Feb 04 2010
Steps That You Should Take in Case Your Car is Under Recall
Vehicle safety recalls have been making headlines recently, especially after the Toyota recall on January 21. But no matter what you drive, you should know how recalls work, what they cover, and just as importantly, what they don’t.
Safety-related recalls are those recalls that are likely to affect the safe operation of a vehicle, a tire or a child restraint without any prior warning. This includes component failures that might cause fires or loss of control, or airbags that deploy when they shouldn’t.
Once a recall is issued, you should receive a notice in the mail. You can also call a car dealer or the manufacturer to find out if your vehicle is affected.
While it can be scary to hear about a recall, it’s likely that your car is fine, and it’s being done as a precaution. The manufacturer identifies a group of vehicles that might have a problem, or could develop that specific problem in the future, and inspects or repairs all potentially affected vehicles to be sure. Remember that not all recalls are for major problems: several have been issued for cars carrying warning labels written only in English, when bilingual labels are required by law.
If you do get a recall notice, make an appointment with a car dealer for the vehicle brand. In many cases, the vehicle is inspected first, and is only repaired if it’s found to contain the parts that could be at fault. If the recall specifies this, and your car doesn’t have the problem, don’t expect the parts to be replaced anyway. If replacement is required and a large number of vehicles are involved, you may have to wait for the new parts to be built and then distributed to car dealers.
It’s also common for only specific vehicles to be affected – they might have received a bad batch of parts, or were built before an assembly problem was detected and fixed at the factory. Because of this, it’s entirely possible that your neighbor could own exactly the same year and model as your vehicle, but he gets a recall notice, and you don’t.
