My first experience with a car airbag recall was when I was in college. I had just been driving to my friend’s house and I didn’t realize that the car’s airbag had deployed. I felt the impact, but the car was fine. I had no idea what had happened to me that day.
Chrysler has had a number of airbag recalls. A recall in the year 2000 for a faulty airbag at a Chrysler dealership led to 5 deaths and over $2 billion in damage. Chrysler recalled thousands of cars and sold millions of cars after that. In 2014 it recalled 400,000 vehicles. In 2016 the recall was expanded to include over 11 million vehicles and 2.3 million people. The recall was made public in December 2016.
The only thing that makes this recall different from most are the numbers. There were more than 100,000 cars recalled in 2016, and that number is expected to rise. And although Chrysler admits the recall will cost the company millions of dollars, it’s also aware of the risk and is investing millions in recalls the same year as the one we are talking about.
The recalls began in 2015 and were made public in 2016, so the only thing that’s different is how many vehicles were affected. Chrysler began the recall in 2015, which means that the number of vehicles being recalled is greater than the number of vehicles that were recalled. The number of people affected is also the same as the number of people that were affected in 2015, so they know how many people are on the hook for this.
So how come a recall is happening in 2016, and a recall is happening in 2015, but they are claiming the exact same number of affected vehicles in both cases? It’s not like the recalls were made public for fear that consumers would overreact. In fact, Chrysler told us that the recalls were made public because they wanted to make sure that Chrysler could accurately estimate how many vehicles were going to be recalled.
The recall in 2015 was just made public after the automaker received a lot of negative press. In contrast, the recall in 2016 was announced the previous day. So it seems that Chrysler is trying to protect its brand by making a public announcement while the recall is still active.
I can only imagine how many people have been calling Chrysler to complain about the recall, and how many people have called to complain about the recall. I am hoping that people will finally get to call and complain about the recall. It’s such a shame that they had to announce it in the media just ahead of time because consumers were going to get upset.
I do have to say that I think Chrysler is really trying to protect its brand. I also think they are probably just trying to protect themselves against lawsuits. I suppose we’ll know more when the recall actually comes into effect because Chrysler is already saying that it’s an isolated incident.
After years of lawsuits, this recall is supposed to be the first to actually put a stop to car manufacturers selling airbags that don’t meet federal crashworthiness standards (FCS). The problem is, the government is now claiming that this is an isolated incident. Chrysler is now saying that this is part of a long-term problem that they are trying to fix. The government is also charging that the airbags weren’t tested, and since they aren’t crashworthy, they should be recalled.
The problem is that airbags are incredibly complicated, and since no one is really paying attention to the details, the government is basically asking us to trust them. If it was just this accident, Chrysler would have no problem coming up with a new design that was crashworthy. Instead, the government is pushing for us to trust a faulty design that is only going to cost our auto industry millions of dollars in lawsuits.