LIVONIA, MI – Just because a vehicle owner gets a recall notice doesn’t mean they’ll act on it.
Some people toss a recall letter rather than beeline to the dealership to get their vehicle checked out and/or fixed.
The consensus at an annual recall conference by the Society of Automotive Analysts: Ignoring recall letters is a bad idea, even reckless sometimes.
Reasons for non-action vary, according to Raymond Roth, a director at Stout, a company that tracks recalls and their costs. That’s where dealers come in.
He stresses the importance of getting the word out to affected owners about design or manufacturing problems with their vehicles that trigger a recall.
Why Some Car Owners Ignore Notices
A problem vehicle that’s on the road because the owner sloughed off a recall notice can lead to disastrous results.
Roth cites a survey in which owners say why they ignored a recall notice. Responses include “I don’t have time” and “The dealership is too far away.”
One consumer response for ignoring a recall letter – “I’m going to sell my car” – seems callous. It could imperil the next owner, who may be unaware that the vehicle is defective.
It could end up as a legal matter, says conference presenter Bishop Bartoni, a product liability attorney.
He cites this scenario: “A car owner ignores a recall notice, and loans his car to a friend, who isn’t aware of the recall notice. The friend is injured in an accident related to the unaddressed defect.”
That potentially could trigger a civil suit against the owner.
Some vehicle owners “self-assess” the risk in deciding whether to head to the dealership for a recall fix, Roth says. Sometimes their assessments are wrong.
An incentive for taking an affected car to the dealership is that it’s free service work, Roth notes. For dealers, it’s also a revenue stream because the automaker pays them for the fixes. Some dealers, however, say they are shortchanged for such work, as reported in WardsAuto.
That aside, warranty work has its benefits for dealerships. If a dealership provides a great service experience, the owner of the recalled vehicle is likely to return for subsequent service work, even to buy a car.
It’s also an opportunity for the dealership to do a condition report that could result in repair orders beyond the recall work.
But there’s a limit. If someone must repeatedly return to the dealership for repairs, it can claw into customer satisfaction, regardless of who is paying.
What’s the Risk Level?
Not all recall issues are life-threatening.
For instance, a typo in the owner’s manual can trigger a recall. But that is not in the same league as recalls involving serious safety threats, such as the Takata debacle in which airbags exploded, spraying metal fragments at people’s faces, sometimes fatally.
It’s high irony when automotive equipment intended to save lives takes them instead.
To rank the importance of recalls, Stout proposes that automakers categorize them as low, moderate, or high risk.
Granted, Roth says, people may ignore a low-risk recall. But the flip side is that a high-risk designation may spur more owners to act.
In the U.S., there were 366 unique recalls affecting more than 20 million vehicles last year.
That’s down slightly from 2023, but “I’d hate to (go so far) as to say it’s leveling off,” says Robert Levine, a Stout managing director.
Recalls affect an array of components and systems such as seatbelt sensors, headlights, fuel locks, transmissions, steering, leaks, tires, brakes and software.
As vehicles become more technologically complex, more software recalls seem inevitable, Roth says. “You can’t discount complications in connected cars.” And, noting that many recall campaigns trace their roots back to supplier-related defects, he adds, “You can’t overlook the supply chain.”
Recalls of 1 million vehicles or more account for about 35% of recalls.
But automakers are getting better at detecting and correcting problems early on, reducing the number of problem vehicles that end up on the road, Levine says.
“Every OEM I’ve spoken to takes vehicle safety seriously,” says Roth.
Getting the Word Out
Whether owners act on a recall notice or not, automakers, state departments of motor vehicles, and NHTSA, which oversees recalls, are stepping up efforts to expand channels of communication to contact current vehicle owners.
It’s relatively easy to reach the first owner of a one- or two-year-old vehicle. But it’s challenging if a vehicle is nearing old age and on its third or fourth owner.
“Communication is a big part of it,” Levine says.
NHTSA is proposing monthly communications over multiple channels, including emails and text messages.
Television, radio, automated phone calls and social media are also considered ways to better get the word out to the right people.
“That is significantly more than sending a letter,” Levine says.
But Roth says, “With the NHTSA proposal, there’s a lot to figure out.”
Among them is the added cost and the ready availability of electronic contact information. For instance, most DMVs don’t garner email addresses.
But other parties do, including dealerships. One recommendation is to get dealers more involved in the notification process.
Conference presenter Rebecca Wood, a deputy commissioner for the New York State DMV, says her agency is actively involved in recall notifications.
“People are more likely to get their car fixed if they get a letter from us,” she says.
New York requires annual car safety inspections. Inspectors now check to see if a vehicle is on a recall list. They can go so far as to slap a “do not drive” designation on a vehicle.
Wood says NHTSA’s proposal to include emails in the notification efforts “will be very beneficial, because email addresses change less frequently than mailing addresses.”
Getting the word out requires a team effort, Roth says. “The onus is on the OEMs. But there are a lot of stakeholders.”
