April 17, 2017
www.usedcarnews.com
Large Recalls Continue to Plague Industry
RECALL WOES: Ford Motor Co. recently issued a recall covering more than 200,000 vehicles, including 2014 Escape; 2014-15 Fiesta ST; 2013-14 Fusion and 2013-15 Transit Connect vehicles equipped with 1.6L GTDI engines for issues with the cooling system. Ford’s biggest recall last year covered more than 3 million units.
By Ted Craig
Rush - Dated Material
DETROIT – Recall volumes hit a new high in 2016 with 927 separate recalls afecting 53.2 million vehicles. This was the third year recalls reached a new milestone. Neil Steinkamp, managing director at SSR, presented an overview of recalls in 2016 and what to expect going forward during an event hosted by the Society of Automotive Analysts. The Takata air bag recalls drove much of the volume of recalls, but there were other major issues as well. General Motors had the larg-
est non-Takata recalls, with 3.6 million units afected. “The large recall is still an important player,” Steinkamp said. Nothing comes close to the Takata recall, however. By 2020, between 64 million and 69 million inlators will be recalled. “Obviously, this is an extraordinary recall,” Steinkamp said. Eighty percent of recalls cover fewer than 100,000 vehicles, with half covering fewer than 10,000 vehicles. The smallest recall last year was Mercedes’ recall of one CLG. The other 20 percent, though, make up 90 percent of all vehicles recalled.
Airbag recalls overall are growing. There were 45 non-Takata air bag recalls in 2016. Part of this comes from the manufacturers playing it safe by issuing recalls rather than just technical service bulletins. It’s not just the inlators that are being recalled, either. Many of these air bag recalls are software recalls. These large recalls often cover vehicles going back several model years. This hurts the completion rates for their repairs. Vehicles that are ive years old and older have completion rates below 50 percent, even after two years. The good news is manufactur-
ers now have an example of how to boost those rates – the GM ignition switch campaign. GM made a major efort, doing everything from setting up a special call center to reaching out to drivers via social media. As a result, the company achieved a completion rate in the 70 percent to 80 percent range. “This is what’s going to lift these old vehicle completion rates,” Steinkamp said. The manufacturers will need to learn from that experience, as the amount of recalls is likely to grow as vehicles become more complicated and sales continue to rise.
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