Side impact crashes injure more often

In 2007 the federal safety agency in charge of setting safety standards for motor vehicles sold in the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), wanted to protect passengers from side crashes into things like utility poles and trees so they set a new standard for side impact crash protection.

That's because over the last 20 years frontal crashes have gone down while side impact crashes have increased by more than 20%.

Like most new vehicle safety standards, it was argued about and fought over before it finally became law. One of the compromises in the process was that the new law would would not begin to take effect for 3 years and that complete phase-in compliance would not be required for 7 years. So motor vehicle manufacturers had up to 7 years to redesign their cars to add greater side impact protection and comply with the new law. 

Are they too busy making money to build safe cars?

The law was passed in 2007 and was to be complied with by September 1, 2014. Plenty of time to get the job done, right?

So all the manufacturers started working on it and now they all comply. Except one.



Aston Martin, who apparently has been busy building and selling their expensive sports cars, has filed a request to postpone their convertible car model compliance for another 2 and 3 years. And their reason for the requested extension? Being unable to sell the soft-top cars would reduce their new car gross profits.

Buy a 2014 Aston Martin DB9 for just $214,000

The Aston Martin DB9, which carries a $214,000 MSRP, won't comply with federal safety standards until August 2016. The Aston Martin Vantage, with its paltry $126,000 MSRP, won't comply until August 2017.

Meanwhile, Aston Martin saw a 2013 sales jump of 11%, so the cash is certainly flowing.

The world's 8 top auto makers complied with the new safety standard and none of them saw their sales jump 11% in 2013 but Aston Martin did.

Will Money Buy NHTSA's forgiveness?

GM had a 2013 sales drop of 6.3% but it has complied with the new safety standard. VW had a whopping 2013 sales drop of 22.7% but it complied. Hyundai and Kia dropped 2% but they complied. Toyota dropped 1.7% but they complied.

Ford sales only increased by 1.8% but they complied. Honda scrapped by with a 1.9% increase but they complied. Chrysler sales increased 6% and they complied and Nissan, with an increase of 10.5%, complied too.

NHTSA should not reward Aston Martin for its decision to make more money instead of complying with a federal safety standard that they saw coming 7 years ago. They had 7 years to get around to it and instead focused on the almighty buck and big bucks at that. Aston Martin has no excuse. They do make beautiful sports cars, sure. And expensive ones, too. Let's hope that money is not what makes the safety decision at NHTSA on this.

Chrysler Jeep Grand Cherokee and Jeep Liberty Fire Danger Recall

Chrysler caused its own problem with the Jeep recall involving the Grand Cherokee and the Liberty because they ignored their own internal 1978 memo on where to put gas tanks on cars.

The design that led to the recall was a problem they knew about in 1978, but they built the design defect into the Jeep Liberty and Jeep Grand Cherokee anyway. So just how do you fix stupid?

Chrysler is being criticized for cutting a deal to decrease the number of vehicles involved in its recent Jeep recall. NHTSA, the recall agency, is getting criticized for going along with it. The Center for Auto Safety's Clarence Ditlow is getting criticized for objecting to the deal that Chyrsler and NHTSA made.

While everyone is complaining about it, few actually have looked into the cause for the recall itself. When you do, you realize that they had it coming. In fact, they knew back in 1978 that what they ultimately did in designing the Grand Cherokee and Jeep Liberty was stupid. And the only way to fix "design stupid" is with a recall.

It all started when the accidents started causing fires and people started to die.  The Center for Auto Safety, whose mission is auto safety and quality, heard about how a gas tank ruptured in a rear end collision and started asking federal safety investigators at NHTSA to look into it. NHTSA is the federal agency in charge of motor vehicle recalls. After more fires were reported, it eventually became obvious that something was going on.

Another burned up Jeep from a rear end accident and fire.

One of the fire accidents that started the federal investigation was when a Jeep was rear ended by a semi truck going 60 mph. We absolutely agree that you can't blame Jeep for an accident caused by a semi truck, unless there was something wrong with that Jeep that made the injuries worse. But it is not Chrysler management's mentality to toss in the towel if they think they are right. 

Chrysler does, however, have a mentality to weigh the costs of bad PR. So after the recall came out, Chrysler said they would fight it. Then it decided it wouldn't. What's up with that?

Chrysler had a secret meeting with federal safety investigators and ultimately made a deal to go along with a recall of fewer vehicles than first demanded by federal safety investigators. That "meeting" was about cutting costs to do what they knew had to do anyway. 

NHTSA only does a recall after a long, exhaustive, scientific analysis of an issue - because they know that their decision may end up in Court. The Preliminary Evaluation was followed by an Engineering Analysis and this investigation, for example, started in 2009 and it took 4 years to get to this point - and Chrysler was involved throughout the entire process (the manufacturer always is). 

There's the Gas Tank, just waiting to get hit in a rear end collision.

What came out of it is that the industry standard placement location for fuel tanks is in front of the rear axle but Chrysler put the two recalled Jeep fuel tanks behind the rear axle, in a vulnerable position. No other SUV make does that and most vehicles of any kind don't do that. The Grand Cherokee and Liberty models had twice the normal SUV rate of fire fatalities from a rear end accident. 

In fact, an 8-24-1978 internal memo at Chrysler pointed out that doing that would expose the gas tank to collision damage. It happened and that's what started this whole Jeep recall thing. 

NHTSA did not push for this recall without evidence that something was wrong. It did so in an extraordinary 13 page, detailed letter to Chrysler (you can go to NHTSA's recall pages and see that most such letters are 2-3 pages). Read the NHTSA letter (we did) yourself. 

But we are sure that Chrysler thought it was right to fight the recall. And just as sure that Ditlow was objecting for just one reason - auto safety and quality.  Not everyone is nuts and reasonable people can disagree and still just be reasonable people doing their job. The Jeep recall has nothing to do with big government or politics. Folks may not like NHTSA or Ditlow or the Center for Auto Safety, but this recall has to do with one thing only - auto safety and quality. 

It is just plain stupid to put a gas tank behind the immovable hard metal rear axle where nothing but the rear plastic bumper is protecting it from rupturing in a rear end collision. A ruptured gas tank causes fires and fires kill people. 

The only way to fix stupid when it comes to car design, is to do a recall. And, as Chrysler knows, the way to limit the cost of a recall is to negotiate the quantity of vehicles being recalled.

F150 Recall Fears Rising Over Dangerous Speed Defect

Quick - what is the best selling motor vehicle the US has ever had? Quick - what is the best selling Ford there ever has been? The answer is the same - the Ford F Series truck line, with over 34,000,000 built since 1948 and easily way ahead of whatever is in second place.

But the winner of the race may have hit a speed bump with federal safety investigators, who have received so many owner complaints that they have opened an investigation into highway sharp loss of speed dangers in the 2011 Ford F150 and the 2012 Ford F150 and the 2013 Ford F150 model trucks.

There's a growing fear being reported that Blue Oval management smells a huge recall coming from a ongoing federal safety investigation. The investigation involves some 400,000 Ford F150 trucks that are the subject loss of acceleration complaints. But it may not stop there. A power unit that is the focus of the investigation is also used in the Ford Explorer, the Ford Flex and the Ford Taurus.

If a recall hits, it may involve the Ford truck line as well as the Ford SUV models and Ford sedans. The numbers could easily become huge.

Owners are filing Lemon Law and warranty breach cases against Ford over the 3.5 liter V-6 EcoBoost engine and claim that it has defects that cause the vehicles to shake, the engine to misfire and the vehicle to rapidly lose power. When that happens on any road, it can be dangerous, but especially so at highway speeds.

If you think your Ford F150 is a lemon, click here to call or email us for free help to get rid of your lemon and get your money back or a new truck in Ohio, Kentucky and Hawaii.

NHTSA has reported that the problem involves reduced engine power during hard accelerations in model year 2011 through 2013 Ford F150 trucks equipped with 3.5L gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engines.

Ford has issued three technical service bulletins related to intermittent stumble/misfire on acceleration from highway cruise in humid or damp conditions in some model year 2011 and 2012 F150 vehicles equipped with 3.5L GTDI engines. The most recent bulletin, TSB 13-3-3, includes instructions to Ford dealers on new procedures for diagnosing a condition related to moisture accumulation in the Charge Air Cooler during extended highway cruising at constant throttle in humid or damp conditions; and attempting a repair of the condition by reprogramming the powertrain control module and installing a new Charge Air Cooler and air deflector plate.

Will this latest procedure work to fix the continuing engine problems in the Ford F150? Only time will tell, but this isn't the only problem the Ford F150 has seen lately. 

The 2012 Ford F150, for instance, has been the subject of at least ten secret warranty campaigns, called "service bulletins" and several involve the same symptoms involved in the NHTSA safety investigation - loss of engine power.

The Preliminary Evaluation may be the last chance Ford has of heading off a recall before the investigation is handed off to federal safety engineers at NHTSA, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, the federal safety agency in charge of motor vehicle recalls in the United States.

The Burdge Lemon Aid Team Call Toll Free 1.888.331.6422  - Free Lemon Law Help -

If you've got a 2011 Ford F150, a 2012 Ford F150, or a 2013 Ford F150, be careful. Drive defensively and stay alert for any sign of engine power loss, especially during highway use. At the first sign of trouble, slow down and stop as soon as possible and call your nearest Ford dealer.

This can be a dangerous and deadly defect if it happens to you. So caution may dictate having your Ford F150 truck towed to the nearest Ford dealer for another repair attempt. And keep in mind the lemon law definitions in your state. You don't have to give the Ford dealer more than 4 attempts to fix the engine stumble problem in any state, only 1 one chance in Ohio and many other "deadly defect" states, and most often 3 chances in other states.

If you live in Ohio, take the Ohio Lemon Law Test by clicking here.

If you live in Kentucky, take the Kentucky Lemon Law Test by clicking here.

If you live in Hawaii, take the Hawaii Lemon Law Test by clicking here.

To learn more about the lemon law test in all 50 US states, click here.

So what did federal safety investigators learn from the public spotlight's glare on their cozy relationship with Toyota? Apparently not much.

On Jan. 22, 2010, CF MOTO, the US company that imports Chinese made motorcycles, reported to federal safety investigators that the rear brakes system on its CF250T motorcycles failed to comply with federal motorcycle safety requirements because they were designed for "scooters" instead of motorcycles. CF MOTO's lawyers sent to letter to Stuart Seigel in NHTSA's Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance in Washington. We have a copy of that letter.

NHTSA received all the proper documents to commence a recall to protect the safety of several thousand motorcycle owners nationwide. They even posted the recall in their online "NHTSA Recall Database" where the public could find it.

Buried in the recall's smaller print was the statement by CF MOTO that it was not going to tell current owners of the recalled motorcycles of the defect for another few months and that it also had no intention of even telling the company's own dealers about the safety recall for another couple of months too. What? You admit to the need of a safety recall and then want to keep it secret? You don't want even your own dealers to be told about it?

Of course, not telling CF MOTO dealers would allow dealers to keep selling the recalled motorcycles without the dealers or the public knowing that the rear brake systems on the motorcycless are the wrong kind.

Then a funny thing happened at NHTSA. The recall disappeared. Gone. Taken off the web site. Poof. Why?

Is NHTSA falling prey to more overseas undue influence? Did CF MOTO decide to get cozy with federal regulators, like Toyota did in order to save itself millions of dollars? Did they pick profits over safety? Did the federal safety investigators at NHTSA decide they had their hands full with Toyota troubles right now, so they would let this one slide? Were they "encouraged" to drop it by the motorcycle's builder, CF MOTO?

At first, no one was explaining it. Then, in response to our repeated inquiries, NHTSA said that it might have been removed because basically they wanted to check it out first and be sure it was a motor vehicle recall. One can guess that maybe NHTSA investigators are still "investigating" but if the manufacturer admits the motorcycles were built wrong, what is there to investigate? Why the stall and delay? Why remove it from the online recall database, which is the one place the public would expect to find it?

And in the meantime, how many owners are riding around thinking they have the right kind of brakes when they don't? There's a reason for federal safety standards about brakes on motorcycles. Ignoring any safety standard is just plain stupid. And it could be plenty dangerous. Whose side is NHTSA on here? The taxpayers whose safety it is entrusted with? Or the industry queens who sell millions of unsafe and dangerous motor vehicles to US consumers and whose mantra lately seems to be "trust me" and "buy me" and little else?

Maybe the recall is a big deal. We're sure CF MOTO would say it is not. That raises the question though. Since when did a recall become a "not-recall"? Since when did federal safety standards become "maybe" standards?

There's a reason the recall agency's name is the National Highway Traffic SAFETY Administration. Apparently someone in Washington has forgotten that.

If you own a CF MOTO, you might want to be very careful out there on the street. Oh. And you might want to email NHTSA and ask them why they are keeping the CF MOTO recall a secret. You can do that by clicking here. Or going to the safety agency's website here: http://www.nhtsa.gov/.

After years of secrecy that was endorsed by the current administration in Washington DC, followed by lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests that wouldn't go away, federal safety investigators finally opened up their secret Early Warning Reporting data to the public.

Public Citizen, the consumer watchdog group, should be given a hearty thanks by all consumers because without their patient persistence it would never have happened.

The data was required to be compiled by vehicle manufacturers and turned over to federal safety investigators at NHTSA (the federal agency in charge of vehicle recalls) after Congress passed the 2000 Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act so that federal safety investigators would finally know what the manufacturers knew --- the defects that they were getting sued over. It was largely the result of the Firestone tire and Ford Explorer rollovers fiasco that caught federal safety investigators by surprise.

Opening up online, the searchable database finally gives consumers a chance to see what known defects are out there on cars and trucks so they can avoid buying used lemons. Unfortunately NHTSA is still withholding some critical info (such as the number of consumer complaints, the number of factory field reports, and data compiled on claims involving death and injury), but it's a start.

The value of the previously secret data is obvious when one realizes that it was instrumental in 84 federal safety investigations in the first 8 months of 2008 alone and nearly 30% of those were purely the result of the data alone with no other info even considered before starting the investigations. After all, it'd be nice to know if that shiney new car in the showroom is the same model that has already been sued over for ignition switch fires in half a dozen states (something you might have found out about the 12 million Fords that were recalled in staggered stages if the data had been made public in time, and 5 million of them have still never been fixed).

The purpose of the 2000 TREAD law was to raise public awareness about safety defects and improve public oversight of factory and NHTSA decisions on defects and recalls. While manufacturers have always been required to report some data to federal safety investigators, not all of the available data was being reported and most of the key data was being kept secret by NHTSA, mostly thanks to pressure from the manufacturers and some industry-friendly politicians.

Granted NHTSA is late to the party here, but at least they showed up. Now if they'd only go the whole distance and make public all of the data they get from the factories. Why? Because we, the public through our tax dollars, own that data and we are the bosses of NHTSA. We just need to get the industry-friendly politicians out of the way so the federal safety investigators at NHTSA know it.

Meanwhile, if you've got a lemon, don't put up with the runaround from anyone. Call or email us today so we can squash your lemon for you. We know where it came from. We know how to make them take it back. After all, that's what we do. Everyday.

US Senators at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing today scolded Bush administration officials over suspected interference with the federal government's safety investigators in Washington hearings June 4. White House officials were pushing a plan to "upgrade" roof strength safety standards when Senators apparently figured out that the real plan was to curb future lawsuits by people whose vehicle roofs collapse in rollover crashes.

The initial plan was said to be to "upgrade" the federal roof strength standards but Senators found a provision in the plan that would severely limit lawsuit damages for people who might be injured or killed by collapsing roofs if the new "upgraded" standards were adopted.

So when is an upgrade not really an upgrade? Apparently whenever federal safety investigators get into bed with big business interests. It's high time we got politics out of the safety process, folks.

Even the auto manufacturers trade group, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, reportedly said they were surprised to see the lawsuit loophole buried in the proposal's fine print. Of course, they were pleased as punch to see it. Just surprised, they said.

As it is now, roof strength standards haven't changed since 1971. Congress had long ago imposed a deadline of July 1, 2008 to improve the standards but federal safety officials at NHTSA (the federal safety agency in charge of automobile recalls) still have not gotten it done.

Industry insiders say that improving roof rollover crash safety would mean adding weight to the vehicle and that might make it tougher to meet the new fuel economy standards that come due in 2020. Come on, guys, fix the roofs now and you still have 12 years to fix the fuel economy. Who's kidding who here?

Meanwhile, long time consumer advocate Ralph Nader says that cozy ties between automakers and safety officials and the White House have gotten so bad that Congress should just shut down the regulators and start all over again with a new safety department that has teeth and is willing to use them.

Of course, that'll never happen. But there's no doubt Nader is right about the cozy relationship. Federal safety investigators need to get out of the manufacturer's bed and start enforcing safety laws again like they were meant to be enforced. You and I are the ones who ride in these cars with lousy roof standards. We don't need politicians deciding how strong the roof in your car should be.

If you've got a lemon, email or call us 1-888-331-6422 Toll Free. We can help you get rid of it. That's what we do. Everyday.

We have to give the folks at ConsumerAffairs.com credit for creativity --- and accuracy too.
They just released their list of "Top Ten Automotive Outrages of 2007" and they hit the nail on the head.

Ford scores big with 3 of the "top ten" spots, for their flaming Fords (almost 11 million vehicles recalled since 2005), the Ford truck spitting spark plugs (an expensive non-warranty $3,000 repair) and the Focus ignition fiasco (a model with the worst recall record of anything on wheels since 1980). Those were so well known that they could be expected and have been long time big safety issues for the public.

Airbags that won't go boom when they should are the #1 issue. They reported on numerous accidents that should have caused air bags to deploy but didn't. While manufacturers say that airbags aren't supposed to deploy in all accidents (that's their excuse) we've seen some accidents that were so severe that common sense dictates the air bag should have gone off but it didn't. Even the experts are baffled and tend to just trust the science behind the system more than their instinct on this one. The odds are that the airbag issue will continue to be debated.

Then there's GM's truck brakes (nearly 1.4 million recalled), but worse still is the GM Onstar abandonment (built on a now-outmoded and abandoned technology, leaving hundreds of thousands of GM Onstar customers without any recourse at all).

While Jeeps that jump, the Prius unintended acceleration problem, and the BMW transmissions
are their own problem, the biggest issue we see? The federal safety department itself, Nhtsa.

Yes, folks, it's your tax dollars at work. Business as usual in Washington. Lobbyists in bed with the regulators. Lots of those slogans seem to fit the folks at Nhtsa nowadays and only a change in administration will change Nhtsa, an agency run by folks who seem to think that big money political donors matter more than peoples' safety.

These are the people who gave the okay for "geographic recalls" that allowed some defective vehicles to be driven around without their owners knowing of their defects, while requiring others to be recalled to fix the same defect, purely based on where you live.

They're the same folks who keep some defect safety investigation files secret, working hand in glove with big business. Yup, that's a great use of your tax dollars, folks...figure out the problem and then bury it away where no one can find it.

Although hounded by consumers and watchdogs, Nhtsa turned down a request to investigate the big Ford engines that dangerously spit out spark plugs, saying that "In the need to allocate and prioritize limited resources to best accomplish the agency's safety mission," they just couldn't spare the manpower and didn't think flying spark plugs was all that big a deal. (Federal Register, Vol. 60, No. 138).

That's because they weren't the ones who had to duck when the spark plugs went flying, no doubt.

The upper level management at Nhtsa gives direction and authority for the lower level safety investigators who do the real work. In short, for years the people at the top have been tieing the hands of the people at the bottom, hamstringing any serious effort to investigate some deadly
defects that pose serious risk and danger to the public.

It ought to be embarrassing. Instead, it's just business as usual on both ends of the phone line that runs between Washington and Detroit.

Well, if they won't help you, we will. If you've got a lemon, we'll help you get rid of it. Call (1-888-331-6422 Toll Free) or email us. Fighting back is what we do. It's what we've done since 1978. We're not going to stop now.

In yesterday's blog post we talked about How Recalls Happen and explained the Nhtsa safety investigation and recall process, but the fact is that federal safety investigators rarely force a vehicle manufacturer to recall a vehicle, although they do have to power if they want to use it.

When things get bad enough, the federal safety investigators at Nhtsa can force a manufacturer to recall a bad motor vehicle and they call this a "Defect Petition" or "Recall Petition." If Nhtsa’s position is justified, federal safety investigators open this most serious investigation but the truth is that it rarely gets this far.

Part of the reason is the very conservative position taken on enforcing safety laws by the current and recent Nhtsa regulators. A good example of this less than stellar performance is Nhtsa's decision to allow manufacturers to make regional or "geographic recalls." The concept started in 1985 when Reagan's conservative politicians were in charge but, like any bad idea that gets a toehold, it never really went away. We wrote about this back in 2006, in an article called "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Regulations" and the problem has only gotten worse.

This isn't like the manufacturer's secret warranty programs, which by the way Chrysler has admitted is a cost that is built into the price of every new car and truck even though no one tells you about it and you don't have a right to get what you are paying for. Regional recalls are recalls that are only sent to vehicle owners in one region of the United States, but not to people who own the exact same vehicle but live somewhere else in the US.

By 2002, there had been 37 geographic recalls affecting over 20 million vehicles, and it hasn't stopped. A prime example of why geographic recalls are bad are the Ford Aerostars and Windstars fuel tanks that could crack in high temperatures, causing dangerous fuel and vapor leaks. The stupidity of geographic recalls was at its height here. Ford vans in LA and Santa Barbara county were recalled but not those in Death Valley, where the average yearly temperature was 15 degrees hotter than Santa Barbara.

Federal safety officials at Nhtsa sat by idly and allowed Ford to label balmy Santa Barbara a hotter spot than Death Valley. The same thing occurred with corrosion recalls on the Ford Taurus which covered northern US states but not Georgia and California where the same defect was reportedly the cause of more than one auto accident when corroded subframe bolts gave way. Same thing again with GM tailgates that could drop off trucks.

R.H., in Europe, emailed me today to talk about the GM tailgate regional recall (his sister has a GM S-10 truck). He very accurately pointed out that perhaps the biggest danger with the tailgates was that a person climbing in or out of the truck bed could be severely injured if one or both cables fail while the person is standing on the tailgate. He pointed out that it "must be something like standing on the trap door of a gallows when the trap is sprung ... the acceleration of the fallilng body and the rotation imparted to the body by the sloping off of the door as it falls, and then any abrupt stop when the tailgate hits either the end of its travel, or the bumper, will cause the person to pitch in a way that few would be able to recover from."

Gruesomely accurate I'd bet. At least if the tailgate drops off while driving down the highway, the next driver has a chance to avoid the bouncing tailgate. If you're standing on it when it collapses, about all you can do is get our your hospital insurance card.

The federal law which created Nhtsa treats all vehicles the same regardless of where they are sold or registered. Given the mobility of our society, that makes good sense. Geographic recalls help manufacturers save money for Wall Street investment groups, at the expense of your safety and mine. And Nhtsa bureaucrats let them get away with it.

It's time to stop. Write Nhtsa, 400 Seventh St. SW, Washington, DC 20590 and complain. Tell them you don't want to buy a used car in your home town that didn't get recall work done on it just because it was licensed somewhere else at the time the recall was announced. Write your congress person too.

The more you complain to Nhtsa and your congress person, the more likely it is that someone will finally listen and change the system. After all, you are the person paying for this recall system.

If you've got a bad vehicle with a problem the manufacturer won't fix, recall or not, contact us. We can help. It's what we do. Everyday.

The National Highway Safety Traffic Administration is the federal agency responsible for investigating unsafe motor vehicles in the US. Often working quietly to investigate and analyze vehicle safety issues, their dedication to protecting the public often goes unnoticed until a vehicle recall is announced.

But recalls are just the proverbial tip of the investigation iceberg, so to speak.

There are 4 levels of investigation for Nhtsa safety investigators. The lowest level is the "Preliminary Evaluation" which starts after enough consumer complaints or factory service bulletins occur to suggest a safety defect may exist. It usually last about 4 months and if the issue looks serious, the results of the PE investigation go "up the ladder."

The second phase of a federal safety investigation is the "Engineering Analysis" and it is the final phase of any informality. Here the data from the PE is closely examined to see if a potential safety defect is so serious that a recall should be required. This part usually takes about a year.

Obviously, during this whole time the manufacturer is aware of the investigation process because they are required to provide responses to Nhtsa requests for more information. Direct dealings between those people often tell the manufacturer where the investigation is headed and how likely it is that it will get to a recall point.

Often the manufacturer will try to head off the seriousness of the problem by announcing the recall themselves, which also serves as a public relations move to brag about their self-proclaimed concern for public safety.

When the manufacturer announces a recall, it still isn't over with though because Nhtsa's safety investigators will then pour over the recall announcement to make sure that the scope of the recall is proper, the recall work is being doing timely, and that the repair work described by the recall will fix the defect involved. If federal safety investigators seriously question if the recall is adequate, they start a "Recall Query." This is where they investigate whether or not the scope of the recall should be expanded or if the factory's fix is adequate.

Finally, if Nhtsa safety investigators think the factory is ignoring a defect, or the factory won't cooperate with what Nhtsa thinks is the proper scope of the recall or the repair work really needed to fix a defect, Nhtsa can file to investigate a safety defect "on the record" or to investigate whether a manufacturer has successfully carried out a recall. They call this a "Defect Petition" or "Recall Petition." If the Nhtsa position is justified, federal safety investigators open this most serious investigation but it rarely gets this far.

Part of the reason is the very conservative position taken on enforcing safety laws by the current and recent Nhtsa regulators, but that's a story for another day. The point is that federal safety investigators are supposed to be watching out for you, but that may not be the case after all.

One thing is for sure. If you've got a bad vehicle with a problem the manufacturer won't fix, whether they recalled it or not, contact us. We can help.

Federal safety investigators have opened a "preliminary evaluation" safety investigation of 2005 Jeep Liberty and 2006 Jeep Liberty and 2006 Jeep Liberty 4x4 vehicles powered by a 2.8 liter 4 cylinder turbo charged diesel engine.

The National Highway Trafic Safety Administration is the federal agency responsible for investigating motor vehicle safety complaints. They also are in charge of motor vehicle recalls.

The say that consumers are reporting that diesel fuel leaks and signs that the electrical connector for the fuel heater shows signs of being burned.

Fuel leaks in a motor vehicle are just a step away from a vehicle fire so don't take a chance if you own one of the Liberty Jeep vehicles.

An estimated 20,000 Jeep vehicles are involved in the latest safety investigation. but Jeep has been the subject of numerous other recalls and service bulletins. If you've got a lemon Jeep Liberty, or any other Jeep lemon, be careful. You don't want to go up in smoke while you're going down the road.

For nearly three years the major car makers have been shipping millions of pages of secret safety defect data to federal safety regulators that they don't want the public to get hold of, while your tax dollars are being used to organize and keep track of it all. Turns out you get to pay for it, but you don't get to know what's in there.

8 million consumer complaints. 138 million warranty claims. 5 million other reports which detail product malfunctions. It's all part of an "early warning program" set up by congress to prevent another Firestone tire failure type of scandal. And it's all kept secret by government officials at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration --- the same folks who are well paid by your tax dollars to keep the public informed of these very things. Sounds like someone's been sleeping with the enemy to me...

The Firestone mess occurred because of tread separations and other failures that were linked to at least 271 deaths and which resulted in the company recalling 10 million tires. Ford used millions of the tires and ended up redesigning their vehicles and facing huge lawsuit costs while Ford's reputation took a beating. Firestone also took a beating.

There was even a cartoon circulated that jokingly hinted the Concord airplane crash (that happened about that time) might have been the result of Firestone tires failing.

The "big 3" and some German and Japanese manufacturers have argued that this new "defect info" should be kept secret and federal investigators have been trying to do just that, even though it was originally thought that all this data would be available to the public.

The automakers trade group, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, has fought hard to keep the quarterly reports classified as confidential business information so that the public can be kept in the dark. Federal safety officials, often appointed or hired by political appointees, agreed, claiming that if they disclosed the malfunction and failure reports then the car companies might stop telling them about vehicle defects.

Safety critics, including the former director of NHTSA Joan Claybrook, have complained that federal safety officials shouldn't keep the defect data secret and that the public has a right to know. Her organization, Public Citizen, filed suit in 2004 to force the secret records to come to light and last March a federal judge agreed. Meanwhile, the argument goes on.

In case you think the defect data is actually being used, it doesn't look like it. Turns out that safety officials opened about the same number of defect investigations in the five years since Congress created this "early warning system" as they did in the five years before it. That suggests that the data isn't resulting in anything unsual happening at all.

Seems to me that if tax dollars are being used to compile and track defect data, then taxpayers ought to be able to find out what the data says. It'd be a shame to find out later that the carmakers were telling the feds about serious safety defects that could kill, and no one was doing anything to make sure the public was being warned.

You can help. Complain to Congress. You can find your representative, and send them a quick email, by clicking here. Just say "the NHTSA early warning system data should be made public so please do something about it." That will help.

Meantime, if you think you've got a defective car or truck (and safety officials aren't warning any of us about what they are learning from this secret data), contact us. We can help.