VEHICLE RECALLS IGNORE THEM AT YOUR PERIL

Has the increased frequency of vehicle recalls resulted in owners becoming complacent and ignoring them - with potentially fatal results?

- Graham Eagle

It seems that barely a week goes by before news of another safety-related vehicle recall appears in the international headlines. In the context of vehicle recalls, the definition of “safety-related” can be quite broad. It includes problems or failures that pose an immediate threat of severe injury or fatality, through to those which might only lead to a breakdown but are deemed safety-critical as they could result in the vehicle stopping in a dangerous position or location. Fortunately, the latter are in the majority, but conversely this has contributed to a situation where the sheer number of recalls combined with this perceived overcautious approach has led to many motorists not taking such matters as seriously as they should.

The first question many of us ask is why there are so many recalls and whether this indicates a decline in vehicle quality. Rather than a drop in quality, the reason for the increase is due to a combination of increased vehicle complexity and more stringent consumer protection legislation. The growth in vehicle feature levels has significantly increased the number of parts and systems, and hence the potential defect or failure points. Driver assistance safety features like ADAS require additional wiring, sensors and software. These are provided by an increasing pool of suppliers utilising different software which needs to be consolidated by the vehicle manufacturer, again increasing the potential for faults and recalls. To confirm this, while software issues accounted for only 15% of all recalls in the US in 2023, this increased to 41% of recalls in 2024.