006 Honda CR-V he slides his seat back as far as possible. In January, Seim heard that his CR-V made it on the recall list – alerting him to a potentially deadly defect in the…
Rules Haven’t Kept Pace With Aging U.S. Fleet Source – Bloomberg April 30, 2015 – Hundreds of crashes involving defective cars are going unreported each year because under U.S. safety rules automakers aren’t required to report suspicious accidents for models more than 10 years old. That’s worrisome, safety advocates say, because the average age of…
Source: Car Connection May 4, 2015 – Back in March, Ford recalled more than 212,000 Ford Explorers from the 2011-2013 model years to replace faulty door latches that could spring open during a collision, increasing the risk of damage to occupants. Last month, perhaps in response to an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety…
Honda Motor Corp. yet again expanded its recall of vehicles with defective Takata airbags, bringing the total Honda vehicles recalled to more than six million to date. As the carmaker looks deeper into the manufacturing and tracking issues at the plant that produced the defective Takata airbag inflators, the recalls grow, leaving Honda owners wondering…
Source: New York Times March 19, 2015 – Honda Motor is expanding a national recall of vehicles with Takata-made airbags to include more than 104,000 cars, including one model that had not been included in previous recalls for the defect. Takata airbags can deploy violently and send metal fragments at passengers. On Thursday, the automaker said it…
Source: Detroit News March 22, 2015 – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Sunday it is opening an investigation into whether Nissan Motor Co.’s recall of nearly 1 million vehicles for air bag problems was effective. The auto safety agency said it is reviewing Nissan’s recall in March 2014 of 989,701 2013-2014 Altima, Leaf,…
Source: CBS News March 30, 2015 – Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who was hired by GM to compensate victims, updated the total Monday. It was up from 74 last week. An additional 141 injured people also are eligible for compensation. The fund received a total of 4,342 claims by the Jan. 31 deadline. Of those, 1,263…
Source: Automotive News March 7, 2015 – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is fed up with Takata and is considering unprecedented steps to speed up replacement parts for potentially deadly air bags found in millions of cars. In a March 3 letter, NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind said to Senator Bill Nelson that safety regulators…