Archives

Last year, several of the largest rental car companies in the United States agreed to stop renting vehicles that have been recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration before the safety issue prompting the recall has been repaired. Smaller rental car companies and car dealerships, however, are currently lobbying to convince Washington lawmakers that they should be exempt from proposed legislation that would prohibit them from renting or selling recalled vehicles that haven’t been repaired.

According to the NHTSA, approximately 20 million vehicles are recalled each year for a total of 600 vehicles. Lawmakers say they are planning to reintroduce legislation that would prohibit used car dealers, smaller rental-car companies and dealerships that offer customers loaner or rental cars while their own cars are being repaired from selling, renting, or lending vehicles included in safety recalls before they have been repaired. Current laws only prohibit new car dealers from selling recalled vehicles without the required repairs, but people have been killed in fatal accidents involving rental cars with known safety issues in recent years, prompting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue a statement in favor of stricter legislation prohibiting all car rental agencies and car dealerships from renting, leasing, or selling recalled vehicles before they have been repaired.

The most recent legislation requiring recalled vehicles to be repaired before they are rented or sold is named for two sisters from Santa Cruz, California, who were killed in a collision with a truck after their recalled rental car caught fire.

Representatives from the National Automobile Dealers Association, however, say that vehicle manufacturers pay for the repairs, meaning dealers have an incentive to resolve recall issues quickly, but not every vehicle recall issue is serious enough to repair before selling or renting the vehicle. Additionally, owners of some smaller used vehicle dealerships argue that the current recall notification system is not always effective at informing all owners of a safety recall, and owners of smaller rental car agencies say they receive repair parts from automakers later than the larger companies, potentially negatively affecting their businesses if they have to wait until the recall issue has been repaired before they can rent recalled vehicles.

Rental car agencies and car dealerships are not required by law to report injuries and deaths involving their vehicles to the NHTSA, and victims are often made to sign confidentiality agreement, consumer advocates say, which may mean that these incidents often go unreported.

According to a study released by researchers at Carfax, approximately 2.7 million previously owned vehicles were listed for sale last year despite unresolved recall issues. Some of these issues included fire hazards, engine failure risks, and other issues that could potentially lead to auto accidents and other injury hazards. No federal law currently requires car dealers to inform prospective buyers of possible recall issues affecting used vehicles for sale. Using a car’s vehicle identification number, prospective buyers can determine whether a previously owned car has been recalled with a free search engine tool provided by the Center for Auto Safety.

Read the full article here:

Carfax finds 2.7 million used cars with unfixed safety recall for sale nationwide