The auto industry has a recall problem: Here’s why proposed solutions haven’t passed yet

Many proposed solutions to fix the nation’s vehicle safety recall system have either been sidelined or short-circuited, largely at the behest of some of the biggest players in the auto industry.
In a monthslong investigation, the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, found automakers overseen by federal regulators are making little progress in repairing their oldest passenger models that have potentially life-threatening defects, putting millions of drivers at grave risk.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a former state attorney general who made his name on consumer issues, is pushing his bill to enact a nationwide ban on dealers selling used cars and trucks with open recalls, saying in an interview that “some of these safety defects are serious and potentially extremely dangerous. But consumers have no idea about them, often, when they purchase used cars, and the dealers should have an obligation to repair them before they sell them.”
The Democratic senator from Connecticut has introduced or reintroduced his bill in every new Congress since 2015. The bill also addresses concerns by dealers about having unsellable cars and trucks on their lots. It would allow recalled vehicles to be sold to other dealers who are able to fix the defects. In addition, the legislation would require manufacturers to provide parts to make fixes within 60 days or reimburse dealers if the manufacturers cannot provide needed parts.
Auto safety experts support his effort.
“New cars can’t be sold with an open recall, why should used cars be an exception?” asked longtime safety researcher Sean Kane of Safety Research & Strategies in a statement to support Blumenthal’s bill.
Read the investigation:Millions of older cars, trucks with dangerous defects aren’t getting fixed
Michael Brooks, an auto safety advocate, blames the failure of the law’s passage on the auto industry, which has “better lobbyists” than other industries with known defective products that are prohibited for sale. “Because it seems like you would want to get them off the road as soon as possible.”
Some big industry players like Honda Motor endorsed an earlier proposal that would require any outstanding safety recall to be completed before a vehicle could be legally registered in a state. Some consumer groups now criticize that approach because it could unfairly restrict low-income families who depend on their vehicles.
Blumenthal’s sales ban has faced opposition from the National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents about 16,000 dealers. Representatives for the association did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
The association has said its dealers don’t sell vehicles with the most severe warnings, such as a “Do Not Drive” edict. Carfax estimates fewer than 10% of all recalls have such warnings.
The dealer association also emphasizes that all recalls are not equal, with many minor enough to still allow customers to drive while waiting for repairs. The association insists any wholesale ban on selling used cars with open recalls would lead to additional costs to consumers.
In exchange for those higher prices, the sales ban, according to the association, would have little impact on the nation’s overall efforts to get recalled cars and trucks fixed at a greater rate.
“Restricting the sale of recalled vehicles that are deemed acceptable to drive by the government and manufacturers will thus not remove the vast majority of recalled vehicles from the road or get them repaired,” the association says on its website, stating only 2% of used vehicles are at dealerships at any given time.
“Instead, it will only cripple the used vehicle market, devalue affected vehicles and move recall sales into the unregulated private market where they are less likely to be repaired.”
And yet, in 2022, when General Motors started its own used car platform, CarBravo, the company pledged that “every vehicle from CarBravo is certified and recall-free. In fact, dealers check for open recalls not once, but twice.”
At the top of the list of proposed solutions by safety advocates: Modernizing the way car and truck owners receive recall notices. Today, manufacturers are required to send notices only through the U.S. mail, which consumers can easily overlook.
“You still get mail, snail mail, hard copy, right? You can’t do it electronically? It’s like, what year is this, right?” said Mark Rosekind, who served as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s leader from 2014 until 2017. “So, I mean the whole system really needs to be reviewed with new actions and then truly upgraded.”
Other ideas include requirements for new cars and trucks to have an in-vehicle recall notification as well, providing more mobile repair, independent repair facilities, over-the-air updates for software issues, and temporary repair facilities. (Individual manufacturers offer some of these improved services already.) Additional proposals include boosting the availability of replacement parts.
In an interview, Jennifer Timian, a former federal official who oversaw recall issues, floated the idea of giving owners greater incentive to get their cars repaired, like the ability to use sick time from work. “You allow them to use their sick leave to go see the doctor for their preventative maintenance,” she said. “Why not get the safety recall fixed?”
According to a May report on consumers from the NHTSA, the recall repair rate could benefit from a number of factors, including sending more than just letters and reinforcing the consequences of not getting a recalled vehicle repaired. It also found that consumers would respond if recalls avoided overly technical language, created incentives for repairs and targeted an individual message to especially vulnerable groups: older adults, lower-income drivers, rural owners and Spanish-language reliant people.
In many ways, states could also adopt a more direct role in getting unsafe vehicles off the road and fixed. Through secretaries of state and departments of motor vehicles, they could match vehicle identification numbers to registration information and let owners know about pending recalls. They could also time such notifications to driver’s license renewals, emissions checks and safety inspections, as New York does. In the most severe remedy, they could even hold up registrations for vehicles with open recalls, citing a safety hazard.
Most states have failed to act.
During her time at the NHTSA, Timian said in an interview, “I was very frustrated with the fact that we couldn’t get that much DMV interest.”
In a pilot program, the federal government has provided grants to a handful of states to encourage their motor vehicle departments to warn registered owners of cars and trucks about open recalls through their registration or inspection programs. Officials in Maryland, the first participating state, said they had seen enough success to continue the program indefinitely.
Maryland’s transportation department discovered more than 1 million safety recalls among the nearly 4.3 million vehicles registered. By the end of the two-year program in 2020, more than 376,000 vehicle recalls were fixed, or roughly 37% of the total recalls identified. Of the vehicles fixed, nearly half – 47.8% – involved recalls that were at least 2 years old, indicating the program may have been effective in reaching owners who had been unaware of the safety warning or put off repairs.
Stay safe:Use your Vehicle Identification Number here to check whether your car or truck has an open safety recall.
A private sector partnership between Carfax and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation also offers a free recall check to eight states using the Vehicle Recall Search Service and those results are provided to the vehicle’s owner. The service has checked more than 5.8 billion vehicles for those states and auto-related companies since its launch in 2018.
But the vast majority of states still have no statewide operations to inform residents about open recalls on their cars and trucks. Michigan, for example, is pushing back on the idea that the state should be responsible.
“Auto companies are already required to send notices to drivers with vehicles under safety recall and companies already have access to Michigan driving records for this purpose,” said Angela Benander, spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “We are mindful that if the department were to begin issuing duplicative notices or taking other actions, it could be an unnecessary waste of public resources.”
This report received funding from the Abrams Nieman Fellowships for Local Investigative Journalism at Harvard University.
Have a question about vehicle recalls or a story to share?Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @matthewsdolan