• 24
  • April
    2012

Honda Leads US Automakers In Number Of Recalls In 2011

Honda Motor Co. has the dubious honor of having the most motor vehicles recalled last year. They had 3.9 million vehicles recalled in 2011. For the industry as a whole, the year marked the lowest number overall recalls since 2008.

In second place, behind Honda was Toyota, with 3.5 million recalls. Toyota is still recovering from the public relations nightmare resulting from the car accidents due to unintended acceleration caused by problems with accelerator pedals and floor mats becoming jammed under the pedals. Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles with those problems during 2010-2011.

Ford Motor Co. was number three, with 3.3 million recalls, which was a steep increase from the 581,000 vehicles recalled in 2010.

Playing It Safe

A spokesman for Honda was quoted in the Detroit News as saying, "We're playing it safe. We want to make sure we find all of these parts." Honda's recalls were focused on locating a small percentage of defective parts, but because those parts were used in much of their product line, the recall necessitated a large number of vehicles being recalled.

Important To Notice Why, Not Just How Many

It is significant to note the overall decrease in recalls as that indicates better performance by the industry, but the individual manufacturer's numbers may tell little more than that they built the most cars in a given time period.

It is important to pay attention to why vehicles are being recalled. To make it easy to determine if there are any pending recalls against a vehicle, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) operates a website, http://www.recalls.gov/nhtsa.html that lists motor vehicles, related equipment, child safety seats and tires. Visiting this site allows consumers to quickly check if their vehicle needs to be serviced.

Source: "NHTSA says Honda led U.S. in 2011 recalls," The Detroit News, 1/6/12