Two carmakers who built their reputations on quality and safety have issued recalls for potentially deadly failures in their cars. In September, Toyota issued its largest-ever recall in the United States, affecting 3.8 million Camry, Prius, and other model cars because of unexplained accelerations. In its recall, Toyota blames driver’s side floor mats for causing the acceleration, but lawyers representing a woman killed by her Camry’s uncontrolled acceleration in 2005 charge that the problem is not the floor mats, but an electronic throttle control. Although Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) deny that an electronics failure is responsible for the defect, they are now looking at other potential causes. Based on new information from lawsuits, safety tests, and over 400 complaints about uncontrolled accelerations that have caused several fatalities, the NHTSA is looking into potential design problems related to the gas pedal and/or floor pan of the vehicles.
Volvo has for several decades sold its cars on their safety. They are marketed as ideal family cars because of their ability to protect families from injury. Now they are issuing a recall that may threaten that legacy. Volvo is recalling nearly 10,000 2010 XC60s because the seat belt came detached during a crash test. During the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s side impact test, the vehicle’s seat belts came undone. Volvo says that during the 50-plus side-impact tests it conducted on the vehicle, the seatbelts had never become detached. The company says that the reason for the detachment is ribs inside the housing that put pressure on the mount, causing it to pop loose. They also say that the voluntary recall is a cautionary measure because the event happened in “one car in one test.”
These two defects show the importance of continued vigilance in looking at all cars by all manufacturers to ensure they are producing quality vehicles that are as safe as possible. The Toyota recall also shows the importance of lawsuits in forcing manufacturers to recognize when there is a problem with their vehicles.