Safety regulators in the U.S. are investigating whether to add more than a million General Motors midsize cars to a recall for brake light problems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it’s checking into complaints about the 2004 to 2011 Chevrolet Malibu and the 2007 to 2009 Saturn Aura. The safety agency says the…
Federal auto safety regulators are counting what used to be considered multiple recalls as one, undercutting their boast that defect investigations are leading to record numbers of recalls. When asked about a big decline in recent public investigations, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told USA TODAY last week that the agency in…
Last year, owners of about 16.2 million cars and trucks received letters saying their vehicles had safety problems and were being recalled. But millions more were left in recall limbo because some of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigations into possible safety problems have been taking years longer than the agency’s self-imposed goal. Consequently,…
What if the black box in your new car becomes a tool to invade your privacy? What if, on the other hand, it winds up saving your life after an accident? Those are some of the questions being raised this week over black box data event recorders in cars. Privacy advocates worried on Thursday that…
The administrator of a class-action settlement between petroleum giant BP and oil spill claimants said Tuesday that more than 34,000 Florida businesses and individuals so far have been approved to receive $332 million. Patrick Juneau was in Tallahassee to meet with state officials and spread the word about the settlement. He appeared before a Florida…
American Honda said today that it is recalling about 748,000 of its recent-model Pilot SUVs and Odyssey minivans for improperly assembled airbags. Honda said the plastic cover for the driver-side bags may not have been attached with the correct number of rivets and if rivets are missing, the airbag may not deploy properly in a…
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that manufacturers filed more than 650 safety recalls, affecting over 17.8 million vehicles, child seats and vehicle equipment, during calendar year 2012. The nation’s top auto regulatory agency played a significant role by itself influencing the recall of more than 9 million vehicles…
Toyota Motor Corp. said it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles. The company said the deal will resolve hundreds of lawsuits from Toyota owners who said the value of their cars and trucks plummeted after a series of recalls stemming from claims…
The U.S. Transportation Department said Tuesday that Toyota Motor Corp. has agreed to pay $17.35 million in civil fines for failing to report safety defects to regulators within five days as required by law. The Transportation Department announced the action on its website, and said the penalty was the maximum allowed by law. This is…
Airbags in cars are nothing new but now Volvo is showing that airbags can be used to protect pedestrians, too. The new Volvo V40 is the world’s first mass-produced passenger car with an external airbag that deploys in front of the windshield if a car hits a pedestrian. Volvo’s system places an external airbag in…