The 10 Largest Automotive Recalls of All Time

remember, FORD = Found On Road Dead, Fix Or Repair Daily, similar to FIAT = Fix It Again Tony

 

... and I'd still rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy. (Sorry, malorn.)

#7 struck two Hondas in my household. A very similar recall hit my last Ford at almost the same time, but apparently it wasn't big enough to make this list.

 

I was looking for a particular thread and came across this thread.

The thread seems to be missing the word "PREVIOUS" before Toyota's accomplishments in the recall hall of shame list.

I am a bit confused, since the post afterward mentioned that you forgot Toyota and then on later post, he mentioned he might of missed it...Unless the moderators(In which I owe you an apology) decided to alter your post and take Toyota off the list, I am left wondering why Toyota is not on the list .

The point of this forum is to express an opinion and express your observations with experience to your Toyota owned car, if you have one. But to distort the facts , where some people might be seeking some information from this forum is immoral.

What's even more puzzling is the pat on the back, you received from other bloggers here and not one person contested your facts. I am not concerned whether the 10 you picked are indeed 9 of the top 10. I am concerned that because of your bias, you chose to leave out Toyota.

So since you are just a blogger, let me indulge you , on where some of the biggest news organizations, place Toyota accelerator related problem total recalls on your list :

NY Times: 8 million, #3 on your list
Toyota Motor Corporation News - The New York Times
Reuters :8 million, #3 on your list
Toyota safety recall spreads to Europe, China | Reuters
Japantimes: 8 million, #3 on your list
Facts and figures on Toyota's car recall | The Japan Times Online
MSNBC: 7.59 Million #3 on your list
Toyota extends recall to China, Europe - Autos- msnbc.com
BBC : 8 million , #3 on your list
BBC News - Toyota car recall hits US, Europe and China
CNN : 5.3 million(Jan) #5 on your list
Wikipedia : 7.5 million , #3 on your list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932010_Toyota_vehicle_recalls
Associated Press : 8.5 million , #3 on your list
The Associated Press: Toyota counts rising cost of recall woes

Whats funny and puzzling is Toyota gives figures on total of 2010's Prius and Lexus recalls(147,500):
Newsroom : FAQs About the 2010 Prius/2010 Lexus HS 250h/Camry Voluntary Recalls / Toyota
But leaves out the grand total for people like you:
http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/customer-faqs-regarding-the-sticking-153495.aspx

All of us that have driven for sometime, has had a car recalled at one time or another.Some to fix a deadly consequence, if not fixed. Some that were made to fix an inconvenience. No denying this ! But speak the truth and truth will set you free!

So, I suggest if the people here are trying to withhold others from seeing Toyota's black eye, I suggest to delete this entire thread.

 

Had you invested that money at just 5% interest you would now have over $31,360.00
And you could live your life without the shame of having owned a Datsun.

 

Well I think some missed the point.
If I made the biggest sh**box on the road, the Sparks Sh**box lets call it, with multiple faults and sold 25 cars onto the US market each of which had the same deadly fault which caused 5 cars to explode in a fireball killing all within a 20 metre radius my car wouldn't be on this list.

If Toyota was the most successful car maker in the world and sold the most passenger cars on the US market and those cars were the best cars on the market by a long shot and each of those cars had a shared single component from a US manufacturer which on rare occasion, under 0.01% caused a problem. If Toyota then recalled all the cars they made that had that one common component for a repair which involved installing a shim then that would put Toyota at the top of the list, while my Sparks Sh**box didn't make the list.

Which manufacturer would you buy from?

 

That depends.

How many cup holders does the Sparks Shbox have?

 

Iceman123, to my knowledge Toyota is having three recalls currently.

One is for 147,000 2010 Prius and 2010 HS 250h models for a braking software upgrade

One is for 'approximately 2.3 million' 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra and 2008-2010 Sequoia models for sticking gas pedals

One was origonally for approximately 3.8 million vehicles, but later another 1.1 million were added to that, for floor mat/pedal shape/entrapment issues. This 4.9 Million Toyotas would make the all time list shown in the OP

Initially 2007-2010 Camry, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2004-2009 Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma and 2007-2010 Tundra. Lexus 2007-2010 ES 350, and the 2006-2010 IS 250 and IS 350 models.
Added later, 2008 to 2010 Highlanders, 2009 to 2010 Corollas, 2009 to 2010 Venzas, 2009 to 2010 Matrixes and 2009 to 2010 Pontiac Vibes

You attempted to add recalls,and should have omitted a 1.2 million vehicle overlap in the recalls, but the OPs list is clearly for individual recalls.

 

You call him Puffy, you can call him P. Diddy, you can call him Sean John , You can call Sean Combs ..In the end you're talking about the same person..Or in Toyota's case.. sudden unintended acceleration(As mentioned).

I didn't attend anything...The news put the numbers together.

 

I am merely stating the obvious, you left out the total(Many people don't know the total) for Toyota !
Toyota was known to have the best mass produced quality car, which is a reason why many bought one. You on the other hand are pointing out a fact that many auto buyers have long known(Maybe not the total number of recalls, you are stating in your list), that American cars were and have been slacking . Comparing these automobile companys in recalls to Toyota, which had a great record is absurd.

Having a brand new car that has 2 recalls on it already,that , does not make me smile(Nor the 2 1/2 hour wait to get it done) !

Put Toyota #3 in your post !

 

Absolute numbers don't mean that much. If company X is producing 100 cars in Y years and recalls 10 of them, while company Z is producing 50 cars in the same time frame and recalls 9, which is the more reliable/safe? Clearly X, since a lower % of cars are affected by recalls.

But this is also not the best way, IMHO, to assess "who's best" - why and for what is the car recalled? I mean, what is worse? a recall for a cruise control switch that can make your car take fire uncontrollably at *any* time, or a mat that *might* interfere with the gas pedal. Which recall has the most weight?
Otherwise one should measure the absolute number of recalls (not cars recalled) per million of cars being built.
The more a company needs to recall, the less reliable/safe it might be.

Is Toyota a company that has done many recalls compared to other manufacturers over a specific period of time and compared to the number of cars produced? From the list at the beginning of this thread it seems to me that Ford ad GM are in *much* worse shape. A lot of recalls on a lot of cars. Toyota, 1 big recall (due to huge sale numbers).

Moreover, today car manufacturers are moving to "global platforms" - that is, reuse the most components on the highest numbers of models to reduce logistic costs and getting better prices from suppliers due to higher numbers.

If one component fails and you need a recall, you need to recall *all* cars produced based on that platform. This is why Toyota needs to recall *so* many cars.
Other manufacturers, copying Toyota manufacturing processes (BTW - Japanese lead the way in car manufacturing standards and invented the concept of quality in car manufacturing), will have this issue - expect recalls with ever bigger numbers in the future (assuming the car manufacturer is one of the big ones in terms of cars sold worldwide).

Or to put things on another perspective - here is an article of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:
Auto-Rückrufe - Die meisten Rückrufe gibt es bei Renault - Auto & Mobil - sueddeutsche.de

What is interesting is the absolute number of recalls from 1993 to 2008 for models sold in Germany:
Graph

It would look like buying a Renault would be a *very* bad idea. As well as a Ford. But this is only for models sold in Germany. Chrysler, therefore is *really* bad (only a very *few* models sold compared to, say, Ford Europe). And "Mini" is not at all perfect. They only sell the Mini in infinite variations, but essentially the same car. 3 recalls.... is that good? I don't think so.
BTW: Ford in the chart, is not Ford US, but for Europe - almost 2 different companies - as far as I know they don't share much. While Chrysler, is Chrysler US that sells a few selected models in EU.

As long as all this information on recalls (either in this thread or in the article) is not provided relative to number of cars sold and models, they mean pretty much nothing from a statistical point of view.

 

Two minor points:

1) The smallest Toyota recall is actually about unintended non deceleration, the braking software never made the car go faster.

2) "The news" was not who chose to compare 3 recalls to an article about large historic recalls, that was you. "The news" may have confused you, I hope I did my part to unconfuse you.

 

Pakitt,

Your observation on percents is correct .

But the thread started on observations of total number of recalls ,by mostly bailed out American automobile companys. These companys use to lead the world in manufacturing during the years mentioned ( http://oica.net/ )and who we are all well aware of their bad press in recent history and not just Toyotas.

I am confident that before Toyota's problems, 3 of 4 Americans would agree that Toyota made a better quality car.

So in my assessment, if a lousy baseball player has a bad year, its not news.What is news is if a star has a bad year,that is considered news.

If the lousy players stats are mentioned, for the sake of fair play, mention what the star player's stats are.

 

I tend to agree that the title of the thread doesn't match the content since Toyota's were removed...

I also am old enough to remember the media frenzy of some of the other recalls. They got a lot of attention at the time - and generally for less dangerous recalls.

For what it's worth, I heart my Prius V/AT and would buy it again in a heartbeat (though I'd save a lot of money buying it now).

 

Exactly how I feel !